Higher speeds and lower latency promised
Altech Technology Concepts (TC) has released its next-generation TC Channel Bonded ADSL solution that brings higher levels of reliability and performance to its clients.
According to Altech Technology Concepts the new generation solution takes advantage of several major upgrades to its multiple data centre facilities which provide advanced aggregation, routing and traffic management.
“Various forms of load balancing and line bonding have been available in the market for some time, but the technique of channel bonding technologies that are not point-to point technologies- like ADSL- is fairly new. And its newness means that it has a mixed reception with technical people,” the company said.
“Not all forms of ADSL channel bonding are equal. A channel bonded ADSL solution that delivers the speed, reduced latency and reliability needed in our local environment requires more than a couple of ADSL lines and a router. It requires a complete data infrastructure that can not only pull data streams apart and put them back together, but also route them through ultra high-speed managed connections to the Internet,” says Wayne de Nobrega, CEO of Technology Concepts.
At its most basic level, ADSL channel bonding means that you take two, three or more ADSL lines and hook them up to a specifically designed router that splits up packet streams amongst the available connections. These streams are then sent to one of the company’s data centres where the streams are reassembled before travelling to the final destination, theoretically gaining speed enhancement at multiples of the number of lines you bond.
In reality it’s not that simple, says de Nobrega. “ADSL services do not typically have static IP addresses, consistent latency or even regular throughput, meaning routing becomes very complicated, and if data streams are split up in the wrong way and not reassembled correctly, traffic can actually be slowed down as servers and clients become confused trying to manage sessions. Reliability can also be affected if a line has a glitch but there is no proper mechanism managing transmission control to ensure packets are resent correctly.”
Altech Technology Concepts started researching bonding technology over two years ago, and saw that there is a large need in the market for a cost-effective data solution that can offer higher-performance than standard ADSL, significantly more affordable than leased line connectivity, but still with enterprise class performance metrics.
“We investigated various techniques, and realised that we could bring customers the advantages of aggregating multiple ADSL links by investing in the technology along with sophisticated data centres.”
“Our multiple high-capacity upstream links to telcos and custom-built technology that handles the complex routing and transmission control of bonded links makes TC Channel Bonded ADSL not just a viable technology for a huge variety of South African businesses but a cost effective and efficient solution too,” says de Nobrega.
With Altech Technology Concepts’ channel bonded ADSL technology, a customer orders multiple ADSL lines as part of TC’s Premium ADSL offering, and a bonding router is installed onsite. This transfers outgoing traffic across all the ADSL lines into the Telkom ADSL cloud, where it is passed to one of the TC data centres.
Here the traffic is reassembled and managed as necessary, and then transmitted out to the global Internet as a single stream from a single source address, with Technology Concepts handling advanced functions like managing the streams and providing static IP addresses.
Incoming traffic is handled in a similar way, with the selected TC data centre managing how streams are split up to pass down the multiple ADSL lines to the client-side bonding router.
“One of the main advantages of the TC Channel Bonded ADSL offering is for companies that have extensive bi-directional traffic. ADSL is by definition asymmetric, with download speeds being very much faster than upload speeds. TC Channel Bonded ADSL is able to combine multiple ADSL lines and increase the client’s upload capability across that line and this improves the upstream performance,” says de Nobrega.
“As a proven technology TC Channel Bonded ADSL offers higher speeds, lower latency with more redundancy. It is also a means to gain reliability, stability and performance for your business connectivity now. And it does not come with a huge price tag either,” concludes de Nobrega.
Altech Technology Concepts was something of a pioneer in the ADSL channel bonding market, but is no longer enjoying free reign in the broadband aggregation field. Vox DataPro recently launched their Fishbone solution, offering companies the ability to aggregate any number of broadband or other data connections.
Vox Telecom has already reported strong uptake of its product, and for Altech to make the most of its recent investment in Technology Concepts it will most likely have to extend its current market penetration quite significantly.
The increased competition may result in more innovative offerings and better prices, changes which are not only good for companies but can also stimulate a slow migration from current leased line services to more affordable broadband bonding solutions.
ADSL channel bonding discussion
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