Business14.10.2013

Network Platforms’ launches new last mile Fibre solutions

Network Platforms has announced the launch of a new fibre product to augment their existing offerings in the fibre to the business space.

Together with Fibre infrastructure partners, Network Platforms has released a Fibre to the business (FTTB) product that is geared to compete with ADSL services in the market.
Warwick Ward-Cox, MD of Network Platforms, says that there is a need for businesses to have a better quality connection than that provided by ADSL. “There are inherent weaknesses with ADSL that some businesses want to avoid; Best Effort Service, asynchronous connectivity, higher latency as well as not having a fixed public IP are some of the hurdles for businesses to overcome. Our Fibre products offer low latency, synchronous connections, on an SLA with fixed public IP’s.”

In order to make it easier and more affordable for businesses to overcome these issues, Network Platforms has announced the launch of the 5 Mbps fibre connection for under R4,000. Together with this there are larger packages that will suit larger companies. 10 Mbps for under R10,000 and other packages are available up to 100 Mbps. This pricing helps lower the barrier to entry for companies wanting a fibre service.

The second single biggest hurdle is the time to service and cost of installation. Network Platforms is targeting specific areas to make sure that they can deliver the service within 4 weeks in most cases at a setup fee of around R7,500. This trumps a 4-8 month waiting for service with a relatively high installation cost using other network providers. Some of the areas where services are already being delivered are:

• Sunninghill
• Linbro Park
• Rivonia
• Bryanston
• Fourways
• Woodmead
• Rosebank
• Randburg

Other business parks are also available and more are being added to the network monthly. Network Platforms have collaborated with certain Fibre providers to be able to deliver this service. Together with this infrastructure, Network Platforms has built a well-priced, low contention breakout for these SME’s. Dedicated bandwidth is also available on this service.

The 5 Mbps service comes with a generous allocation of data, while a cost will be applied to usage thereafter. The larger packages have larger data allocations in line with their line speeds.

Network Platforms offers a premium 1:1 uncontended and a contended service depending on the client’s requirement with local and international access. Our international routers have full failover as we utilise SAT3, WACS, Seacom and Easy. SAFE will be added in the near future offering much lower latency to the Asia/Pacific region.

Previously, Service Providers could only provide these priced services on inferior bandwidth but we’ve worked hard at being able to deliver a superior quality and service at these price points.

Contact [email protected] for more information.

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