Retailers can now ensure cost-effective business continuity

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: Retailers can now ensure cost-effective business continuity.

For any retail chain - as well as companies with multiple branches/offices - ensuring business connectivity with Head Office and the banking organisations is a high IT priority.

Any interruption to the broadband connection would mean no EPOS, no card authentication, no CRM access (and no access to the corporate network at all). So business would stop. In order to combat this, networking specialist Billion has launched a durable 3G Wi-Fi router, the BiPac 7800GZ, that seamlessly switches over to a 3G network in the event of broadband failure.

The latest Billion 7800GZ systems are already under trial with leading retailers, bookmakers, restaurants across the UK in preparation for national roll-out. This low-cost device is designed to be placed in each outlet of a retail chain, ready to switch over in the event of broadband outage and take full advantage of the 3G networks. At around one third the price of traditional suppliers, Billions offering means chains can equip many more outlets cost-effectively.

Broadband connectivity can go down for a variety of reasons: maintenance work in the exchange or on the phone poles, technical issues at the ISP server end, roadworks that damage underground cabling, or bad weather that effects telephone cables etc.

Edward Kung, Managing Director of Billion in the UK said: Everyones broadband connection goes down from time to time, maybe just for minutes but it can be hours, and for a retailer or any busy organisation this can be disastrous. By simply using Billions 7800GZ 3G-enabled device, it takes over without drama and provides peace of mind for network managers - giving enterprise-level performance at a fraction of the cost of a similarly specd Sarian or Cisco product. Were seeing significant early interest from all types of retail organisations from high street chains, to bookies, restaurants - as well as corporates.

The BiPac 7800GZ is the latest addition to Billions range of 3G routers - a Triple WAN 3G/ADSL2+/Broadband Wifi router that allows users to directly insert a 3G / HSPA SIM card into its built-in SIM slot instead of requiring external 3G modems. The performance benefits over traditional 3G USB sticks or cards are significant not only are compatibility issues said to be removed, but the embedded module is claimed to be far more resilient. In addition, the external 3G antennas reportedly afford a substantial boost on signal performance (and are detachable, allowing upgrades to even larger and more powerful antennas via a standard SMA connector).

Key Features

Triple WAN interface for ADSL2/2+ (Broadcom chip), 3G or EWAN
Sierra Wireless 3G / HSPA embedded module with a built-in SIM card slot
Supports 3G download speeds up to 7.2 Mbps, upload speeds up to 2 Mbps
Supports ADSL2/2+ download speeds up to 24 Mbps, upload speeds up to 2.5 Mbps with Annex M
Integrated 4-port Ethernet Switch, one port can be configured as an extra Ethernet WAN interface (EWAN) for cable/leased line
Auto-failover between any 2 of the 3 WAN interfaces ensures an always-on connection (with email alerts)
Quality of Service Control (QoS) for Traffic Prioritization and Bandwidth Management
4 IPSec VPN tunnels supported with powerful 3DES accelerator
2 x external detachable 3G antennas for better signal capture
54 Mbps Wireless AP with WPA / WPA2 support
3G Usage Control