Member Article

SSE Enterprise Telecoms increases reach of its UK-wide network – with continued investment to support UK businesses

New research shows telecoms industry must respond differently to the varying capacity needs of enterprises in London versus UK regional towns.

SSE Enterprise Telecoms, one of the UK’s leading connectivity suppliers today shares research highlighting a disparity in the connectivity needs of London-based UK businesses versus businesses in regional towns. The insights show an expected growth of 88% in network demand that will come from London businesses in the next year, while the priority for regional businesses is to have access to on-net services. The findings come at a time when SSE Enterprise Telecoms has made its latest and most significant network expansion investment to date, Edge 3, of which 60% is concentrated in the London area.

Over the next 18 months SSE Enterprise Telecoms will unbundle 177 BT exchanges, accessing an additional 180,000 UK business postcodes. All 177 exchanges will have capacities of up to 100Gbps, meeting the demands for higher bandwidth and data. When surveyed, 25% of Service Providers revealed they plan to increase their networks up to 100Gbps from 2020. The first 51 exchanges are already on net, enabling Service Providers to increase their network reach and capacity. The new network roll-out prioritises the most densely populated metro city areas, including London, which supports the research findings that on-net capability is a key driver for Service Providers.

Regional businesses demand on-net connectivity

The research revealed a 20% increase in core network capacity demand from businesses in regional UK towns over the next two years. In response, SSE Enterprise Telecoms is launching five geographically spread optical-enabled data centres, serving areas where on-net access is in high demand. These are: • Northampton (Node 4) • Milton Keynes (Pulsant) • Hemel (Gyron, Centro) • Stockley Park (Virtus 5) • Newport, Wales (Next Gen Data)

When examining what’s behind this surge in capacity demand from UK businesses, a vast majority of enterprises highlighted ‘a reduction in IT estate costs’ and an ‘increase in cloud adoption’ as the two most important drivers for their IT strategy for 2020 and beyond. The five data centres SSE Enterprise Telecoms has brought on-net will enable enterprises to access public clouds directly, without the need to procure individual connections into each cloud provider. This makes it straightforward for enterprises to achieve their cloud adoption strategy through one supplier, no matter where they’re located.

Colin Sempill, Chief Executive, SSE Enterprise Telecoms said: “We’re continually investing in our customers’ needs, providing the most robust services that their businesses require. Whether that’s increasing our connectivity footprint by deploying our five new optical-enabled data centres in high demand regional blackspots or investing to provide densification solutions for businesses in metro city areas like London”.

“As enterprises respond to emerging technology trends and with the rise of the Internet of Things, they’re relying on high capacity networks to fuel the future of Industry 4.0. Our recent network investment supports this by ensuring we’re in the best position to serve our customers both now and in the future”.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by SSE Enterprise Telecoms .