Insight

With over 68 million keyword results returned by Google, the term “SD WAN” sure is a topic people are interested in learning about. As an independent subject matter expert in the networks and telecoms market it’s very much a topic which interests us too. So, what is all the hype about, who is buying it, how are they sourcing it, what lessons were learnt during the delivery life cycle, and most importantly does it deliver any benefit?

Everywhere we go customers are asking about 5G, but the questions betray not just excitement about a new technology that may have far-reaching benefits, but also uncertainty as to its relevance. The principal benefits have been much lauded in the press and obviously speed is the most eye-catching, with expectations of at least a gigabit per second and potentially up to 20Gb/s (of course there are caveats to those figures and on lower frequencies the speed may not be much better than the top end current 4G experience). Other key benefits include…

SD-WAN has grown in maturity over the last 12 to 18 months, with sizable acquisitions and investment from the likes of Cisco and VMware, an influx of new SD-WAN managed services and cloud providers, and productisation of various flavours of SD-WAN by almost all major telcos.The growing maturity is also driving enhanced capability with many vendors and MSPs now developing their solutions to incorporate enhanced security controls equivalent to that of a next generation firewall.So, is now the right to time to make the move to SD-WAN?As the true value…

TNC recently published a white paper asking whether the time has come to ditch landlines – it’s a great paper and I highly recommend you read it. However, ditching landlines is only part of the story – the narrative for most organisations’ telephony strategy over the next 3-5 years is blending together fragments to create a cohesive whole.Firstly, why? Well, there are powerful drivers behind the fragmentation of voice, all of which come under the umbrella of new ways of working – the increasing need for collaboration, the…

Many customers have asked us over the years whether they really need fixed line telephony, but what started as a “blue sky” question five years ago is an increasingly common topic of discussion. Through this white paper, TNC tackles this topic head on – what does it mean to go “landline free”, why are organisations considering it, does it save money, and what costs and benefits can it deliver?

5G offers an amazing future of Gigabit plus connectivity (for what, we’re not quite sure yet, but a 'build it and they will come' mentality seems to be prevailing). 5G also offers a great chance for marketing departments to race for the biggest headlines: ‘First 5G call’; ‘First 5G network’; ‘First use of ratified standards’; ‘Biggest 5G deployment’; ‘Longest distance 5G call’; ‘First 5G commercial offering’; expected launch dates etc... How much of this is actually real?We hear stories of trials and test deployments but…

Over the last 12 months we have seen the availability, reliability and functionality of UCaaS grow into what could now be described as a mature cloud service offering. Why is it then that organisations are not scrapping their legacy PBX systems in favour of these on trend cloud solutions?As we see it there are 3 main challenges organisations need to assess when considering its business case for UCaaS:Organisation Culture – Many organisations now recognise that today’s modern workplace is more collaborative than ever - for many users, collaboration…

The Network Collective has long been a fan of the benchmarking clause although this does come with some caveats. Benchmarking is a process included in many contracts to prevent customers being locked into the pricing (however competitively sourced), obtained at the time of contract signature. For 13 years TNC has watched the price of nearly all telecoms services fall continuously and for longer contracts (5 years) the differential between the pricing at the beginning of the contract and the end can be substantial so any ability to refresh…

Over the course of 2017, TNC has seen an increased demand from its customers wanting to source managed security services as part of a wider Telco sourcing process. In this whitepaper TNC explores what a Managed Security Service is and if/why convergence into a single Managed Network and Security contract could be considered.

When TNC first surveyed the market for network operating and management strategies in 2010, 88% of companies bought outsourced managed services from telecoms service providers, and half of those who didn’t intended to move in that direction. In other words almost 95% of organisations sourced or intended to source networks this way.

We have created the below White Paper to give you expert insight into the future of mobile in 2018, and beyond, from TNC's perspective.

Here at The Network Collective we have recently been debating how C-level executives view the importance of data networks to the successful execution of their IT and wider business strategy. The key question we have been debating is whether they consider the data network as a “tactical” or “strategic” asset, or do they even consider it at all?As subject matter experts in data network strategy and sourcing, we believe there are several indirect factors starting to drive the data network further up the strategic agenda. Factors…

The platform O365 delivers means companies are able to strip out significant amounts of infrastructure and shift the workload to a cloud-hosted model. This paper is concentrating on the main applications of O365 which are Exchange, OneDrive and SharePoint.

This white paper recommends the two main approaches TNC sees to the WAN of the future, and the key characteristics and pros and cons of each

Vendor management offers a new approach to managing this relationship without increasing pressure on in-house resource. A vendor manager will build a long-term strategic partnership with your vendor, reducing conflict, monitoring value and leveraging the contractor’s insight into tech innovation to increase efficiency and benefits.

Many businesses opt for renewal because they simply haven’t left themselves time or they don’t have enough resources to take any other course of action. In any event, if the service you receive already is reasonable or good, or you need continuity of service for some other business reason, you may go for the easy option and simply renew. However, don’t let shortage of time be the driver.

From a conceptual perspective, hosted UCaaS is extremely attractive...is this the reality in businesses?

TNC’s research does indeed show that there has been a decline in companies buying MPLS. Does this mean that MPLS is dying?

One of the UK’s largest companies was approaching the end of its contract with its mobile telephony vendor. The estate included 3,000 handsets with a mix of different types of users (smartphone, data, voice) and a mix of domestic and roaming requirements.

Roaming costs have always been a source of budget angst for organisations, but recent developments in mobility are exacerbating the problem. 4G and increasing use of mobile data services means users expect to be able to turn on their phone wherever they are and consume services, but when overseas this can be extremely expensive. Whilst changes such as the new EU regulations make some significant difference, roaming costs in further-flung locations can still be very high, indeed TNC are seeing evidence that this is one area that, left unchallenged,…