Like everything with your Internet access you get what you pay for. If you have a single broadband connection then you cannot expect 100% uptime and a lightening fast response to any faults.
So what is the solution? Leased lines are great, they have guaranteed SLAs, compensation for downtime, and little downtime to boot. They are of course expensive, but if your business cannot trade without the Internet then it becomes as essential an item as anything else in your office. Below that in cost there are Bonded ADSL and SDSL solutions that combine multiple lines and present them as one.
Then you have load balanced lines where two or more lines are present, but fail over is possibly a more manual process. Then we have to start thinking about different ways of connecting to the Internet. We have had great success with 3G routers that give Internet access over the wireless network, and don’t rely on a working telephone line.
It is proving to me that the best business continuity plan has to be exactly that – a plan. I can work nearly entirely at home, with email and files easily accessible, and voicemail messages emailed to me (preferable to me than having my phone diverted), but that doesn’t stop that print out or post it note (generally banned in our office) from being left behind.
It makes me think that we don’t have a plan for continuity or backup of paper documents. Not that we have many, but it should still be written in our plan – even if just to say we don’t have them and need to understand the risk of losing them.