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Profile: AQL's Adam Beaumont on funding fibre for SMEs through VoIP savings
01 Mar 2010 | 14.32 Europe/London
If fibre is to reach deeper penetration and small and medium businesses, providers are going to have to start getting better at showing boards how they can pay for faster internet connections through reduced call charges.
So argues Adam Beaumont, Managing Director of AQL which has extended the fibre network it runs to support its Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to now offer 100Mb internet connections in Leeds. To him, the jump in cost from ADSL to fibre can more than be justified if voice and broadband are bundled as a single cost with the savings of making calls over the net used to justify the extra montly fee for faster access.
AQL’s new fibre net services is typically being used by Leeds SMEs in offices where several companies can chose to sign up to make it worthwhile for AQL to provide a route in to its fibre network which it uses to run nationwide VoIP services as well as two data centres.
“It makes sense for us to start in Leeds but we can also provide services outside of Leeds on someone else’s network,” he says.
“The problems SMEs have in Leeds getting fibre are pretty typical. There are a couple of household names that are mainly interested in big companies and whose charges reflect that.
“That’s why we’re convinced the secret to getting fibre in to SMEs is VoIP. We offer businesses a complete no brainer. We’ll save them the cost of at least one or even a couple of leased lines by routing their voice through the fibre we provide them. We can give them the kit to plug in to their office telephone exchange and they’d never know the difference.
“So, then when you say our fibre connection will cost £100 per month, on average, but we’ll save you that several times over on lease lines, then it really is a no-brainer.”
Slow ADSL raises fibre demand
Beaumont reveals the company decided to take branches out of its two Leeds data centres to provide fibre services to Leeds businesses after it struck him that companies struggling to send large files were not being given a cost-effective fibre alternative to ADSL or ISDN.
“I got chatting to guys running architecture and media businesses in Leeds and they were all complaining about the time it took them to send several Gigs’worth of attachments,” he says.
“They didn’t want to pay a fortune for fibre but when I weighed up running our fibre out to them and then saving them money on their voice bills, by providing VoIP as well, it seemed to make sense.”
The resulting 100Mb service is actually more of a 10Mb service with a 100Mb ‘burst’ capability. Hence, a company which averages around 10Mb bandwidth use will get charged around £100 per month. For the times when they are sending large data files there is the extra capacity there but if it is used more frequently than not, the overall monthly bill goes up.
To Beaumont’s thinking it makes sense to base fibre roll out on VoIP because, in his experience, companies are very receptive to hearing how you can improve their internet connection as well as bring savings elsewhere.
AQL is taking part in a programme by the local development agency, Yorkshire Forward, to map fibre connections, and the wider access to networks outside the region, to give local businesses a wider choice of fibre connections and reduce the country’s reliance on the backbone of fibre running between London to Leeds.
So argues Adam Beaumont, Managing Director of AQL which has extended the fibre network it runs to support its Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to now offer 100Mb internet connections in Leeds. To him, the jump in cost from ADSL to fibre can more than be justified if voice and broadband are bundled as a single cost with the savings of making calls over the net used to justify the extra montly fee for faster access.
AQL’s new fibre net services is typically being used by Leeds SMEs in offices where several companies can chose to sign up to make it worthwhile for AQL to provide a route in to its fibre network which it uses to run nationwide VoIP services as well as two data centres.
“It makes sense for us to start in Leeds but we can also provide services outside of Leeds on someone else’s network,” he says.
“The problems SMEs have in Leeds getting fibre are pretty typical. There are a couple of household names that are mainly interested in big companies and whose charges reflect that.
“That’s why we’re convinced the secret to getting fibre in to SMEs is VoIP. We offer businesses a complete no brainer. We’ll save them the cost of at least one or even a couple of leased lines by routing their voice through the fibre we provide them. We can give them the kit to plug in to their office telephone exchange and they’d never know the difference.
“So, then when you say our fibre connection will cost £100 per month, on average, but we’ll save you that several times over on lease lines, then it really is a no-brainer.”
Slow ADSL raises fibre demand
Beaumont reveals the company decided to take branches out of its two Leeds data centres to provide fibre services to Leeds businesses after it struck him that companies struggling to send large files were not being given a cost-effective fibre alternative to ADSL or ISDN.
“I got chatting to guys running architecture and media businesses in Leeds and they were all complaining about the time it took them to send several Gigs’worth of attachments,” he says.
“They didn’t want to pay a fortune for fibre but when I weighed up running our fibre out to them and then saving them money on their voice bills, by providing VoIP as well, it seemed to make sense.”
The resulting 100Mb service is actually more of a 10Mb service with a 100Mb ‘burst’ capability. Hence, a company which averages around 10Mb bandwidth use will get charged around £100 per month. For the times when they are sending large data files there is the extra capacity there but if it is used more frequently than not, the overall monthly bill goes up.
To Beaumont’s thinking it makes sense to base fibre roll out on VoIP because, in his experience, companies are very receptive to hearing how you can improve their internet connection as well as bring savings elsewhere.
AQL is taking part in a programme by the local development agency, Yorkshire Forward, to map fibre connections, and the wider access to networks outside the region, to give local businesses a wider choice of fibre connections and reduce the country’s reliance on the backbone of fibre running between London to Leeds.