FEATURE
Covid has now changed the
way we work for ever. Rural
communities will die if their
residents are unable to adopt
this new working practice
because they can’t connect.”
He added that “connections
could still be made using
private network Fixed Wireless
Access technologies but the
base stations that host them still
need full bre backhaul”.
Of course, this issue is not
widescale. Andrew Catchpole,
Managing Director of Fusion
Broadband, said, “Most people
will be lucky enough to have
a bre-based broadband
service which works great for
working from home. However,
the broadband and the Wi-
Fi will be in demand, for
example when someone else
is watching Net ix or playing
an online game. An SD-WAN
deployment will be able to
prioritise applications or users
so that business applications
always take precedence.
Working from the garden may
be a “not spot”!
The importance of SD-WAN
SD-WAN, or a softwarede
ned wide area network,
is a virtual architecture that
allows enterprises to combine
services – including MPLS,
LTE and broadband internet
services – to securely connect
users to applications. Catchpole
explained, “Using SD-WANs,
new sites can be operational
before telephone lines and
bers are pulled into ducts. e
consensus from the industry
seems to be that SD-WAN
has come to the fore in 2020.
Anthony Senter, CEO of
SDWAN Solutions, reports
that the company has seen
a spike in companies, from
all sectors, seeking to deploy
SD-WAN and secure access
service edge (SaSe) across their
business as the return to work
gathers pace. He cites SD-WAN
advantages – including lower
cost, zero downtime, increased
productivity, and prioritisation
of critical apps – as drivers here.
SDWAN Solutions’ CTO,
Toby Sturridge, added that
customers have had time to
weigh up their needs and now
know what they are looking
for. He said, “We are entering
unchartered waters where end
customers may know more
about SD-WAN and SaSe
than the Channel they rely
on – which is why the Channel
must upskill or partner with a
credible expert supplier, in order
to stay competitive.
“Customers are turning
to smaller managed service
providers as their old traditional
telco providers can no
longer compete on speed of
deployment, solution or price.”
Identifying opportunities
ere are plenty of other areas
where resellers can add value for
their customers. Harry Singh,
Senior Sales Specialist, Data,
Gamma, said, “Given that we
are in an economic downturn,
a number of businesses may
be looking to reduce Opex
where possible and no doubt
will be reviewing all business
overheads. e ability to o er
higher speed connectivity at a
better rate than the incumbents,
coupled with exible UCaaS
o erings, will help partners
pivot towards solutions that
can allow customers to be more
agile and reap the bene ts of
true digital transformation.
Equally, it’s important to
recognise that the need to move
to IP voice is now strengthened,
and the opportunity to replace
legacy systems is better than
ever, all underpinned by
appropriate connectivity.”
Similarly, Openreach
sees the new generation of
broadband technology as a
key moment for voice services.
Dexter said, “In the All-IP
world the most signi cant
change is voice becomes an
application running over
broadband, so channel partners
need to provide a range of
IP voice solutions. ere are
Matt Dexter, head of business development accounts at Openreach
a wealth of applications in
use today from Point of Sale
equipment, Alarm lines and
health monitoring lines which
also need to be converted to
running over broadband, this is
an opportunity to be grabbed.”
Jeremy Wastie, Head of
Public Sector sales, MLL
Telecom, said that the company
will be “working hard with
new and existing customers
to develop smarter LAN and
WAN solutions to enable
increased and higher capacity
exible working solutions and
continuing to support the big
four mobile network operators
in underpinning their 5G
strategies with the dark bre
backhaul services they need.”
Fusion Broadband’s
Catchpole sees two key
connectivity opportunities
for channel partners. ey
can provide clients with an
opportunity to lower their
existing TCO. Channel
partners can also provide virtual
networking solutions to clients
that would not have been able
to previously justify MPLS.
e former, Catchpole says,
can be achieved by reducing
reliance on relatively expensive
MPLS by deploying lower
cost Direct Internet Access
(DIA) services that are now
available. Another option is
to exploit 4G and 5G mobile
access to provide faster access
and better availability, or
by creating virtual private
networks that connect users to
the cloud rather than company
datacenters.
The future
How this will develop over
the coming months and
years remains to be seen, but
we can expect businesses
to formalise homeworking
policies. Gamma’s Singh
said, “A balance of o ce and
homeworking can realistically
be expected in the short to
medium term. Within the SME
space high bandwidth o ce
connectivity maybe reduced
as businesses look to downsize
o ce space and possibly move
to managed facilities, switching
to full cloud deployments for
applications.”
For the resellers, Singh
said, this means it will be
essential to o er “a range of
term and product options on
connectivity can help with
buying decisions, which is
vital when businesses may not
wish to be in their current
(potentially oversized) o ce
locations for an extended
period of time.”
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