I have recently novated three companies ADSL networks to Timico, including health charity “Stroke Association”.
Novation is the process whereby a company hands over its assets to another, in this case we are talking Wide Area Networks. There are a few reasons why companies do this:
- Increasing levels of internet usage drives the need for larger BT Central pipes. Disproportionately large steps in costs are incurred when increased capacity is required.
- BT Central pipes of 34Mbps or less do not support L2TP, which is the technology basis for the modern MPLS Private Wide Area Networks. PWANs are far more efficient than traditional PPP/IP Sec based Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). The Timico network is fully L2TP compliant.
- Increased availability is driving users towards faster 21CN-based ADSL2+ connections which require totally separate connectivity infrastructure. Timico provides an upgrade path, so that customers’ users can be automatically upgraded to ADSL2+ as soon as availability to 21CN is rolled out in their area.
To the uninitiated this might all sound a bit boring but in actual fact in these recessionary days it seems that more and more companies that traditionally ran their own networks are seeing that it makes sense to outsource.
The same cost pressures are starting to be seen in the Internet Service Provider (ISP) business with more and more ISPs putting up for sale signs. Small ISPs are struggling to come up with the cash to upgrade their networks. It is important to have cash in the bank these days and looking forwards to the end of the recession I can see the industry in a different shape to today.
