Were you one of the EE customers who reported a data outage on their UK network today (22 January)? It’s frustrating when technology lets you down, but in some cases, it’s worse than that.

Hundreds of thousands of us rely on our mobile networks every day, whether that be to make that vital call or to access important work documents on the move. That’s why we think it’s vital to build resilience into your communications.

24 Seven is the UK’s first network operator to have developed a roaming SIM, which jumps between networks, depending on signal. In simple terms, if any of those customers who reported an outage were on our SIM, they could select (automatically or manually) the next strongest signal, and stay connected.

Mobile phones might usually be seen as a ‘nice to have’ rather than a ‘need to have’ but increasingly, businesses and individuals are relying on their mobile as a vital communications tool. Lone and remote workers are a case in point – are employees fulfilling their duty of care if they don’t take every possible step to protect their workers?

Over the past few years, we’ve seen several of the big MNOs suffer major outages – both O2 and Vodafone have experienced high profile network outages. So the question is – why wouldn’t those who are ‘coverage critical’ mitigate against this, by building in a back up? The technology exists and is available nationwide, now.