The MountainBox dream was born many years ago, when a team of passionate South Africans delivering high availability wide area network solutions to South African business realised an increasing requirement of corporate customers for cost-effective solutions for small to medium sites.
Cindie Nel, the New Business Development Manager at the time, realised that while potential customers loved the features and benefits of their expensive VPN services, they simply could not motivate and justify the IT budget for such services. Nel approached Gerry Swart, her boss, and shared her vision for a “managed broadband VPN solution” that would provide flexible, cost-effective WAN solutions.
At the time (a decade ago), the only broadband offering was Telkom's ADSL network, and Swart, while acknowledging a significant gap in the market, was doubtful of the ability to deliver the expected service levels of customers, as speeds were seriously curtailed, and there was no opportunity to add value to this network at that stage, due it being considered unmanaged and best-effort only.
In 2005, the organisation the team was running was no longer in synergy with the holding group, which led to the departure of some key members.
The members then realised there was little value in creating another infrastructure-based VPN network due to a number of emerging alternate networks and service operators. The team then focused on adding value in the customer's premises, using the emerging broadband networks as the carrier.
The team approached a large mobile operator and presented their value proposition, which included technology sourced from a foreign vendor, to their board, and when asked which market segment they were proposing to service, the team replied: “Small, medium business.” Most of the board felt they understood and had small, medium business requirements under control, and dismissed the proposal.
However, one of the board members with an entrepreneurial spirit stated that he understood the proposition and chose to explore the option. The team then launched, with that mobile operator, the world's first 3G HSDPA Router. This was South Africa's best kept secret, due to a bungle, where only a handful of the mobile operator's internal staff members were invited to the official launch with no external customers or industry players being invited.
It was discovered that the broadband connectivity solution the team was selling did not incentivise mobile operator personnel, as this was not a simple “SIM drop”; however, the requirement to deliver such a service to small, medium business is even more apparent and real today.
The team became frustrated when global vendors, losing patience with the local uptake versus the amount of development work to cope with the fast pace of the changing South African network environment, which was surpassing the networks of Europe, Australia and New Zealand, began to lose interest in the South African market.
It was then that the team searched internally from a deep need to service its clients, and a realisation happened that “at the foot of a lighthouse it is darkest”, and that the team had everything necessary internally to create a locally-produced broadband device-based service with a “boerewors flavour” that meet the needs of South African small, medium sites cost-effectively, and one which would remain relevant and up to date in our market. South African business is demanding braais, not 'baaarbies'.
The MountainBox iDiG2.0 was born and this innovative intelligent dynamic Internet gateway solution is taking the local market by storm. Its flexible connectivity options (supports ADSL2+, 3G, iBurst, VSAT and others), built in fail-over, bandwidth steering, QOS, firewall and content filter capabilities supports all technical and budgetary requirements of small, medium sites.
Again, South African inspired individuals are proudly demonstrating our amazing resourcefulness.
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