Short answer
LTE/5G is not affected by fibre cuts or cable theft, which makes it a strong backup for fibre. It can, however, be affected by power outages at mobile towers, such as during load-shedding, and by local radio interference.
In detail
That is why LTE/5G works best as part of a design rather than as a guarantee on its own:
- As a fibre backup: a fibre cut does not touch the mobile path, so traffic can fail over while the fibre is repaired.
- Network choice: FirstNet is carrier-agnostic and picks the mobile network with the strongest signal at each site, using coverage maps or an on-site signal test.
- Power at your site: the router needs power too, so a UPS at the site matters during load-shedding.
- Best-effort service: LTE/5G has no fixed uptime SLA, and performance varies with network load.
For sites that must stay up through power and fibre outages, FirstNet can design a UPS-backed Peplink router that bonds fibre with LTE/5G, so users rarely notice when power or fibre drops. Where mobile towers are unreliable, LEO satellite offers a path that is independent of both terrestrial fibre and mobile towers.
Source: FirstNet Wireless Connectivity service page →
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