Interoute disrupts the traditional telecoms model to give enterprises the  freedom to change their minds

Europe’s largest network provider launches ICT infrastructure as a service offering

London, 3 June 2010, Interoute, owner operator of Europe’s largest next generation network, is overturning decades of convention by enabling organisations to buy ICT infrastructure as a service. With the launch of its Unified Connectivity offering, Interoute is changing the way enterprises buy network services and providing businesses with the flexibility to move, add and change their connectivity services at any time without penalty. 

Businesses no longer need to predict what they will need in three to five years time, as changes to networking services can be made quickly, easily and at any point rather than when the procurement cycle dictates. Moreover, Unified Connectivity allows IT departments to build network connectivity for their entire enterprise community, from remote workers and branch offices to headquarters and data centres with change and progress in mind.

“The notion that enterprises can accurately predict what their IT infrastructure needs will be in five years, is unrealistic in today’s business environment. Yet, this is exactly what the traditional telecoms model expects enterprises to do,” said Gareth Williams, CEO at Interoute. “In the same way that the arrival of a common operating system and platform brought flexibility and freedom to computing needs, Unified Connectivity brings the same agility to the network. Our approach with Unified Connectivity is to help businesses better manage ICT change. This is innovation to save the enterprise money through simplicity, rather than costing it more through adding complexity.”

Unified Connectivity works by combining previously disparate networking technologies, such as Ethernet and MPLS VPN over any local access technology, from xDSL to Ethernet. This means that businesses can choose between four to eight connectivity services, with any combination of Ethernet (VPLS), VPN (MPLS) or internet access.  Unified Connectivity is enabled through an innovative approach to service creation that pushes MPLS, normally only found at the core of a service provider network, out to the office.

Businesses can benefit from a flexible contract that enables multiple services to be delivered over one connection, providing true price transparency for all services. This means that a business looking to change its requirement from Ethernet to an MPLS VPN can do so easily. Equally, as services are delivered over one platform, the need for additional customer premise equipment for each service has been eliminated, along with the cost of additional equipment installation and site visits.

Unified Connectivity is part of Interoute’s Unified ICT strategy through which organisations gain access to Interoute’s Unified Communication platform covering PBX migration, IP PBX integration, Microsoft Office Communicator and SIP Trunking. Along with Interoute’s Unified Computing platform which uniquely bridges the worlds of traditional data centres and cloud computing through the creation of “virtual and real data centres” within the network, enabling smooth migration and development of new services.