More Head Room

Back row (left to right) Peter Gradwell of Gradwell.com, Ben Burns of Azzurri, Ian Hunter, Editor Comms Business Magazine, Lance Spencer of Tiscali Front row, Deborah Collins of Tiscali, Brian Mulligan of Gamma Telecom, Martin Saunders of Claranet

Name

(DC) Deborah Collins Sales Director, Tiscali Business Services

(LP) Lance Spencer Product Marketing Director, Tiscali Business Services

(PG) Peter Gradwell Managing Director, Gradwell.com

(MS) Martin Saunders Network Solutions Director, Claranet

(BM) Brian Mulligan Access Products, Gamma Telecom

(BB) Ben Burns Microsoft Consultancy, Azzurri

(IH) Ian Hunter Editor, Comms Business Magazine

Tiscali Business Services has long been an innovator in access products for the channel. Now, with the immanent launch of their Annex-M product will we see a cost effective replacement for SDSL and E1 circuits that will also energise the VoIP market?

IH. Annex-M, also referred to as ‘ADSL2+M’, extends the capability of basic ADSL2 by doubling the number of upstream bits. The data rates can be as high as 24 Mbit/s downstream and 3.5 Mbit/s upstream depending on the distance from the DSLAM to the customer. An upstream guarantee of 1Mbit/s would be good?

LS. Tiscali Business Services is the most innovative supplier in the channel; we were the first with QoS and in the last 3 years have moved from BT IP/DataStream to an unbundled service that covers 60% of the UK. Today the focus is on data applications and making the most of copper. ADSL Max delivered up to 8Meg for some users and ADSL2+ delivered 16 Meg downstream. Annex-M is the next stage in the delivery process and enables the user to ‘trade off ’ up and downstream bandwidth – a significant move for ensuring the quality for VoIP. Towards the end of this year Tiscali will be looking at providing Ethernet in the last mile. Beyond Ethernet users will need to use fibre.

Annex-M from Tiscali is significant for the channel as it is far more cost effective than SDSL which is typically selling for around £100 to £150 per circuit per month.

PG. With each voice call taking 80k bandwidth ADSL2+ could handle 12 calls simultaneously but with Annex-M you can get 25 concurrent calls. In effect, Annex-M can double the size of the customer we can deal with. All this comes with guaranteed bandwidth with QoS and far cheaper per circuit. The service can be provided by Tiscali from 300 exchanges.

I see the sweet spot for VoIP being organisations with 20 to 30 people and there are a million UK companies in this sector. When it comes to selling VoIP we are servicing and supporting a large number of IT consultants working in this space who seem to know their customer very well and are enjoying

increasing success in the market with VoIP.

BB. I see Annex-M opening more VoIP opportunities in the mid-market. We’ve had success with Tiscali’s QoS based DSL in the retail sector where one circuit can run a limited number of services. Annex-M opens up the opportunity to run multiple services over a single circuit, for example Voice, Video and other media, where a leased line alternative just does not cost in.

For enterprises that already have leased lines for multiple services Anne-M provides a great back up service capability and with users perceiving a value in the reseller managing their lines there is the additional opportunity of selling more services.

BM. Resellers need solutions they can just ‘switch on’ in order for them to work. They also want SLA’s and single source suppliers with end-to-end diagnostics if things go wrong. With tight margins you need to get the installations right. Openreach is only offering DSL SLA’s of 20 hours to fix with their enhanced service as they have a vested interest in maintaining their leased line business. I too see Annex-M being sold as a back up to leased lines or for failover with ISDN – but, it must be a reliable service. In terms of its sweet spot in the market

I see Annex-M as filling the VoIP gap that exists between say 10 users and 40 plus users, a point at which SDSL begins to cost in.

MS. Claranet has a European focus providing managed and hosted services and VPNs. We are already selling an Annex-M service in Spain and Portugal and we feel there are a number of lessons we have learnt from this experience that will apply here in the UK as well. The most significant point is that Annex-M is not a straightforward replacement for an E1 service.

LS. Customer expectation for Annex-M is that is should be equal to a leased line but this is limited by Openreach and their SLA.

DC.We believe that Annex-M is the product that everyone has been waiting for; SDSL is too expensive. Annex-M uses the same basic LLU infrastructure, the reseller learning curve is short and services will be sold quickly. Partners such as Azzurri are concerned over the impact distance from the exchange will have – will the Annex-M trade off between up and down load enable more distant users to be served?

BB. Having two or three Meg upstream makes Annex-M a powerful business tool. This is known, proven and reliable technology which will enable ourselves and other resellers to move very quickly with our respective customer bases and supply a technology refresh.

MS. Business does not like unpredictability with DSL speeds. BT’s Openreach web site allows you to carry out a check of the speed you are likely to get for a circuit but in reality you won’t know for sure until the service is in and running.

BM. Tiscali has always taken a realistic and conservative view when it comes to claiming speeds available to ensure that the customer is not disappointed. Other suppliers with headline grabbing speed claims are just not delivering those for the user.

LS. What we are guaranteeing with Annex-M is an upload speed of between 1.0 and 1.5Meg. The actual point of sale is where you would qualify the user and determine if a premium product is required.

Tiscali will qualify resellers and advise them on how best to sell our services. Those that understand the product already will sell it well and have happy customers. Resellers that oversell these products will be those that have the most problems – there is a lot to consider before selling Annex-M.

BM. It pays to invest in spending a lot of time with resellers especially to ensure that resellers understand the limitations of the service.

BB. While voice is ‘just another application on the network’ it is often the most crucial and critical application.

One area where Annex-M will score highly is in speed of provision. Compared to the time it can take to get leased circuits and ISDN installed Annex-M, at 1-15 working days is very fast which will enable resellers to get their customers up and running very quickly.

DC. Our challenge for Annex-M now is to simplify the whole product and its supply down to the lowest common denominator and if we get this message right then Tiscali, and its resellers, will win a lot of business.