Need for speed? Get bonded

The Internet - what many call the “cloud” - is fast becoming a ubiquitous and integral component of everyday business. And that's putting ever increasing pressure on the organisation's connectivity capabilities.

That's according to Andre Joubert, GM of MWEB Business, who says business owners are scrambling to provide the amount of bandwidth required to deliver the quality and speed of access required for everyday business activities.

“Many businesses need more speed and are turning to solutions such as Bonded ADSL to accommodate the growing business requirement for fast Internet access, particularly for those organisations that cannot afford or justify the costs of traditional fixed lines,” he says.

“Since launch, the demand for MWEB's Bonded ADSL solution has significantly exceeded our expectations - and this trend shows no sign of abating.”

Joubert believes demand is being driven by the fact that with the advent of affordable and uncapped bandwidth, activities that until fairly recently were seen as the “nice-to-have” preserve of the cyber geeks and/or those with unfettered budgets, are now regarded as business essentials.

He points out that businesspeople expect to be able to send and receive e-mails with large attachments; quickly look up information on products, services, service providers and even competitors; either download useful applications or use them online; watch educational videos; see and speak to customers and colleagues anywhere in the world; access data on the company server from any location; check the latest cricket score - and possibly watch a little of the action; and so on.

All these Internet-based applications and activities will run over all connections; however, the speed the applications run at is dependent on how fast the download speed of the connection is.

When there is a large amount of traffic on the network - either as a result of large files being transmitted or large numbers of users using the Internet simultaneously via the same connection - doing any Internet-based activity can be slow. Bonded ADSL offers a cost-effective solution to the high traffic problem.

It also provides an effective way of overcoming the limitations of those telco exchanges that don't support speeds of more than 4Mbps on a single ADSL line.

Bonded ADSL is created by bonding up to four single ADSL lines together to form a new, single, superfast connection. The number of lines required depends on each business' needs and requirements.

“Bonded ADSL speeds can vary, but generally capacity should add up to the sum of the network's constituent parts. For example, bonding together two 4Mbps ADSL connections should deliver speeds of around 8Mbps, while bonding four 4Mbps lines should deliver close to 16Mpbs. That's fast; that's really fast,” Joubert concludes.