In today’s increasingly connected world, people rely on the Internet for daily work, play, and communication like never before. When a home or small business loses its fixed broadband connection, frustrations mount quickly. Whether the lost connection is due to a power outage, a fiber cut, or a network equipment failure at the broadband operator, the result is the same: lost productivity, missed meetings, inaccessible entertainment, and disrupted plans.
To solve these problems, users need a reliable failover solution that can keep them online and connected, even when broadband network connectivity is poor.
Why Building an Automated Failover Solution Gets Complicated
While the idea of failover is simple, building an automated failover solution is not. Developing a solution that is both cost-effective and easy to implement presents two significant challenges:
- Broadband Manufacturer Differences – There are dozens of manufacturers of Wi-Fi routers and broadband gateways. The operating systems on these devices can vary significantly from manufacturer to manufacturer, and even from model to model from the same manufacturer. Sometimes, the same gateway hardware can run any of several different operating systems. This makes it difficult to create a solution that can adapt to any given environment.
- Smartphone Manufacturer Differences – Every smartphone manufacturer has many different versions of the operating system that runs on their devices. For example, Apple users may be running iOS 14, iOS 15, iOS 16, or another version, and Android users may be running Android 11, Android 12, Android 13, etc. In between each major release, there are also point releases of each operating system. Muddying the waters even further, different router/gateway manufacturers and different network operators each have their own phone apps.
3 Keys to a Successful Failover Solution
To solve these problems, manufacturers and operators need a simple, flexible solution that automates Wi-Fi failover and is flexible enough to work with any manufacturer or device.
What would that kind of solution look like? Here are 3 key features:
- Flexible Integration – Operators need a solution that can integrate with any smartphone or operating system. It should also remain updated and tested against all combinations of apps, smartphones, and operating systems so that implementation is easy for the manufacturer or network operator.
- Gateway Neutral – An effective solution also needs to work with any Wi-Fi access point or router and with any modern broadband gateway so that router and gateway manufacturers can add the capability to their devices. To ensure accessibility for as many users as possible, the solution should be customized for each combination of router/gateway hardware and operating system. In addition, it should have the capacity to integrate updates as they are released.
- Cost-Effective – A failover solution can’t be integrated widely if it is prohibitively expensive, especially for use in the home. In the past, most solutions have required expensive hardware upgrades or have been limited to a single manufacturer, making them inaccessible for residential users.
Meet ARC HotSpot: Automated, Cost-Effective Broadband Failover
At Kyrio, we have developed a simple, low-cost solution to the broadband failover problem. We call it Adaptive Route Control (ARC) Hotspot, and we license it to network operators and to manufacturers of Wi-Fi routers and broadband gateways. ARC Hotspot is software that automates the failover of all Wi-Fi connected devices to a smartphone hotspot. It’s easy and cost-effective because it leverages the smartphones that are already owned by the customer instead of providing yet another box with yet another radio.
The ARC Hotspot software on the router or gateway can be customized for each combination of router/gateway hardware and operating system. Then, every time the router/gateway operating system is updated and every time the ARC Hotspot software is updated, Kyrio re-tests the solution to make sure it still works. We take care of the software development, customization, support, and testing so that the manufacturer or network operator does not have to do it.
ARC Hotspot is a simple, automated failover solution that is both cost-effective and easy to implement. When you look under the hood of the software, you’ll see that it is deployed in two places: one software package is deployed on the Wi-Fi router or broadband gateway, and another software package is placed on one of the user’s smartphones. It’s the best way to keep software modules updated and working on many different devices and operating systems.
