Redundancy in Support of Services Provided
Overview
Although no service provider can guarantee that clients will never have service outages, PINS makes every effort to minimize that possibility by incorporating multiple layers of redundancy into how it delivers telecommunications services to clients. A brief description of the different types of redundancy provided are described below, with links to more detailed descriptions.
PINS – Tier 1 Connectivity Redundancy
PINS is connected to its Tier 1 providers via multiple trunk lines so that the failure of any one trunk line, or any one Tier 1 provider’s network, will not prevent PINS from delivering services to its clients via alternate routes. If one trunk line fails, automatic switching takes place to prevent loss of service. In a similar fashion, PINS is connected to several Telephone Central Offices in NYC, providing redundancy in the event of failure of the connection to any one of these Central Offices. A schematic of the fiberoptic connection infrastructure from PINS to the Tier 1 providers and the Central Offices is shown below. Connections between PINS, Tier 1 Providers and Clients may be via DSL, T1, EoC, Internet, or fiber-optic cabling, depending on bandwidth needs and configuration. Specific Tier 1 Providers are shown only as examples.
Click on the following link to see a more detailed schematic: Redundancy Connectivity Detail
PINS - Tier 1 Bandwidth Redundancy
PINS typically limits the percentage of the total bandwidth available for the connections between PINS and its Tier 1 providers to less than 70% 
in order to provide backup service to its clients in case of (1) a failure in a connection to one of its Tier 1 providers, or (2) due to an unexpected surge in client traffic. If the overall load increases, regardless of the cause, additional bandwidth is made available by our Tier 1 peer providers in order to maintain the same overall level of bandwidth redundancy. Although many fiberoptic trunk lines are involved in practice, this is schematically illustrated here using a single trunk line where the bottom half of the trunk is filled with black lines representing active traffic flow, and blank space on top, representing unused, available bandwidth.
PINS Equipment Redundancy
PINS strives to reduce the likelihood that failure of equipment located at PINS will impact the services provided to its clients by always having on site replacements for all critical components. This allows for rapid replacement of equipment that fails, keeping the time needed to restore full service to a minimum.
Client Site Redundancy
PINS encourages its clients to follow a similar "best practice" approach in purchasing back-up services for their primary connections to the outside world. Back-up services can be provided by any combination of POTS lines (Plain Old Telephone Service), wireless connections, DSL lines or even T1 lines, depending on the speed of the primary connection and the importance of maintaining service. Pairing a primary line with a slower back-up line is very cost-effective insurance for preventing complete loss of contact between clients and their customers during the time it takes to repair the primary connection.
