e-llan Communications, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Manx Electricity Authority, turned to NWIX to develop a solution to the island’s communications infrastructure shortcomings.
“We recognise that diversity in our telecommunications infrastructure is a vital component for us to continue to grow so successfully in the world of e-business. Fast, reliable communications has been crucial in helping us to attract the businesses upon which much of our economic strength is based. The Government has realised that this asset needs constant review and development to keep pace with the world and has supported us in this recent project.”
Jonathan Clarke, e-llan Communications,
talking about the infrastructure solutions implemented by NWIX
Issue
The Manx Electricity Authority (MEA), responsible for the Isle of Man’s electricity supply, installed a submarine power cable between the UK’s National Grid and the island in 2000. At the same time, a fibre optic cable was installed which had been underutilised until 2006.
Due to the island's sympathetic tax regime and suitable legislative framework, it has been successful in attracting a lot of inward investment and as a result has thriving financial services, online gaming and gambling sectors.
These businesses were attracted to the Isle of Man because of the favourable business environment in which to operate. There was a major flaw for these businesses operating from the island - the existing telecommunications infrastructure was inadequate in terms of resilience, security and bandwidth. This meant that the infrastructure would not keep up with the increasing needs of these businesses and the Government acknowledged that in order to continue to grow the economy and attract new businesses, it needed to address this. Added to this, the Isle of Man’s Internet traffic was routed through a London exchange and the distance and network route added latency and delays which could be disruptive for many of the businesses.
Solution
A Governmental working party was formed and several infrastructure experts were approached. In late 2006, NWIX won a competitive tender process for the following reasons:
- Its footprint - NWIX has a national network that comprises of a number of interconnecting rings linking together data centres which gives the diversity required for organisations with high performance needs such as online businesses and financial services.
- Implementation and cost - NWIX had developed a means of implementing a cost effective core networking capability using DWDM to deliver huge Internet bandwidth without using the complex platforms utilised by national carriers. It meant NWIX were in a position to provide the services required at a substantial saving against the other carriers.
- Internet Exchange - NWIX operates the UK’s second largest Internet Exchange. This distributed exchange solution, Edge-IX, formed an important differentiator for NWIX as it offers the ability for organisations to peer with other members on the Exchange, as well as providing access to the wider Internet community thereby delivering major cost savings.
Results
e-llan Communications chose NWIX to provide the services required to ensure that businesses on the island could benefit from the underutilised fibre optic cable in addition to the existing infrastructure on the island. Almost immediately, several businesses started to use and realise the benefits of the service including one of the leading business ISPs. The project has proved highly successful and plans are already in place to increase the capacity as demand continues to grow from businesses based on and moving onto the island.