CipherWave, a niche specialist IT company based in Midrand, is introducing Fibre Broadband connectivity to the premises (FTTP). The offering is a bold move as it provides high value to business at a time when cloud computing is putting an ever growing strain on internal networks and Internet access.
“Companies are increasingly reliant on data sharing, bandwidth-intensive applications, surfing, cloud access, downloads and uploads, VOIP, video conferencing and even unified communications with three or more of these capabilities being used simultaneously. There is a huge need for ultra-fast, stable connectivity and fibre can deliver broadband to a business better than any other medium,” says Jonathan Mason, MD of CipherWave.
Not all fibre broadband is made equal, and FTTP is the most attractive of all the possible infrastructure set-ups.
Fibre optic technology differs from wireless or DSL (copper-wired) broadband in that tiny fibre optic glass cables convert data carried by electrical signals into light and transport this fibre data at accelerated speeds. The ultimate capability of the technology far outweighs what copper or wireless cables could achieve.
Complete virtualisation is at the top of the agenda for many CIOs and IT Executives in 2013. Cloud computing is set to quadruple from 2011 to 2016, according to a Global Cloud Index by Cisco and will no longer even need a name, it will be so integral to the way business is done. The ‘cloud readiness’ of different countries and regions is part of the index projections and FTTP services are becoming critical to the sustainability of the virtualisation of business.
“High speed broadband is already a necessity, and as businesses can only upgrade their DSL lines or networks a finite number of times, it’s become an IT risk”, comments Mason. “I maintain that fibre broadband is essential infrastructure for any business”.
According to the company the cost of fibre broadband fell dramatically last year, so providers will be coming onto the scene in 2013 with various offerings. They advise the market to watch out for high contentions and relatively low speeds due to fibre-with-copper offerings as well as ‘fibre broadband’ that does not actually offer Internet services. The term ‘broadband’ has been loosely adopted to mean Internet, but if it does not say Internet, it is not.
“We are focused on innovation and this is an aggressive move, but we intend to make a statement with our fibre broadband service. We are offering 99.9% uptime, higher than any other provider,” explains Mason.
Although these kind of services are still relatively new to the South African market, a little competition has proven to be a good thing Mason adds.
Staff writer
