| With the pressure to cut costs and survive the current | | | | small and medium enterprises (SME) were quick to |
| economic downturn, companies are looking at ways to | | | | identify ADSL as a cheap way to get connected to |
| trim excess costs without cutting away any vital | | | | the Internet without relying on slow dial up or an |
| resources that they need to operate an effective and | | | | expensive diginet leased line. The problem was, |
| efficient business . In some respects, the current | | | | however, that ADSL could only get you so far. ADSL's |
| downturn, for those companies that survive, will be | | | | shortcomings are: |
| beneficial as it forces us to become more productive | | | | - Limited bandwidth speeds, |
| and efficient with our scarce resources, meaning that | | | | - Extremely poor upload speeds, when compared to |
| our long-term competitiveness will be enhanced. | | | | its download speeds, |
| One area that can often lead to significant cost | | | | - Limited account sizes, |
| savings without the lose of any capabilities or capacity | | | | - No guarantee on service availability |
| is IT spend, especially when one scrutinizes your | | | | In South Africa our current top of the line ADSL |
| monthly operational line item expenses. The fact is that | | | | connection can provide a maximum of 4Mbps. If you |
| technology moves at a rapid pace and yesterdays | | | | want higher throughput you need to consider, |
| "state-of-the-art" solution is today's inefficient resource | | | | expensive 3g or HSDPA wireless solutions. The costs |
| hog. When times are good we tend not to look at an | | | | of these wireless alternatives are prohibitive. However, |
| recurring expense again once it has been approved, it | | | | over the last two years, bonded ADSL has emerged |
| simply becomes part of the monthly budget. Now is | | | | as an alternative to expensive diginet leased lines. |
| the time to look at those expenses and ask, "is there a | | | | Bonded ADSL works by taking up to 6 ADSL lines |
| cheaper more efficient solution to replace our current | | | | and bonding their bandwidth together to get a |
| setup?" One such area that should be looked at is | | | | throughput that is up to 6 times more than any one line. |
| your corporate Internet connection costs. Although this | | | | Thus a company can get a download speed of up to |
| article is written based on the current state of | | | | 24Mbps up and as much as 2 -3 Mbps upload speed |
| broadband access in South Africa, my home country, | | | | at a fraction of the cost of a diginet leased line. In fact |
| the general principles, if not the specific themselves are | | | | you can get two or more of these solutions for the |
| of universal application. | | | | price of 1 diginet leased line. |
| Replace your old, expensive diginet line with a bonded | | | | This is just one area in IT where one can cut costs but |
| ADSL solution | | | | researching newer solutions that have become |
| When Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Lines (ADSL) first | | | | available over the last few years and replacing your |
| came out,it was billed as a consumer service. Many | | | | current older technology. |