As globally reported, on July 19, 2024, a CrowdStrike security update didn’t go as planned. What should have been a standard software update few would notice ended up causing chaos, affecting roughly 8.5 million Microsoft Windows users. Airlines, hospitals, emergency call centers, banks, and other businesses all had one thing in common: a blue error screen that for some, still persists days later.
While CrowdStrike and Microsoft work to resume operations for their users, the massive disruption begs the question of all businesses impacted or not: Are you thinking of every redundancy factor? Where are you vulnerable?
For organizations with mission-critical voice applications, such as 911 call centers, support call centers, school districts, hospitals, and government entities, a carrier outage can be equally as alarming. When callers can’t get through, it can be much more than an inconvenience.
Still, many organizations are vulnerable because they lack redundancy for direct inward dial (DID) calls. Even if they have failover at the SIP trunk or WAN level for outbound calls, or their carrier provides resiliency for inbound toll-free numbers, they still won’t receive DID calls.
Their only options are to wait for the carrier to repair the issue, which can take hours or days, or port numbers over to another carrier. That process isn’t as simple as making a phone call. It requires establishing relationships with a secondary carrier and gaining permission to move from one carrier to another, which can take a week to a month. There can be time-consuming red tape, as well, such as whether you can select which numbers to port or have to move an entire group of numbers at once.
A Faster, More Reliable Business Continuity Solution
In a nutshell, voice redundancy is complicated. But it doesn’t have to be. Not with HyperNetwork™, the patented and only technology that ensures business continuity by dynamically rerouting DID numbers from a troubled primary underlying carrier, like AT&T, to a functioning secondary carrier, such as Verizon. It’s not automatic, but it’s close. Here’s how HyperNetwork works.
First, Flowroute, a BCM One company, constantly monitors its carrier partners. If Flowroute technicians see an outage on their dashboard, they automatically flip the regional traffic from carrier A to carrier B, thanks to Flowroute’s patented technology. Callers may not even know their network changed to another carrier. As soon as the carrier fixes the issue, Flowroute switches the calls back to the primary carrier.
What happens when an organization calls Flowroute to report no incoming calls? Flowroute technicians first qualify each number to make sure there is an alternate carrier partner in the outage area. If so, the next step is troubleshooting the problem to see if a switch to another carrier will solve it, as some issues are unrelated to the carrier. Once verified, Flowroute switches the traffic from the downed carrier to the secondary carrier. The whole process can take just minutes.
While not all numbers are HyperNetwork-enabled, Flowroute currently covers about 80% of the U.S. As long as your organization has a sip trunk and DID services with a BCM One brand (SIPTRUNK, SIP.US or Flowroute), you have built-in failover and redundancy if your numbers qualify. HyperNetwork technology and technicians are working in the background, ensuring business continuity no other provider can promise.
Real-World Applications
On Christmas day in 2020, a Nashville bomber revealed the fragility of our telecommunications infrastructure. The bomb exploded at an AT&T data center, instantly shutting down the network in a multistate region. It took weeks to repair. Those organizations with Flowroute HyperNetwork were fortunate. Flowroute quickly rerouted traffic from carrier A to carrier B, ensuring critical calls made it to their intended destination.
While HyperNetwork would not directly impact or fix the CrowdStrike/Microsoft issue, the outage is just another illustrative example of why organizations need to prioritize redundancy across all business operations to ensure business continuity wherever possible. You may not be able to plan for every contingency, but your redundancy plan should cover the maximum number of “what ifs.”
Flowroute’s HyperNetwork stands ready to offer a failsafe solution to any organization that must ensure incoming calls get through, even in the event of a carrier outage. Ready to improve the reliability of inbound calls? Get started with HyperNetwork today.
