2026

LEO as a backup: business continuity for corporate offices

Corporate rooftop at dusk. A wall cabinet labeled Fiber Primary feeds the building, and a flat LEO terminal on the parapet is labeled Backup underlay. Title overlay: LEO as backup, business continuity for corporate offices, Ground Orbit Networks. — Fiber stays the primary underlay at the office. LEO is the backup underlay.

Most corporate offices still treat the primary circuit as the network. Fiber or carrier ethernet carries production traffic. A second carrier circuit is the “backup.” When both share a duct, a building handoff, or a regional outage, the office discovers that two invoices did not buy two independent paths.

Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite internet (such as Starlink) changes that math for many organizations. A LEO path does not share the same last-mile plant as your fiber. Used deliberately as a backup, it becomes part of a continuity design you can operate.

Ground Orbit Networks helps you add that LEO backup into the office continuity plan: sized for the applications that must survive a fiber event, failed over or bonded with other backup underlays when the design calls for it, and operated day two so continuity is rehearsed capability with a clear day-two owner.

At a corporate or branch office, the site sits on the managed path as last mile. LEO is a backup underlay at that office. Headquarters attach stays as designed.

The problem: continuity that still shares a failure domain

What “backup” usually means on a campus

A typical corporate WAN continuity stack looks like this:

Primary: fiber or metro Ethernet into the building.
Secondary: a second carrier circuit, often from a different brand that still rides similar civil infrastructure near the site.
Tertiary (if any): cellular or a best-effort internet circuit that was never tested under production load.

On paper that is diversity. In practice, the office still goes dark when:

A building cut or provider POP event hits both wired paths.
The “backup” circuit was never sized or routed for the applications that must stay up.
Failover is a manual change someone makes after users are already offline.
Security and segmentation on the backup path were never finished, so IT refuses to fail over.

Continuity of business is reachable headquarters applications, identity, voice, and cloud attach when the primary underlay is gone, with a clear owner and a tested cutover.

Why LEO fits as a backup

LEO is a strong candidate as a backup at corporate and regional offices because:

Continuity need	What LEO contributes
Different failure domain	Space segment and antenna path are independent of the building’s fiber lateral and many metro cuts
Fast stand-up	Terminal and service can often be placed where a second fiber build would take months
Geographic reach	Useful for offices and campuses where diverse fiber is scarce or delayed
Capacity for real work	Modern LEO can carry more than a token “keep the lights on” pipe when the design sizes it for the apps that must survive

Weather, obstruction, and contention still limit LEO as a universal primary replacement. The design question is whether LEO sits in the continuity plan as a managed backup path with a clear owner.

What breaks when LEO is DIY backup

Organizations that “just buy a LEO terminal for the office” often stop at the kit. That leaves continuity gaps:

No tested failover into the corporate LAN and security stack.
No bonding or policy with the primary and secondary wired paths, so LEO sits unused until someone remembers the password.
No path to private cloud and HQ that matches production. Public internet breakout is all that remains.
No day-two owner. When the terminal needs a firmware window or the path flaps, the ticket has nowhere to go.

Business continuity needs an operated design with day-two ownership and tested failover.

Solution overview: make LEO part of the continuity plan

Treat LEO like any other production underlay you would trust during a declared event: inventorial, tested, monitored, and owned.

What changes when Ground Orbit runs the LEO backup role:

Capacity follows the continuity list. Ground Orbit sizes LEO against identity, voice, enterprise applications such as ERP (finance, HR, and supply-chain systems), and the other flows that must survive a primary outage.
Failover is rehearsed. Policy moves continuity traffic onto LEO (and onto 5G when the inventory adds it) before users discover the fiber is gone.
Backup reaches the same destinations as production intent. Headquarters, partners, and AWS Direct Connect stay in scope when you fail over.
IT stays on the business response. Ground Orbit operates the backup path. Your team runs applications, campus LAN, and the continuity playbook.

A modernized backup path: security built in, operations seamless

Adding LEO as a backup through Ground Orbit is also a chance to modernize how the office network fails over.

Simplified security model, with security built in. Continuity traffic rides Ground Orbit managed CPE into a managed backup edge. Segmentation and encryption follow the model you approve in design. Single-tenant or multi-tenant isolation is available when the design requires it. On failover, AWS Direct Connect stays in the same operated path. You get one security posture for the backup role on an operated path.

