Owning the connectivity

Lee Broxson says it is important for resellers to choose the right data partner

With the introduction of new last-mile technologies such as Generic Ethernet Access (GEA) from BT Wholesale, TalkTalk Business and Vodafone, the Ethernet market is experiencing rapid growth. But never has it been more important to own the connectivity supplied to your customers.

The new technology is simple; it uses the same last mile as your superfast broadband connection but with all the benefits of Ethernet. For a provider, these benefits will open the door to a broader range of customers. As the infrastructure is already in place, lead times can be reduced to about 20 working days.

The fact that the equipment is already in the ground also negates the need for a survey.

Nearly all these connections will be sold on a three-year contract - who knows where we will be in three years when it comes to hosted voice or SIP and cloud?

Moving to SIP from ISDN would on its own represent a worthwhile transition.

The future is bright in the Ethernet world. The opportunity is expected to grow massively over the next three years. This wave of change will also drive more people to cloud; early successes in cloud such as SIP, hosted voice and online backup saw big increases as bandwidth became both more widely available and affordable.

The same will happen with more bandwidth-hungry cloud applications such as hosted desktop, platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and virtualised desktop infrastructure (VDI).

Ensure you choose an Ethernet partner with a true channel cloud strategy, as hundreds of thousands of circuits will turn into millions of cloud seats. This is a game-changing opportunity and the only way to secure it is to own the connectivity.

As volumes rise in this market, the resources needed to deliver these services grows, but cash per connection needed to fund these resources shrinks. This puts the channel in a quandary: do you charge the customer extra for the install, even though this would raise a barrier to the sale? Or do you choose a provider that will include a managed install in the price of each connection?

Ensure they give you the tools to help find new opportunities, include installation nationwide with every connection, and have a clear cloud strategy or a network that can support yours.

Lee Broxson is product director for data at Daisy Wholesale