The ability to offer a broad array of services to fulfil the changing needs of enterprises is an important aim for the carriers of today, particularly in light of the rise of services such as the cloud.
As a carrier that recognises this need, these requirements are high on the agenda of Deutsche Telekom International Carrier Sales & Solutions (ICSS). That’s why the company is expanding its Carrier Enterprise Services (CES) offering this year to make it more comprehensive and attractive for customers – not only in terms of the products it provides, but in geography too.
For a start, ICSS is now unveiling a new Secure Cloud Connect service for private cloud customers, a product that fits perfectly with market trends towards the use of the cloud. This is because as well as wanting to have access to public cloud services, enterprises are increasing their interest in private cloud to store data they need to protect with a higher level of security, says Gabor Deri, head of solution management at Deutsche Telekom ICSS.
“Customers are looking to have a restricted and really secure, high-service-level location for mission-critical applications,” says Deri. “For private cloud, they are putting a lot of attention into having sensitive data in a secure environment.”
As an indication of trends, Cisco has predicted that while public cloud will rise to represent three-quarters of cloud workloads and compute instances by 2021, private cloud will also see a compound annual growth rate of 11% in this area between 2016 and 2021. And all enterprises are set to increasingly use cloud services in the near future.
With a view to what’s happening in the market, Secure Cloud Connect will provide a fast and seamless connection via Ethernet Line and IP-VPN services, and fits into ICSS’s SD-WAN enabling plans. The service offers 30 interconnection points that are currently being built with 18 private cloud service providers (CSPs) – and it will also use private cloud service aggregators for comprehensive CSP coverage.
The service is aimed at adding a further compelling offering for customers, and provides an additional facet to complement CES’s other products. These include intelligent IP-VPN services, which aim to provide reliability and security through support from Deutsche Telekom’s MPLS global IP backbone. The IP-VPN offering gives carriers’ corporate clients the ability to connect global customer sites with a single secure network for voice and data services, as well as other business-critical applications – and provides a higher degree of manageability, connectivity and security, as well as cost advantages.
The company also offers services such as flexible and cost-effective carrier Ethernet, which comes equipped with LAN capabilities, highly scalable bandwidth, full IP routing control and a robust level of security.
All the products in CES’s range are designed to be simple and straightforward to deploy, with the provision of a high level of customer experience across a wide variety of applications in the portfolio. The goal of all these is to create a one-stop shop to perfectly chime with the needs of corporate clients.
Geographic expansion
While extending its product set, ICSS is also expanding CES services via partners to make its products more accessible to carriers worldwide – mainly Ethernet and Layer 3 services. Phase 1 of this project, for which an offer has just launched at ITW, is focused on North America and will enable the roll-out of more competitive Layer 2, Layer 3 and direct internet access services there – with other regions to be covered including Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. This will help more global carriers to serve their enterprise customers with ICSS’s robust set of offerings.
The company is also bolstering and consolidating its services in Europe, having integrated the international wholesale operations of its Slovakian subsidiary, Slovak Telekom, at the start of 2018. The first internal integration steps have taken place, and this will be further developed to enhance customer experience and create a seamless interface for customers.
Through this integration, the subsidiary’s activities will complement the regional coverage of ICSS’s carrier enterprise business and will boost core country coverage by adding the Slovakian network into its offering. The strategy represents a continuation of moves by ICSS to aggregate international wholesale businesses of the Deutsche Telekom Group, creating a fuller and ever more robust offering for clients.
All in all, through these initiatives ICSS aims to make its CES offering more accessible and appealing on a global basis – contributing to the key needs of both carriers and their enterprise customers for the future.
