What to know about backup internet in Chandler
Chandler has major street work underway
ADOT is widening Loop 202 through Chandler, adding two lanes each direction from Price Road to Gilbert Road, with completion scheduled for 2027. Each entrance and exit ramp can close for up to 60 days.
Marked lines do not rule out a cut
The city warns that digging will not necessarily occur at the marked locations, and it runs a construction hotline for contractor problems at 480-782-3310. Marks are a guide, not a promise.
Fiber crews are digging neighborhoods too
Chandler says 22 fiber providers hold city licenses to operate there. Their builds involve trenching, conduit and restoring pavement in phases, and can take weeks to months in one neighborhood. That is a lot of digging around existing lines.
Wireless backup options exist in town
The city lists AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon among the providers that hold city licenses for 5G wireless internet in Chandler. That gives a business more than one network to choose from for a wireless backup line.
What takes a business offline
Most people expect a storm to knock out their internet. A line cut can do it just as easily. Street widening, power line burying, water main replacement and fiber construction all put crews and equipment next to buried cable.
Arizona law bars excavation in a public street, alley or utility easement until underground facilities are located, and Arizona 811 asks for two full working days of notice. Chandler has several of these projects at once.
On Lindsay Road, a 26-month job includes converting overhead electric lines to underground, with crews trenching conduit. The city is replacing water mains in Arrowhead Meadows and Erie Street, with completion expected this month, and relining the sewer in Price Road with trenchless methods. Ray and Dobson road improvements, with utility relocations, are scheduled to begin in late 2026 or early 2027. Downtown's Dr. A.J. Chandler Park work has cut parking and made Arizona Place northbound only.
None of that means your line is at risk, but it explains why a second connection is useful.
Starlink or 5G
Starlink uses a dish with a clear view of the sky. It works where wired options are poor, and it does not depend on any street cable. 5G or LTE uses a modem and an antenna, and relies on the cell signal at your building.
A 5G or LTE modem is easy to place and fits most storefronts and offices. Starlink fits a site with an open roof or yard, such as a warehouse. A failover design can use either one, and sometimes both. Your own provider may also sell a backup line. Spectrum Business, formerly Cox Business, describes its Chandler offer as automatic LTE backup with a 4-hour power supply. We test signal at your building before choosing.
How failover works
A failover router watches your main line. When it stops passing traffic, the router moves your network to the backup line in seconds, then moves back when the main line returns.
What stays up depends on the setup. Card readers, phones and camera uploads usually do. Heavy use, like video streaming and large file backups, can be limited on the backup to keep data use in check.
Power matters too
A backup line does nothing if the router loses power. We put the router, modem and switch on a battery backup. SRP and APS both serve Chandler, and the city lists SRP at 602-236-8811 and APS at 1-855-OUTAGES for outages. SRP's business line is 602-236-8888.
Mounting and placement
The antenna or dish needs a good location. We choose a spot with a clear signal, run the cable to your rack and seal roof penetrations. Chandler's site standards require mechanical equipment to be screened as part of the building, so on a flat roof we ask Planning whether an antenna counts before we mount it.
What rides on the backup line
A second connection protects whatever depends on your network: business phone systems, security cameras and business WiFi. The rest of our Chandler work is on Enzo in Chandler.
