The Internet services industry has finally matured in South Africa - with the emphasis moving from Internet access and products to quality of access and service.
"Everyone in the industry realises that simply providing access to the Internet is no longer good enough," says Mike Brierley, CEO of leading corporate Internet service provider MTN Network Solutions, a subsidiary of Johncom and M-Cell.
"That realisation is the driving force behind the movement to build value-added services into any Internet package - from dial-up to corporate services."
"A larger product list for its own sake does not necessarily provide the differentiation," argues Brierley.
The real secret weapon in the Internet access arena is summed up in three words - Quality of Service.
"If you`re simply adding services and products without monitoring and managing the quality of those services, you`re going to run into trouble with your customer. In many cases, when clients have a problem with an Internet service, they are merely sold another product to patch the problem instead of looking at the overall quality of that service to start with."
And, while every ISP promises QoS, not all can deliver it.
The key is in the strength of the ISP`s Service Level Agreement (SLA). This can range across a spectrum from no SLA at all to cast-iron SLAs that protect a customer not only from downtime but also from actual losses. In other words, ISPs have to provide the customer with a punitive SLA that not only promises protection but also backs up that promise with real money.
"That is where MTN Network Solutions differentiates itself," says Brierley. "Because of the strength of our network and the exceptional level of backup capacity we provide, we`re in a position to offer the strongest SLAs in the industry. We will even guarantee refunds if we do not meet the terms of our SLA."
MTN Network Solutions` network is based on a dual-node strategy, which means that it has redundant core/distribution centres in two separate locations in each of South Africa`s main urban centres. Most other ISPs have single nodes, which means that if a node goes down in a particular urban area, a business connected via that node cannot run its online operations.
"For some Internet-focused businesses, an ISP failure could put them out of business," says Brierley.
At the node level, MTN Network Solutions also employs fail-safe architecture, offering a high-level of redundancy, scalability and flexibility. Each major centre uses the same architecture for all connectivity inside South Africa.
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