03 Feb 2014 Connecting the Unconnected
At Purdicom we get asked on a daily basis to help our customers connect the unconnected – or indeed the ‘under-connected’. When we say that, most people will think that we are referring to rural connectivity. The truth is that the unconnected can be anywhere, from the centre of London to the Shetland Islands.
People often assume that anyone living or working in major UK cities will be spoilt for choice when it comes to broadband providers but the truth is most of these providers use the ageing BT copper infrastructure. For businesses wanting very high speed connectivity, in excess of 100Mbps and up to 1Gbps, fibre connectivity is the only option from traditional carriers. This is changing though as new, innovative service providers recognise the opportunity that wireless broadband technologies provide to bypass the slow moving giant telcos.
The speed at which these forward thinking ISPs move leaves the traditional providers standing. One of our large ISP customers operating in a major UK city, competing toe-to-toe with BT and Virgin, has a standard connection time of four days from order. With schemes such as the BDUK backed Connection Vouchers actively encouraging wireless connectivity there is a great opportunity for these inner city ISPs to receive up to £3,000 of government money for every business they connect. Those that can react the fastest are going to win the business. The fact that the government has had to launch such a scheme demonstrates the lack of high speed broadband choice for some businesses in major cities of a developed nation such as the UK.
The ‘unconnected’ may not necessarily be a business or residence, it increasingly likely that it may be a device such as CCTV camera, motion/heat sensor, traffic management system, weather sensor, interactive media display, weighbridge, wind turbines or WiFi hotspot – all of which are examples of solutions we have provided in recent months through our partner network.
We have a number of carrier class wireless solutions that are especially effective in urban environments where links tend to be short range and high capacity. Purdicom recently reached an exclusive agreement with MLL Telecom to use the 32GHz licensed band which can be used for links up to 8km. Depending on the link configuration, speeds of up to 1Gbps can be easily achieved. The millimetre wave links from Siklu and SUB10 Systems comfortably provide up to 1Gbps at distances up to 3km in 80GHz. These solutions are also widely used in urban areas, along with traditional 5GHz solutions such as Cambium Networks PMP 450, meaning our partners are able to connect the unconnected at whatever speed they need, wherever they may be.
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