INSIGHT
How national high capacity services are driving a connectivity revolution
By Mike Hallam, Executive Managing Director – Wholesale, Virgin Media Business
Covid-19 has forced organisations up and down the country to seriously question what their future looks like.
It’s caused rapid change in everything from working patterns to customer relationships and supply chain management.
But few things have changed faster than the increasing demand for connectivity services, which have enabled a nationwide transformation in the way people do business.
It has become clear that there’s a need for improved high capacity services on a national scale: point-to-point services that move huge volumes of data quickly and securely between sites in national and local settings.
So how will these services play a fundamental role in the UK’s Covid-19 rebound?
It’s all about the bandwidth
One in three workers want to continue working from home after the coronavirus threat is over. Household name brands like Facebook, Twitter and Siemens have already announced permanent remote working policies.
This revolution in work patterns is going to involve a lot of data. Data that needs to be accessed quickly, remotely, and backed up in the most secure way possible.
National high capacity services (NHCS) will be vital in supporting these needs. They give organisations access to extensive fibre-optic UK coverage, enabling them to benefit from high bandwidth (up to 100Gbit/s) at low latency, even if they’re connecting sites hundreds of miles apart.
This is crucial for large scale businesses that need to rapidly increase their cloud connectivity capabilities. It enables seamless collaboration between employees from their homes, so they can respond to growing customer and citizen demand across multiple channels.
Demand for High Capacity Services will also rise due to their practical advantages. For large corporations and public sector organisations moving all their data and applications into a central cloud system or public data centre, high capacity services can also help them scale remotely - especially important when access to sites is severely restricted.
NHCS are a clear frontrunner in enabling remote working and the proliferation of cloud services.
They will also be fundamental in ensuring organisations are ready to take advantage of the next wave of powerful technologies, such as 5G, the internet of things and artificial intelligence.
Fuel for futureproofing
The Economist Intelligence Unit suggests the Covid-19 crisis has made business leaders more positive about embracing innovation.
Introducing emerging technologies like the ones mentioned above will involve a data explosion, with increased demand on infrastructure that organisations will need to manage.
5G has much higher requirements in terms of densification, generating significantly larger amounts of data than 4G. This can cause new time sensitivities and a need for lower latency.
Similarly, the rise of the internet of things (IoT) is creating masses of data that needs to be instantly channelled towards an end point: a data storage centre.
HCS can offer aggregation and backhaul capabilities to support these new densification and capacity requirements. Within HCS, wavelength division multiplexing technology can allow businesses or organisations to get more out of optical fibres they are using, bringing the power to scale up quickly and cost-effectively when needed.
The technology can also support older legacy solutions and integrate into ethernet settings and newer network solutions. And it offers ingrained flexibility, giving organisations lightning-fast connectivity whatever the current state of their network.
If organisations want to adopt new technologies like 5G and IoT in the future, they need a network that can cope. HCS will give them that foundation, empowering them to seize the potential of these technologies, drive efficiencies, revolutionise supply chain management and reshape consumer relationships for the better.
Scaling up securely
Since the pandemic struck, PWC UK’s Cyber Intelligence Unit has identified an alarming increase in cyber attacks.
The World Health Organisation recently reported a fivefold rise in cyber attacks since the beginning of the crisis, while KPMG has warned its clients about the soaring number of security incidents.
Connectivity solutions therefore need to scale up bandwidth and speed and enable innovation without compromising on security.
As a dedicated point-to-point circuit across a private network, NHCS are very difficult to intercept and are inherently secure.
As organisations seek networking solutions that can support the current revolution in working patterns and give them the resilience they need to cope with the ‘new normal’, NHCS will be a vital tool in their armoury.
They give organisations scalability and lightning-fast speeds without exposing them to risk.
Leading the revolution
The future looks uncertain for many organisations across the UK.
Those that diligently plan ahead and quickly adapt to the changing nature of work are the ones set to emerge stronger and capitalise on opportunities that lie ahead.
To do this, it is vital to work with providers that can expertly guide them towards solutions best suited to their needs, with the ability to deliver these at scale and meet the demands of new innovation.
As the way we interact and do business continues to see unprecedented change, I firmly believe NHCS has a fundamental role to play in the rebound from Covid-19.This revolution is only just beginning, and the market will look very different in 2021 – so stay flexible, keep listening and ensure you are needs-based in your approach to your customers.