Seamless operations. Ground Orbit runs day-two on the LEO backup path: policy, monitoring, middle mile, and cloud attach as scoped. Your operators run the continuity plan (which users, which apps, which declarations). Failover is rehearsed capability. Satellite path work stays with the managed backup role during an event.

A modernized network at the office. Dual CPE by default, LEO (and optional 5G) into the managed edge, and a single operated path through colo PoPs to headquarters and private cloud. The office keeps its last-mile role. The backup underlay joins a managed multi-transport design you can inventory, test, and operate with the rest of the environment.

Architecture at a glance

Diagram titled LEO backup at the corporate office, continuity path on failover. Existing campus underlays, primary fiber or metro Ethernet and a secondary carrier circuit, stay with the campus LAN when healthy. At the office last mile, campus LAN connects to Ground Orbit managed CPE with dual routers. LEO backup and optional 5G attach into that CPE. On failover, a bonded backup edge carries traffic through the managed core at colo points of presence to headquarters or partners and AWS Direct Connect. — At the office (last mile), existing fiber and carrier circuits stay campus underlays. LEO and optional 5G attach into Ground Orbit managed CPE as a backup. On failover, one operated edge carries continuity traffic through the managed core to headquarters and AWS Direct Connect.

Comparison titled DIY LEO kit vs managed backup edge. Left, a DIY dish on campus: hunt the admin page under pressure, app survival unknown, ad hoc security, and unclear ticket ownership. Right, LEO plus optional 5G into dual CPE routers, then a managed backup path to headquarters and AWS Direct Connect. Footer: continuity needs an operated design. — A DIY LEO kit on campus leaves path discovery, app survival, security, and ticket ownership ad hoc. Ground Orbit runs a managed backup edge with dual CPE through to headquarters and AWS Direct Connect.

When fiber fails	DIY LEO on campus	With Ground Orbit on the backup role
Who finds the path	Someone hunts for the dish admin page under pressure	Continuity traffic fails onto the managed backup edge; dual CPE by default for router redundancy
Which apps survive	Unknown until users complain	Continuity inventory locked before the event: identity, voice, enterprise apps, and the rest of the must-stay-up list
Can IT trust the backup?	Ad hoc NAT and split tunnels; security often unfinished	Backup rides the same operated segmentation and encryption model you approved in design
Who owns the ticket	Facilities bought the kit; network owns the outage	Ground Orbit runs day-two on the backup path; you run the business continuity response

Offices that need stricter isolation can run single-tenant; otherwise multi-tenant isolation keeps customers in separate Layer 2 / Layer 3 contexts on the managed path.

For how Ground Orbit runs many transports as one footprint-wide path, see One path across many transports. This post stays on corporate and organizational offices adding LEO as a backup for continuity of business.

Benefits for organizations and corporate offices

Benefit	What it means in practice
Independent underlay	LEO backup does not share the same fiber lateral as the primary campus circuit
Faster path to diversity	Add backup capacity where a second fiber build is slow or unavailable
Continuity-scoped capacity	Size the LEO path for the apps that must survive
Simplified security, built in	One operated segmentation and encryption model on the backup edge; single-tenant or multi-tenant isolation when the design requires it
Seamless operations	Ground Orbit runs day-two and path tickets on the backup edge; your staff execute the business continuity response
Modernized, operated failover	Dual CPE, managed multi-transport edge, monitoring, and rehearsed policy into headquarters and private cloud
One continuity path and one bill	Managed LEO backup role for the offices in scope, with operated failover

Conclusion / next steps

Primary fiber will fail. A second carrier circuit that shares the same civil path can fail with it. LEO gives many corporate and organizational offices a practical backup underlay with a different failure domain when the path is designed, tested, and operated as backup.

Ground Orbit Networks adds that LEO role at the office: you connect continuity LAN into Ground Orbit provided routers; Ground Orbit operates the backup underlay, failover policy, encryption, middle mile, and day-two path work through to headquarters and cloud. You get a simplified security model with security built in, seamless operations on the backup path, and a modernized network at the office edge. That is how you move from “we should get LEO someday” to established continuity of business.