Elite eyes ISP evolution with 'secret datacentre' acquisition

Telecoms firm buys facility serving public sector and enterprise clients

Elitetele.com claims its journey from being a reseller to becoming an ISP has been completed with the acquisition of a secret datacentre.

The City-headquartered firm claims the facility already hosts data from public sector bodies and multinational corporate customers in the financial services space - hence the secrecy over its location. As part of the deal Elite will also be inheriting a technical team and a 24/7 network operations centre.

The firm will now be launching a suite of datacentre services, including managed firewalls, unified threat management, colocation and a hosted PBX offering: Elite Plus Talk. Chief executive Matt Newing claimed the new addition will give his firm the edge over its telecoms rivals.

"Hosting, the cloud and network connectivity is big business, but security is a concern to many businesses. This is where the market is heading," he said. "We've been acquiring unified comms businesses in recent years to get a decent hold on the hosted and network connectivity market, and now with our own infrastructure we have a serious competitive advantage."

The datacentre buyout comes hot on the heels of the £780,000 Elite invested earlier this year in improving its core network, which offers MPLS and private connectivity services to the firm's clients.

"Adding our own security measures and acquiring this datacentre completes the solution for our clients and helps companies navigate their way through the minefield that can be buying, installing and securing big networks - we can do it all, plus the voice too," added Newing.