Fibre with LTE failover for a hardware shop
A Tembisa hardware shop that lost Saturday trading whenever card payments stopped now keeps trading through line faults.
- Khumalo Hardware and Paint
- Retail
- Tembisa, Gauteng
- Fibre, LTE failover, VoIP lines
The problem
Saturday morning is the shop's busiest four hours. When the line failed, the card machine and stock system stopped and customers left without buying.
The previous provider handled faults by email and quoted a two-working-day response, which meant waiting until Monday.
Our approach
Our site survey found that the fibre into the building shared a duct with the neighbouring block and had already been damaged twice.
- Fibre as the primary line, with the router moved out of the storeroom
- LTE failover that carries card payments and the stock system
- Two VoIP lines so the shop and office phones no longer compete
- A photo and labelled diagram of the installation kept on file
We tested failover with the owner on a trading day so she could see how it works.
The result
The duct was cut again in March and card payments continued. We called the shop to report the fault before staff noticed it.
After reviewing the traffic, we also moved the stock system sync to overnight.
