STRONG INTERNET USAGE FIGURES MASK LEGACY OF POOR SERVICE PROVISION IN SAYS PACKETEXCHANGE
2006-03-15
Network communications specialist, PacketExchange, has warned that the large volumes of new enterprise and domestic users of the Internet coming forward in 2006 stand to be hardest hit by massive performance limitations in existing technology.
The company was commenting at a time when as many as 64% of adults in Great Britain access the Internet in a given month and 61% purchase goods or services online1. It is widely acknowledged by ‘behind the scenes‘ providers of Internet technology that this growth in usage is not being paralleled by the provision of improved services, better content delivery and connectivity solutions. At consumer level this is evidenced by greater concern over online security issues, terminated connections and questions over the suitability of the public Internet as a vehicle for carrying voice data – VoIP.
“We are seeing a distorted picture,” explained Kieron O‘Brien, CEO of PacketExchange. More people are regularly conducting business and making purchases online than ever before, but companies who interact with clients and customers using web-based systems are, in general, slow to acknowledge the modern performance limitations of the Internet as we know it, which herald from its origins as a military and University inter-campus communications tool. The downstream effect is that service providers have been slow to step up a gear and focus on delivering tailored services which are free from delays, outages and security breaches at a time when the demands being placed on the technology are advancing.”
O‘Brien continued:
“The Government‘s is keen to make the UK one of the best environments in the world to do e-commerce, and the timing is right for Internet service providers to deliver smarter, more flexible services which better meet the needs of end users. This means taking a closer look at their own suppliers in the wholesale capacity arena and considering how to make better use of private Internet solutions where these are available. In turn this will directly benefit all end users, whether they go online simply to send email or to complete financial transactions or download complex music or gaming information.”
PacketExchange offers ISPs, content providers and corporates a range of services based on a secure, ‘private Internet‘, which enables corporates to ‘peer‘ or exchange information with each other without delays and risk of data interception. In turn, this improves the scope of the services the company‘s customers are able to offer to end users. The technology is the proven basis by which companies of the calibre of Microsoft, Google and Telewest address their own data communications objectives, and in recognition of which, PacketExchange was ranked as the UK‘s 14th fastest growing technology company last year by Sunday Times Tech Track.
