When the internet gained a foothold within UK business in the mid-1990s, the telecoms community was among the first to see the benefits it could bring. The ability to communicate and trade online lived up to its promise and transformed business communication forever.

Today, with Next Generation Networks (NGNs) delivering even more varied and powerful communication services, organisations are more capable than ever before to respond efficiently to operational changes, from relocating a local office to a companywide merger.

Helping to roll with the punches

To help you respond to operational changes such as moving offices, mergers, aquisitions and strategic changes, your telecoms service needs to provide you with practical flexibility. With this in mind, Virgin Media Business has invested billions in NGNs, which can accommodate data, voice and video traffic over a single network, unlike old-fashioned legacy lines, like ATM and Leased Lines, which divide traffic into separate networks.

NGNs alone, however, are not enough to ensure that your organisation’s information assets are readily available during operational change. Telcos must also make it easy to support these changes as and when they occur. The combination of technical capability and a ‘can-do’ mindset make up the attributes of a truly next generation operator like us.

A fully adjustable service

The ability to adjust and fine-tune a telecoms service (even during a commercial contract’s minimum period) is essential. You need to adapt quickly and your telco should be a willing enabler, not a stick in the mud.

The ease by which NGNs can be upgraded means they’re more adaptable. In particular, environments based on any-to-any architectures, such as our Ethernet or IPVPNs (Internet Protocol Virtual Private Networks), make adding/moving site locations, or changing bandwidth requirements relatively simple and cost-effective. Especially so when compared to legacy environments like ATM or Frame Relay.

The nature of NGNs – enabling wide-area private networks that function like a giant office network – means that you have far greater control over how your communication services are delivered. A service-driven telco like Virgin Media Business allows you take greater control, through offerings such as online portals, which give information on everything from network performance,to billing, This allows customers to access information in their own time, rather than only when a service manager is available.

We can work it out

To design a network comprising the appropriate level of business resilience requires a telco prepared to actually sit down with the client company. Applications need to be selected to suit the individuals within the business. Let’s say you need a service designed for mobile teams dispersed across the country. This would probably require an any-to-any network like an IPVPN or Ethernet VPN, as these provide the most efficient platform from which to run collaborative applications like IP Multimedia.

Virgin Media Business believes organisations are best placed to manage change when they’re able to deal directly with experts who understand their requirements and are on hand to help with the transition. The majority of UK telcos offer a close-knit service team only to their biggest clients. Virgin Media Business, on the other hand, offers organisations a clued-up and consultative service team, dedicated to the customer regardless of their size or budget.

Forward – not backward – thinking

Virgin Media Business has the most advanced of the UK’s two national communications networks. Its forward-thinking architecture is capable of not only supporting next generation applications and services, but also creating a tailored service that meets individual requirements.

Managing change in an evolving business environment needn’t be a minefield. Thanks to us, next generation telecoms means no longer having to dedicate the same level of time and resources to changing arrangements as in the past.