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Wireless “pretends” to be fibre

Comsol is using advanced wireless technology to create a managed circuit that gives users bandwidth speeds which are usually only offered by fibre connectivity. The best part, is this managed circuit can be up and running in a matter of days.

High capacity wireless connectivity installed within days rather than months at a lower cost than copper or fibre, plus an aggressive SLA. Dream on, Network Manager‚Ķ or not? It’s no dream: it’s a cutting edge managed circuit from wireless connectivity specialist Comsol.

Comsol is coupling advanced wireless technologies with the increased speed that fibre enables, and creating managed circuits offering bandwidths of up to 4Gbps. All things being equal, a Comsol managed circuit can be operational in as little as a week and at a highly competitive price.

Comsol is able to commit to high bandwidths and high levels of uptime because the company has its own 28GHz spectrum licenced by ICASA, so it can immediately make dedicated spectrum available to clients.

According to CCO Gary Woolley, “We have an RF planning department dedicated to finding the best level of connectivity for each client depending on their geographic location/s, geographic spread and the number of high-sites that are available between locations to offer the best level of connectivity. Each solution is bespoke. Our approach to providing speed and penetration is scientific and dedicated, rather than the ad hoc hope for the best approach taken by companies that use unlicensed spectrum.

With its dedicated spectrum Comsol’s price per Mbps is highly efficient and the company is in a position to offer uncommonly aggressive SLAs. Generally connectivity providers in South Africa are reluctant to offer SLAs at all, particularly when the service is being delivered over an unlicensed spectrum.

Comsol is as keen on the quality and capacity delivery of fibre as anybody, but cautions against its over-promise and under-delivery. “Where it’s appropriate we incorporated fibre into our solutions, but only if it doesn’t compromise our quick deployment, high reliability policy,” said Woolley.

So what happens to the managed circuit when fibre is fully viable? Woolley says that in most cases clients plan to retain them for redundancy when fibre is finally deployed, and some clients plan to keep them as the primary medium of connectivity. “For some clients fibre is the holy grail and we get that, but the truth is that full duplex symmetrical licensed wireless solutions are as reliable as fibre, hence their success as managed circuits. The massive advantage they have over fibre is that they take days to deploy, not months.

And with the total cost of ownership of a managed circuit being considerably lower than current fibre costs, the ROI appeals to procurement and finance managers as well as the IT department.

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