Escape connectivity gridlock: get onto the Comsol autobahn for business - Gary Woolley — Comsol’s Gary Woolley

Connecting to the internet using unlicensed wireless connectivity on over-contended connections is much like travelling from Sandton to Pretoria on the N1 highway on a Friday afternoon: you’ll probably get there eventually, but it won’t be an enjoyable ride.

On the other hand, using a licensed microwave connection dedicated to business is like getting on your personal lane on a privately owned autobahn. The journey will be smooth, stress-free and as fast as you want it to be.

This according to Gary Woolley, chief commercial officer at Comsol, who says many organisations still don’t understand the difference between consumer-grade unlicensed connectivity and dedicated, enterprise-grade licensed spectrum.

Woolley explains that most service providers run last-mile connectivity solutions over unlicensed 2.4GHz and 5GHz spectrum, where they have little control over quality of service.

“Last-mile access solutions that aren’t licensed can’t guarantee performance and service-level agreements for business. At times, everyone will be stuck in a gridlock. Because Comsol owns key spectrum and it’s only for business use, it’s like we own a connectivity highway – plus the Gautrain for redundancy – and we can choose the vehicle and drive in any lane,” he says.

“For many organisations, choosing a connectivity service is only about price. But cheaper services are generally not up to the demands of businesses today. Using the transport analogy, you’d pay less to travel to Pretoria on a bus on the crowded freeway than in a supercar on a private autobahn, but your trip would be a lot slower.”

There are also misconceptions around what you’re getting when you sign up for a service, Woolley says. “Just because a car is capable of going 300km/h, it doesn’t mean you’ll be able to drive that fast on a gridlocked freeway, whereas on a private autobahn, you can drive it as fast as it’s capable of going.”

Fast and ‘CXy’

Woolley explains that Comsol pioneered wireless connectivity for business in South Africa, and has been connecting the country’s biggest enterprises for more than 25 years. Its Comsol Connect CX portfolio of last-mile, fixed-wireless-access solutions offers fibre-like connections or better, with built-in redundancy across every component. Key to Comsol’s current success is its ownership of the biggest tranches of 28GHz and 3.7GHz spectrum.

He says: “The CX portfolio runs on controlled, licensed spectrum, so we have full control of the connection and we can guarantee performance and SLAs. When we sell a 100Mbit/s service, that’s what you’ll get.”

The CX suite of products includes broadband layer-3 connectivity solutions and premium enterprise layer-2 symmetrical service – including Comsol’s latest 5G FWA solution designed to meet the need for business-class broadband for SMEs. 5G FWA also offers a cost-effective, reliable and superior redundancy option for enterprises that use fibre. All Comsol sites have power backup, with dual fibre feeds from its base stations.

“We understand how critical reliable connectivity is for business, so we offer an enterprise-focused backend, with exceptional power resiliency, and expert technical teams to make sure the networks don’t go down,” he says.

The CX portfolio also includes CXS (CX Specific), a bespoke solution for remote regions with no fibre connections. CXS uses licensed microwave circuits connected to fibre nodes at high sites. Woolley says: “With CXS, we can connect you in the middle of nowhere, where there’s no business case for fibre operators to install cables. We cover 80% of the business districts in South Africa, but we can also connect you in places like Pofadder. CX is enterprise-grade wireless that you can get anywhere.”

Another benefit of getting connected with Comsol is speed of deployment, Woolley says. “We get installs done in a matter of days, where fibre could take months to get connected.”

Learn more at comsol.co.za.