EMS, Delivering Business Agility in WAN

With a focus towards building an agile, dynamic WAN with the help of its Software Defined Network platform, UK based EMS is looking forward to creating and nurturing distribution partnerships in countries such as India.  

EMS was founded in 1995 and initially worked on e-commerce and multi-media projects before focussing on making always-on internet connectivity available in an age of massive growth in Internet data usage. Zia Askari from TelecomDrive.com spoke with James Deadman Head of Channel Distribution, EMEA, EMS about the company’s focus and product offerings.

[caption id="attachment_1676" align="alignnone" width="285"] James Deadman[/caption]

What is the biggest point of focus for EMS today? what are the priorities for the organization?

Electronic Media Services Ltd (EMS) has spent the last two years re-engineering our product offering. Our latest i-MO™ OptiBond™ solutions address key connectivity issues such as providing secure, resilient links in locations poorly served by fixed line infrastructure and as a far more cost effective solution to expensive leased line.

i-MO™ is our award winning WAN Bonding router appliance and OptiBond™ our SDN software for link and network management.

Our priority is to find distribution partners in markets where there is forecasted rapid growth in internet usage, low cost wireless internet connectivity is readily available and poor fixed line infrastructure leads to frequent and disruptive disconnection.

How do you look at India, SAARC, Asia pacific and the MEA region – please share your go to market strategy for these regions?

Our research indicates that our breakthrough technology, which offers business-class anytime, anywhere WAN services using lost cost Internet connections mean these countries and regions can greatly benefit from the solutions we provide.

For example, within the territories of SE Asia the i-MO OptiBond proposition is particularly compelling. Throughout the region the product offers immediate reliable access to connectivity and great cost saving in otherwise prohibitively expensive bandwidth.

i-MO OptiBond is 30% cheaper than lower specification alternatives. It can run several value-added modules such as CCTV, NAS and VOIP making it a highly cost effective office-in-a-box solution.

The cost of fixed wire/fibre is much higher than in Europe and the lead-time to installation is 8-12 weeks or more. In Singapore where infrastructure is developed i-MO OptiBond is being used to reduce networking costs, by replacing expensive MPLS and WAN circuits with multiple low cost Internet connections with for 4G resilience.

And in Indonesia fixed line infrastructure is immature and unreliable, i-MO OptiBond is used to provide stable resilient high speed connections using multiple low-cost highly available 3G connections.

Today operators do not want to overspend on network equipment, while at the same time they want to monetize on segments such as OTT - how can you help in this regard?

i-MO™ OptiBond™ enables operators to cost effectively bond available channels together for the delivery of video, audio and other media over the Internet and provide Wi-Fi availability in any location, where connectivity has previously been poor.

While NFV is a great concept - there are not many installations happening. Can you share some of your customers in this segment? How are you helping operators virtualize their infrastructure?

Our OptiBond™ Software provides an SDN platform for building agile WAN’s. A good example of where OptiBond™ Software has been extensively deployed is in the construction market in the UK, where over 60% of the top building contractors rely on OptiBond™ Software to enable remote locations to have instant secure controlled connectivity.

We have several value-added modules that provide CCTV, Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Voice Over IP (VOIP) features. These minimise the number of devices required at a remote location which improves reliability while reducing both complexity and TCO.
What are some of the big challenges that you are set out to solve for the operator and the carrier community?

We can enable operators and the carrier community to provide more agile, low cost connectivity solutions without sacrificing reliability, resilience and performance.
Where do you think is the biggest growth happening? and what kind of growth are you looking at?

EMS believes the biggest growth is happening in the SDN (software defined network) WAN and wireless connectivity market because there is a rapid shift away from large format devices to cellular mobilisation: ‘The 3^rd Platform’. So there is a need for low cost and high availability of 3G and 4G communications, high cost and low availability of fixed wire WAN and internet. Additionally, there is a need for highly agile lower cost 24/7 marketing and other communications as well.

EMS is already established in the highest forecasted growth regions of SE Asia and Europe which it is predicted will account for 75% of all mobile traffic by 2018. According to Infonetics the global SDN-enabled router market is currently worth $8.5b and the SE Asian market $1b. Both are now set to grow in line with the market as a whole which is predicted to hit $20bn by 2018.