South African organisations – particularly in the hospitality and events spaces – are moving to upgrade legacy networks from end to end to accommodate the changing demands of their customers and guests.
This is according to network specialist ONE80 South Africa, which has seen significant growth in the number of customers looking to reinvigorate their legacy networks.
Ryan Smee, owner and director of ONE80 South Africa, says the company, which has specialised in networks for over 20 years, has seen strong growth in demand for end-to-end network upgrades in recent years. “Post-COVID, around 60% of our work has been network upgrade projects for customers such as hotels, casinos, event venues and student accommodation facilities,” he says.
Growing customer demand for high-speed streaming and an exceptional user experience has driven organisations to invest in upgrading their legacy networks to remain competitive, he says.
Smee says modern conference venues, hotels and student accommodation now require bandwidth capacity of around 10MB per user, to support increased streaming and the use of more applications.
Jesse Machill, Sales Director at ONE80, says: “With legacy infrastructure networks, if you start adding a lot more bandwidth at the endpoint, you will experience bottlenecks inside your network. Legacy networks don’t offer all the tools to understand how guests or users are interacting with certain applications, whether it be internal applications or external web-based applications. To support modern requirements, you also need to have a full picture view of the network in order to give everybody the right level of bandwidth.”
“On top of that, there are certain corporate environments where compliance and security are very important. There are certain protocols in legacy networks that don’t support the deployment of a fully fledged network access control (NAC) solution so the network must be updated to support enhanced security. We have to make sure that we can secure that network, including physically securing cabinets and plugs,” he says.
Transforming crucial networks from end to end
“There's no real point investing heavily in an overlay of smart technology if your underlying infrastructure can’t support it. ONE80 addresses both sides of that coin,” Machill says.
“However, some local organisations have sweated their network assets for as long as seven to 10 years, which is far longer than what you should in theory. Networks should be relooked at every five years, because of how rapidly technology changes.”
As organisations seek to harness more advanced applications and remain competitive, ONE80 is growing to meet increased market demand. In line with this, the company recently bolstered its team with the appointment of Technical Director Koenraad Lubbe, who brings a wealth of expert knowledge and years of experience in the business.
Machill says: “Our specialised team reinvigorates legacy networks from end to end – from physical cables and cabinets all the way through to the endpoints, understanding that traffic and network flow, and tying that whole picture together. We design, implement and manage the smart and intelligent driven network stack, as well the underlay network including the physical fibre, copper and connections between hub points.”
Machill explains that ONE80’s experts help customers assess their existing infrastructure and develop a roadmap to support their business strategy. “Not everyone has to take a big bang approach to network refreshes. They can be carried out in phased approaches, focusing on the organisation’s top priorities.”
As a niche and specialised business, ONE80 offers an exceptional service offering, which is driven a lot by its own people. “We have the right people, the expertise and strategic technology stacks to help our customers transform and future proof their networks,” says Machill.
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