Wireless taking on Diginet
Many new telecoms players have set their sights on Telkom’s lucrative Diginet market, trying to wrestle away market share from the incumbent through more affordable and flexible products.
Neotel, Vodacom Business and MTN have all invested in their own metropolitan fibre projects to serve corporate customers and compete more effectively with more established players like Internet Solutions and Telkom Business.
Fibre is, however, expensive to deploy which opens up the field for wireless operators to provide companies with wireless alternatives to traditional leased line services. These wireless links are often more affordable than leased line offerings and are less vulnerable to crime – typically cable theft.
One of the new players starting to make waves in the "wireless leased line" market is Broadlink, a subsidiary of Wireless Business Solutions (WBS).
Broadlink offers MetroNet wireless links ranging from 512Kbps to 155Mbps, using licensed 5.9GHz or 15GHz spectrum. A combination of wireless technologies and fibre is used for backhaul purposes while pre-configured path protection provides redundancy in the case of link breakage.
According to Mike Brown, CEO of Broadlink, the company currently has more than 200 business clients and is looking to aggressively increase its client base in 2009. Brown believes that Broadlink’s MetroNet service provides a very strong value proposition as both a primary connectivity solution or as a backup secondary option.
One advantage of Broadlink’s wireless offering over traditional leased line offerings is that the same rate applies for a link independent of distance. Brown points out that the price for a dedicated 2Mbps service is R7 400-00 per month on a 24 month contract anywhere in a metropolitan area.
Apart from wireless links and Internet access, Broadlink is also looking to expand into voice services in partnership with iBurst and fibre connectivity in conjunction with Dark Fibre Africa.
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