TL;DR
When a major carrier outage knocked out internet across parts of Toronto, a busy medical centre in Scarborough continued running (including phones, EMR, and patient check-ins) thanks to Fidalia’s IP-preserving OnePort™ backup internet. No downtime. No disruption. No lost appointments.
Background: A High-Traffic Family Practice
A large family medical clinic in North Scarborough that services walk-in patients, family practices, and specialists relies heavily on:
- Their VoIP-based phone systems for appointment bookings and triage
- A cloud-hosted EMR (Electronic Medical Record) platform
- Secure VPN connections to the Scarborough Hospital Network (SHN)
- Internet-connected printers and payment systems
- Online booking and prescription renewal systems
At peak times, the clinic manages over 250 patient visits per day.
The Incident: ISP Outage Hits During Mid-Morning Rush
At 10:48 AM on a Tuesday in September, the clinic’s primary internet connection (a local fibre circuit) dropped due to a major upstream routing failure affecting dozens of businesses across the GTA.
Before OnePort™:
- Phones would have stopped ringing
- VPN access to lab and hospital portals would disconnect
- The EMR system would become unreachable
- Walk-in traffic would bottleneck at reception
The Outcome: Zero Disruption
Instead, thanks to a SmartSwitch OnePort™ deployment from Fidalia, the failover process looked like this:
- the backup internet link activated automatically
- The clinic’s public IP remained unchanged
- Staff continued accessing EMR without re-login
- VoIP phones stayed registered. All calls continued
- POS and health card systems operated without issue
- VPNs didn’t have to reconnect
The switchover happened in under 1 second. Staff didn’t even realize a failover had occurred until Fidalia’s tech team notified them later.
“The internet never went down for us. It was the first time we didn’t get swarmed with complaints when something broke.”
— Office Manager (Name withheld)
Why Fidalia’s OnePort™ Backup Internet Was Critical
Key success factors:
- Static IP continuity: The EMR system and VoIP phones rely on trusted IP access. With Fidalia, no session dropped.
- Pre-configured failover: No staff intervention, no reboots.
- Proactive monitoring: The outage was detected and logged by Fidalia’s NOC in real time.
- Path diversity: The clinic stayed online using an autonomous backup not dependent on fibre routes.
Business Impact
| Metric | Without Backup | With Fidalia |
|---|---|---|
| Phone system uptime | ❌ 0% | ✅ 100% |
| Patient visits affected | ~75+ | 0 |
| Manual check-ins needed | ✅ Yes | ❌ No |
| Downtime cost estimate | $3,000–$4,500 | $0 |
Lessons for Clinics & Healthcare Providers
Medical practices face unique risks:
- Patients can’t wait for tech to reboot
- Regulatory compliance requires system uptime
- Staff need to work—not troubleshoot routers
Fidalia’s OnePort™ backup internet solutions keep healthcare teams focused on care—not connectivity.
Ready to Protect Your Clinic from Outages?
Fidalia offers SmartSwitch™ and UltraSwitch™ backup internet tailored for medical offices, clinics, and regulated healthcare environments.
Book a consultation to assess your risk and coverage.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can LTE support a full clinic’s failover?
It depends, really. Typical LTE bandwidth taps out at approximately 40mbps. And if you’re using that much bandwidth, you’ll blow through 50GB of traffic in 2.5 hours. So it’s not ideal to use an LTE connection as a backup for larger, bandwidth-needy clinics. Most clinics at ~30 staff can deal with 5mbps of bandwidth over the backup connection, which makes either DSL or LTE a very suitable backup connection. We can right-size your backup connection based on your bandwidth requirements and cost factors. Just ask.
Will phones and EMRs stay online during failover?
Yes. The OnePort™ UltraSwitch service maintains the user’s IP address so that sessions don’t “break” – and that includes phone calls and EMR sessions. With OnePort™, your backup internet is bulletproof.
Is OnePort™ backup internet compliant with PIPEDA and other regulations?
Absolutely. We help clinics maintain uptime required for compliance, with encrypted tunnels and audit-friendly uptime reporting. Read this article for more information about compliance and backup internet.
What’s the typical deployment time?
Most clinics are up and running in under 2 weeks, including equipment configuration and testing. The clinic referenced in the case study above was online with the backup internet solution in under 5 business days.