Insight

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.

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,…

How to Reduce Data Roaming Charges Here’s a meeting no one wants to have: sitting down to explain to your manager that on a recent business trip you downloaded the latest blockbuster film, and it cost the company £3,600 in data roaming fees. Or that you skyped your partner for ten minutes a day for a week at an overseas conference, which cost your employer more than £1,000. This kind of unexpected telecoms expense has a name: bill shock. It can result from either data roaming costs or voice call charges. The user is generally unaware of the…

For the last 3-5 years, Bring Your Own Device, or BYOD, has been a topic of intense discussion within many organisations developing mobility strategies. As the UK’s largest independent network and telecoms consultancy, TNC has supported over 200 organisations to develop market-leading mobility strategies so is uniquely placed to sum up the current state of the market for BYOD solutions and to set out the market trends in this key area of telecoms expenditure.

Cloud services are not only changing the way organisations store data and host applications; they are triggering material architectural changes to data network too. Workload migration to cloud is the primary driver behind leading organisations reconsidering their design, procurement, implementation and management of their telecommunication networks.

We are entering one of the most exciting periods in the history of Wide-Area Network (WAN) provision. In a market dominated by Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) systems for very many years, new innovations are poised to shake things up and maybe even challenge the big industry players. In this article we look at three recent developments in the field: hybrid WANs, Software-Defined Networks (SDNs) and Network Function Virtualisation (NFV). These technologies promise to bring cost efficiencies, faster speeds and improved control of deployment.…

Telecoms strategy, design and procurement are increasingly important parts of any IT strategy and telecommunications costs are often one of the largest items in an IT budget, yet achieving improved outcomes through the procurement process is getting ever more difficult Through working with The Network Collective, our customers have a trusted partner to help them understand the market, make the right technical choices and ultimately achieve an enhanced telecoms solution that supports their business needs and fits their budget.

Enough is enough! Work and family life are beginning to merge for me as my maturing family demand more and more technical assistance and consume more and more of my home broadband bandwidth. I now have a data hungry 4 year old together with his elder brother working FaceTime, party calling and online gaming all at the same time; furthermore I have the creative eldest child downloading fashion items like - well, they’re going out of fashion. Now said eldest is off to secondary school and “needs” a phone and of course it must be a smart phone,…

Most likely, everyone with any interest in network and telecoms receives a deluge of calls and white papers talking about exciting new technologies like SDx, NFV etc., and how these are going to transform their lives, cut their costs, improve their services, and deliver any number of other benefits. However, interesting as those topics are, we at TNC have started to notice a trend that, if it continues to grow, could have a far more seismic impact on the lives of everyone involved in network and telecoms: in-sourcing. Since time immemorial, which…

Last week Clare Tyndall and I attended a fantastic event. We were invited to meet a group of about 30 IT Directors and CIOs from a specific industry vertical. Our first impression was how fascinating it was to us that peers in competing companies met together to share their experiences, challenges and solutions. The setting, format and agenda all spoke of the benefits the attendees could gain from each other…… and we hope from us!We were asked to speak specifically about the role that The Network Collective sees for benchmarking in…

Every piece of analysis looking at the success of Team GB in Rio has identified the importance of constant, almost obsessive focus on continuous improvement, however marginal, across all aspects of team performance. Whilst that delivers gold and glory in the Olympics, the same approach is the single most important aspect of achieving success in the management of telecoms vendors.Let’s start with a hard truth – most organisations are very bad at vendor management. In many cases, there is no single clear owner for vendor relationships, with responsibility…

There is one question on everybody’s lips these days when they arrive at a business meeting or conference: what’s the Wi-Fi password?Access to the internet or a private network without using a cable is now expected as standard in the business environment. Most people know Wi-Fi has the benefit of not fussing about with wires, but do you know about the full range of business benefits?1. Widespread coverageWi-Fi networks enable employees to work wherever they wish within a building. Connection to the network via a laptop, tablet or smartphone…