With the increasing desire for mobile and home working, as well as organisations wanting to benefit from more online, cloud and web based applications, the need for improved internet access is growing.
Up to now, for many SME organisations, the options have been between a relatively slow ADSL line and a faster but expensive dedicated leased line. With ADSL download speeds of up to 24mbps many business haven’t noticed too many issues when browsing the internet. The significant concern has been around the uploading of large files to be sent externally, where the 2mbps ADSL response is poor. This issue is often apparent when external or remote workers are trying to access documents or email located internally.
However, in the last few years BT have been installing fibre optic cable throughout the country that provides considerable enhancements in performance for a marginal cost. Whilst this has been heavily promoted to consumers through the” BT Infinity” brand advertising, the commercial equivalent is less well known.
The roll out of this new technology from the exchanges will be in two phases the first of which is to connect the local exchange with the cabinets within the street using high speed fibre. Connection from these cabinets to the business premises is achieved through traditional copper wire cabling. While this is not the holy grail of connectivity it does provide significant improvements in internet performance and bandwidth. It delivers download speeds of up to 80Mbps, but importantly a 10 fold increase in upload speeds of up to 20Mbps.
The second phase is then to replace the copper connection between the street cabinets and the business premises with high speed fibre. While this is currently only available in a few trail exchanges, it will long term become the norm and provide potential upload speeds of 330Mbps.
The Business Implications
The implications, for commercial and not for profit organisations, of this fast speed fibre optic broadband, are substantial. It enables SME organisations for the first time to have cost effective video conferencing and an ability to easily upload and download very large graphic and video files.
This can enhance the ability to share detailed information with clients, co-workers or other stakeholders with ease. It also enables any field or remote workers accessing data centrally to acquire information more effectively. This could be more responsive access to email or through using mobile technology to help with their job such as in diagnosing an issue or sharing information with a third party.
The growing trend for accessing internet “cloud” applications is also significantly enhanced, improving time efficiency and employee flexibility at work, at home or on the move.
James Stratton, MD of Connexion commented, “over the last few years our clients have increasingly asking about improving their internet bandwidth. The adoption of cloud based services such as Microsoft Office 365, as well as desire to improve both their competitiveness and efficiency through enhanced communications, is driving this requirement. This new fibre optic infrastructure provides a really cost effective answer for many”
