FEATURE
and mid-term.”
Partnering for success
e channel will have to keep
a close eye on how the market
evolves, and partner with
businesses that share similar
outlooks. A10 Networks
will certainly be taking this
approach. Chris Martin, the
company’s Channel Director,
explained, “Currently as an
organisation we are looking
to build a partner ecosystem
to help customers with their
5G journey and address initial
concerns such as network
security, IoT demand and
performance and lack of agility
and visibility. In the future,
it will be important that
organisations only work with
those partners that have the
skills required and buy into
their technology. Additionally,
you will see a vendor focus
on those partners that have
the specialist skills within a
speci c vertical to help develop
the best solution for their
customers.”
e after-e ects of the
ongoing coronavirus pandemic
will also present opportunities
as 5G services become more
widescale. Gigamon’s Mitchell
said that now working from
home has proven to be a
viable solution for many
employees, ensuring this
continues to be workable will
require the right strategy. He
said, “Companies need to
build long-term solutions in
the short-term to make this
a more permanent reality:
for example, we have seen
digital transformation projects
accelerate to accommodate the
shift to remote working. As
this is the case, customers will
need assistance from partners
to nish and fully implement
transitions to the cloud and
ensure visibility of network
tra c that was previously
LAN-focused but now nds its
way travelling to employees’
houses.”
What’s more, there are
security considerations that
need to be evaluated when
using any type of broadband
– from existing 4G services
and bre broadband, through
to 5G. Gigamon’s Mitchell
explained, “With the rise of
WFH and bring your own
device (BYOD) initiatives,
ransomware has become a
major issue this year. It has
therefore never been more
important for customers to
have visibility into all network
tra c, and they will need to
decide how secure they want
to be.
“Visibility technology can
be positioned as an insurance
policy by partners, especially as
their customers make demands
for unbeatable savings and
cost-e ective solutions that
pay for themselves. Nearly
all partners are having to
address costs and a reduction
in their customers budgets,
so monetary constraints will
remain a reality for at least the
next 12 months.”
Not quite plain sailing
is progress has been
somewhat muted by the UK
government announcing in
July that it will be restricting
the use of new Huawei
equipment after this year,
as well as requiring mobile
network operators to remove
all Huawei kit from their
networks by 2027. What that
means for the Channel remains
to be seen but, as Huawei is a
signi cant supplier of network
infrastructure, these measures
will undoubtably cause at least
a ripple across 5G deployments.
When asked how the
proposed restrictions might
impact the Channel, a Huawei
spokesperson said, “We’ve
announced no change to our
strategy. We are conducting
a detailed review of what the
announcement means for our
business here in the UK; it
remains too early to speculate.”
In the meantime, businesses
are preparing for any
Kevin Hasley, Chief Commercial Offi cer at RootMetrics
eventuality. BT Wholesale’s
Gavin Jones explained, “ e
security of networks is an
absolute priority. Clearly
theproposed restrictions on
the use of Huawei equipment
in 5G and FTTP networks has
logistical and cost implications
for communications providers
in the UK market – however,
we believe the timescales
outlined will allow us and
our partners to make these
changes without impacting on
the coverage or resilience of
existing networks. It will also
allow us to continue to rollout
5G and full bre networks
without a signi cant impact on
the timescales we’ve previously
announced.”
Developing 5G offerings
Now that 5G needs to make
that di cult transition
from hype to reality, the
channel will need to be smart
with what 5G o erings are
developed. Mark Gilmour,
Head of Mobile Connectivity
Solutions, Colt Technology
Services, said, “For 5G to be
a long-term success, it needs
to transition from just being
a mobile operator public play
into a democratised private and
multi-channel play.”
He added that 5G is still
the domain of the public
mobile operators, but the
channel will drive industryspeci
c applications. is, he
said, is where the opportunity
lies for non-mobile network
operator players to bene t from
5G development.
For BT Wholesale’s
Gavin Jones, delivering on
the promise of 5G requires a
focus on improving network
capacity, latency and quality.
To do this, he said, “It is
imperative the channel ensures
it is partnering with operators
that can help them deliver
their end-to-end 5G mission,
through a combination of
in-depth technical knowledge
and vast industry experience.
5G is really about the
integration of business services
and you will see multiple
di erent technologies for
complimentary use cases
within a single building, o ce
or campus environment in the
future.”
Collaborations will clearly
be vital to making the jump
from idea to success – whether
that is between vendors and
distributors, or resellers and
end users. Right now, there is a
lot left to play for.
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