Managed services

11 June, 2019

Product not network is the experience CSPs are selling, says TCS CMI president

Enterprises no longer see the network in the same light as their air conditioning; something necessary but a cost to be minimised. Instead, the network is now seen as a critical enabler of their business with connectivity vital for new applications, processes, business models and, ultimately, their future success. Communications service providers (CSPs) are therefore targeting the enterprise market with IT services. VanillaPlus managing editor George Malim asks Kamal Bhadada, the president of Communications, Media and Information (CMI) services at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), whether CSPs can succeed here or whether enterprise IT will be the telecoms industry’s next big miss.

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05 June, 2019

Delivery of digital infrastructure is the differentiator, says HGC chief digital officer

Jacqueline Teo is the chief digital officer of HGC Global Communications, the fixed line and ICT service provider that is extending from its roots serving the Hong Kong market to address international markets via its pan-Asian network capacity, including cable into China. Speaking at the TM Forum’s Digital Transformation World event in Nice, France, last month she tells George Malim how the company is innovating on all fronts to compete in the mature Hong Kong market, to develop further its newly acquired operations in Myanmar and to harness software defined network (SDN) technology to enable a more agile mode of operation.

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09 May, 2019

CenturyLink’s Dalvi explains expanded Google Cloud partnership benefits for enterprises

As the lines between IT and telecoms services provision continue to blur, Mahesh Dalvi, the vice president of global IT solutions at managed services at CenturyLink, tells George Malim how service providers are moving way beyond connectivity to provide IT services and consulting that support customers’ digital transformations. Partnerships with specialists are a vital enabler of this.

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25 April, 2019

Verizon pursues ‘sell with’ strategy to provide integrated connectivity to Microsoft Teams users

Telecoms operators are circling the enterprise services market as they seek out new sources of revenue. The aim isn’t necessarily to become IT providers themselves but to assemble attractive packages of popular enterprise software alongside communications capacity and infrastructure.

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29 March, 2019

It’s time for telcos to try for another trillion

The telecoms market is worth about US$1tn but revenues are under pressure and networks are even more thirsty for cash as 5G begins deployment. What communications service providers (CSPs) need is a vision for a future world in which their efforts and investment are rewarded by revenues from a market of similar value. Intriguingly, writes George Malim, such a market already exists and the companies in it are already CSPs’ customers.

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Intelligent communications across borders – the future workplace

John Baldwin, the voice and unified communications director at Colt Technology Services explains how international businesses can increase productivity and employee satisfaction by tightly integrating key desktop applications and unified communications in the cloud.

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Just how important is net neutrality?

In spite of public protests, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced plans to end the use of net neutrality in 2015, and in June 2018 the US officially repealed the rules that restricted the way internet providers could treat data. The impact was quickly felt. Research released in September 2018 by Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts revealed that YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and NBC Sports were the main targets of slowing data speeds, or throttling.

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12 February, 2019

How ISPs and CSPs can reap the benefits of network-based security

Pressure is mounting for communications service providers (CSPs) to begin helping their customers prevent cyber-attacks, but this can be especially tough when users have entire families to protect, writes Neil Cook, the vice president of Products Security at Open-Xchange. Often, this can mean providing protection on upwards of five smart devices, such as virtual assistants, smart fridges and smart thermostats, per household – and that’s in addition to more conventional devices, like smartphones and laptops.

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30 January, 2019

Restore order to communications chaos in the workplace

The term bring your own device (BYOD) has been defined by Gartner as a disruptive phenomenon, writes Rufus Grig, the chief technology officer at Maintel. Employees were bringing non-sanctioned, non-company IT devices into work with the intention of connecting them to everything.

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How businesses are finding a new way to future-proof their networks

Over recent years, many businesses have come to rely on the highly effective infrastructure that multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) delivers, and as a trusted solution, it has become the foundation on which the demands of today’s digital customers can be fulfilled. MPLS provides a highly reliable platform on which businesses can build their networks to offer increased agility and more robust security. As enterprises continue to expand and diversify by adopting cloud services, this can be enhanced by implementing a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) alongside existing MPLS architecture in a hybridised configuration, writes David Palmer, the head of product and network design at Claranet.

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