Telecom carriers are uniformly seeking ways to broaden their connectivity services for enterprise customers. One motivation is to offset MPLS revenues, which are essentially flat and are expected to decline over the next few years. Broadband and wireless connectivity services are growing fast, with no sign of abating, but revenue from vanilla broadband is much less profitable than MPLS. This scenario is where value-added gateway services may be the key to future revenue growth. Managed service providers already moving in this direction are beginning to reap the benefits. According to research by Catherine Hammond with Analyses Mason, operators now see…
Every manufacturer is concerned about the potential risks associated with cyber-crimes. If their data are stolen, it can lead to financial losses in sales, fines and monetary judgments against them; not to mention, the loss of customers and brand loyalty. In 2017, there were over 53,000 security incidents and 2,216 confirmed data breaches. This is according to the 2018 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) by Verizon. The report goes on to state, the most common access among all security breaches (73 percent of breaches) are those perpetrated from outside the organizations through the wide area network (WAN). Enterprise WANs, with…
Internet links to wide area networks (WANs) are often a primary target for cyber-crime in every industry. The healthcare industry deals with particularly sensitive consumer data. Security breaches pose many risks for healthcare providers, including legal liability, revenue loss and erosion of patient trust. To minimize the threat of security incidents and breaches, IT teams are looking for preventive measures to ensure that security is an integrated part of the WAN. The preservation and safekeeping of healthcare data for doctors, clinics and hospitals, and their patients are essential elements to contemporary security posture. Patient health record protection has a direct…
Like many industries, the insurance sector increasingly depends on new technologies to provide better service while reducing operational costs, with the ultimate goal of creating an exceptional customer experience. Mobile apps, cloud-based services and video chat are just some of the ways insurance companies are using technology to reach their customers and decrease their overhead. Consider, for example, the traditional method of filing a claim for an auto collision: a police report is filed, a copy of which must be forwarded to the claims department of the insurance company; photos of the damage are needed, which means the adjuster must…
Healthy growth is something every company strives for. As with human development, the rate of growth can impact a business’s well-being: Grow too slowly, and the business can become stagnant or obsolete. Grow too quickly, and the business will experience growing pains that could threaten its overall health. In every sector, managing growth effectively can ensure longevity for the business. In the healthcare space, however, it can mean the difference between life and death—for the business and its customers. As a medical practice or healthcare facility expands, either organically or through acquisition, is its existing network capable of handling the…
Banks and financial institutions are more technology-reliant than ever before as they seek to be more customer-centric in their offerings. As such, the branch plays a major role in their quest for customer service excellence, giving customers a place to conduct transactions, receive personalized attention from bank reps and take advantage of next-generation technologies such as video how-to’s or chatbots to further enhance their banking experience. Some banks have taken customer-centricity one step further, opening their branches to act as neighborhood community centers or gathering places for organizations. Some bank branches make their videoconferencing systems available for customers to use,…
Much has changed in the retail space since the electronic cash register came on the scene in the 1970s. What was once a manual process of locations counting their tills and sending the receipt information to the head office became a faster, easier and more precise endeavor, as the machines could transmit the sales information directly without the need for human interaction—besides pressing a few buttons, of course. Today, technology in retail touches the entire process, from inventory ordering and management to sales transactions and even customer satisfaction and retention. It could easily be argued that retailers today are more…
On Monday, May 15, the telecommunications community will gather at Brazos Hall in Austin, Texas for the 13th annual Leading Lights awards — the telecom industry’s most credible and authoritative awards program. The event will honor companies across 25+ categories for their commitment to innovation, business acumen and diversity in the communications industry. Because we have a strong commitment to our customers and their success, we are very proud that Colt and Tata Communications were announced as finalists in the Most Innovative SDN/SD-WAN Deployment Strategy (Network/Data Center Operator) category. Colt, an on-demand network and communications provider, leverages Versa’s SD-WAN platform…
In our last post, we talked about the benefits of network function virtualization (NFV) for managed service providers. Taking a step further, we’ll now examine how providers that deploy NFV can further benefit from this rapidly growing industry trend of evolving previously hardware-centric networks by leveraging security technologies into software-based services. A core element of NFV is the virtualized network function (VNF), which is a software-based or virtualized version of a specific function such as a next-generation firewall (NGFW). Employing VNFs goes far beyond just converting from point hardware to virtualized software instances such as an NGFW. VNFs, which are…
Software-defined wide area networks (SD-WANs) and network function virtualization (NFV) are among the most talked about technologies in the networking and communications industries, and in this first of a two-part series, we will explore the benefits they bring to service providers. Part two will explain how service providers can leverage software-defined security (SD-Security). Providers understand that to gain market share and deal with the constant evolution of enterprise and consumer demands for new services, they are going to have to re-architect their networks. Interestingly, providers are quickly realizing that, while initial advantages and drivers towards virtualization were reduction in Capex…
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