Templand Group’s ITI and Exa Networks bring ultrafast internet to businesses

Painfully slow internet costs the UK’s businesses an estimated £11billion each year, and firms’ demands on the quality and speed of their internet access continue to increase as their dependence on cloud computing, video conferencing, and rich media rises.

Data use, and hence demand for internet speed increases over time by about 50% every year, according to Nielsen’s Law. But high-speed, business quality internet has been prohibitively expensive for many businesses – until now.

Sheffield’s firms will be able to benefit from world-class internet speeds thanks to a new partnership between ITI Network Services and Bradford’s Exa Networks, announced this week.

The partnership deal to bring the unique dark fibre network, DarkLight, to the steel city was announced jointly by ITI and Exa at the Connecting Sheffield event hosted by the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce.

It means that ultrafast, reliable and completely flexible connectivity is now available to Sheffield’s businesses. The service offers “absolutely top-tier internet speeds without anywhere near the cost of other high-end connections,” according to ITI director, David Walker.

“Plus, the already-modest costs can be reduced still further thanks to the SuperFast SouthYorkshire (SFSY) Digital Voucher Scheme – making the adoption almost a no-brainer for businesses,” adds Walker.

The ultrafast and reliable service is fit not only for current business requirements but future proofed too, adds Mark Cowgill of Exa:

“With the rise of cloud computing, video conferencing and big data, companies now need high quality internet connections more than ever, but many businesses – and the market as a whole – have been slow to catch up with this need.

“Many companies assume that consumer-level internet connections are enough for their needs, but then lose considerable time and money as a result of their slow speeds. But until now, high quality connections have been prohibitively expensive – top-quality connections have cost tens of thousands a year.”

The DarkLight service is based on installing fibre optic cables with a significant amount of extra capacity, letting users change bandwidth and speed whenever they want to.

That enormous capacity means it’s the “last internet connection users will ever need to install” says Cowgill.

Each DarkLight line can currently support a fully symmetrical 10 Gbps speed, more than practically any organisation will need for years to come.

And the symmetry of DarkLight connections means that users’ uploads are just as fast as their downloads – “ideal for businesses using cloud storage or data, whether you’re keeping a cloud backup, uploading security videos and large files, using data in multiple premises or anything else cloud-related,” says Cowgill.

The partnership comes as ITI continues to grow after securing an extension to a long running contract with BT Wi-Fi and BT Global PLC; ITI Network Services now attracts some of the most prestigious clients in the telecoms and wireless industries.

What next?

To find out more about DarkLight please contact David Walker, ITI Director: T: +44 (0) 114 282 3301.