SMEs Replacing T1 with Converged Services

For years, IT administrators and service providers alike have weighed the benefits of intelligent networks with traditional “big dump pipes.” Today, however, the IT landscape is undergoing an inevitable shift toward convergence, or the replacement of T1 with the latest Ethernet technologies, including 10Mbps.

Convergence is defined as the way in which IT consolidates and collapses their infrastructure onto a common backbone in order to give end-users the scalability and flexibility they need to successfully connect and communicate. For the small- and medium-sized enterprise, enabling next-generation bandwidth capabilities and eliminating T1 is becoming an imperative move for enabling high-value services.

During February’s ITEXPO East 2012, Michael Rouleau, a top executive with tw telecom (News - Alert), boldly stated to a packed crowd during a keynote speech that he is observing a “fundamental shift in the way customers buy and consume bandwidth,” thanks to a rapid change in the applications customers want to support. In turn, CIOs are pairing their Ethernet with cloud-based or hosted services to achieve the primary components for a connected enterprise – flexibility, reliability, affordability and availability.

Navos, a nonprofit organization delivering a full spectrum of mental health services to low-income children and adults, is one such company that has realized the potential of an upgraded Ethernet infrastructure. With the help of Comcast’s (News - Alert) Business Class Ethernet service, Navos has replaced its T1 connection with a 50Mbps connection to enhance communications and deliver better patient care to its 53,000-square-foot outpatient campus. To put it into perspective, Navos’ data backup procedure – a dreaded one – now takes a mere 12 hours to complete, a significant difference from its previous 60-hour process.

Accordingly, the cloud is playing a major part in the SME. In fact, Cisco’s (News - Alert) Global Cloud Index projected cloud services to grow 12-fold by 2015, with at least half of all workloads being processed in the cloud within two years. Ahead of the game, OneAccess (News - Alert) Networks has developed multi-server router and gateway platforms to enable converged services for the SME. To accommodate the ongoing adoption of the cloud, OneAccess Networks told TMCnet that the company has designed scaled-down versions of cloud services to specifically cater to these types of businesses.

To hear what OneAccess Networks shared with TMCnet at ITEXPO (News - Alert) East 2012 in Miami, Fla., check out the video above.