The UK is lagging behind other countries in broadband speed and connectivity league tables. Jill Theobald spoke to Exa Network’s Mark Booth to find out how their unique dedicated network can offer businesses unlimited capability – and how they’re helping firms access funding for installation
Time is money, as the adage goes.
That’s true in many business situations – but perhaps today more than ever when it comes to internet connectivity.
Every time an employee loses connection, even for a few minutes, it can be costly. Multiply this across the workforce and it’s not hard to see how it all adds up in terms of time and money, even for the smallest of SMEs.
As Exa Networks business development manager Mark Booth explains: “You can’t plan for down time and there’s so many associated costs to an outage, from an unproductive workforce to being unable to access files and documents – because everything is cloud based – and failing to meet deadlines.
“That email that was never received could be an order and lead to unhappy customers who go elsewhere. And so of course it’s even more of a concern to people running e-commerce businesses.
“In today’s workplace everyone has multiple devices, too – perhaps two phones, laptop and tablet all on one desk.
“That’s before you get into cyber security situations when people’s systems are shutdown and they are blackmailed to pay a sum to get back online. Businesses have a choice – do we pay up or do we go to when we last backed up and take the hit on everything that has been lost since? Either way it’s costly.
“Most systems don’t have enough capacity to back up simultaneously while people are online and working – most don’t have the capacity to even back up daily, which is why businesses used to back up over night at the end of every working week.”
Fortunately, there are emerging programmes aiming to spread ultrafast fibre connectivity across the UK, and Exa are playing their part.
“There are varying types of connectivity,” explains Mark. “First, the old-fashioned ADSL line that enables data transmission over copper wires – one of the main reasons we are lagging behind as a country is because we still use the decades-old copper lines originally installed for telephones. This is so detrimental to business, because in the years since users have required much better-performing connectivity – these days upload speeds are as important for businesses as download speeds.
“Next, there is FTTC which is based on a combination of fibre optic cable and copper cable, and then - full fibre, which uses fibre-optic cables, replacing the old copper connections completely.
“Overall, fibre rollouts create a major economic improvement whilst also giving users access to an ever-developing range of digital services.
“A lot of people think all providers offer the same service, but this isn’t true. Exa own and run their own network, unlike a lot of vendors out there who re-sell another ISPs’ products. By doing this, Exa retain complete control over the network, meaning they have ultimate flexibility in what they can offer customers.
“This paved the way for the DarkLight product, the so-called ‘last internet connection you’ll ever need’. This flexibility is certainly evident in DarkLight, where customers can increase their bandwidth, when needed, for short or long periods, for example if a company is running a conference, they can boost their bandwidth from say 300Mbps all the way to 1Gbps, just for the week.
“Offering that flexibility is unique to us. Most businesses don’t know what their need will be in the next six months let alone three years but are signing up to long-term internet contracts.
“We provide DarkLight users with a minimum 300Mbps performance, which is scalable to 10Gbps from day one. The same fibre has been proven to carry 5.6Tbps under test conditions – a level of speed no business will need to use for years (possibly decades) to come. Another reason why we are future-proof – and proof that DarkLight really is ‘the last internet connection you’ll ever need’!”
Exa are encouraging businesses to switch to full fibre connections with the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme – a Government initiative to drive nationwide full fibre broadband coverage by 2033 across Britain. The £2,500 voucher contributes to the installation cost of a full fibre, gigabit capable connection.
Mark said: “We worked with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on how the scheme would work and the funding allocated. Now it has launched we are helping to remove the red tape involved for interested customers by working on their behalf to check eligibility against the government criteria and then put them forward for consideration.
“Installation costs can be expensive for some businesses, so the voucher aims to help with that.
“But time is money, too. Once installed, businesses won’t need to shop around for a new internet provider every year.
“With our speeds they can rely on back-ups every second and because DarkLight is future-proof they can remove many barriers to growth – no matter what size they become the capacity and connectivity will be there.”
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