It’s time to show the Internet some respect

2013 has been a big year for “the Internet”. Back in April CERN celebrated the 44th anniversary of the first message crossing the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET).

The significance of the Internet and world wide web in our economies and societies today must have been inconceivable to those early pioneers. Today we expect to connect with friends or colleagues in an instant and to access all of the information we want at the precise moment of need. We’re so used to these services being integral to our daily lives that there’s a tendency to become blasé about the technologies and services involved as the pre-Internet age recedes further into the past.

For many consumers in the western world, internet access has become a fourth utility. When we move house, we want to know the electricity, water, gas and broadband will work. While it’s understandable internet access feels like a commodity in our homes these days, treating internet access as a commodity in the work environment can be detrimental.

Internet access performance matters to businesses because even the slightest change can have a negative effect on revenue. For example, research by Mozilla revealed that an extra second of delay reduces per-user revenue by 1.8 percent; a two second delay cuts income by 4.3 percent.

Quite simply, internet access isn’t created equal despite how commonplace internet infrastructure appears to be. Variations exist and they can be significant. It might seem like stating the obvious, but there’s a checklist of features and capabilities that need to be applied when evaluating internet access requirements for businesses:

1. How broad is the provider’s internet access – can they deliver content to where you’re located?
2. How well does it manage the traffic you generate?
3. How good is it at bringing traffic to your customers and delivering the quality of experience you require?

For each of these areas there are real barriers to achieving good performance.

Some are to do with network topologies and the number of network interconnections or hops. Others relate to how much control (if any) the provider has over the network and how this affects the responsiveness of internet access to changes in traffic volumes.

Once your checklist has been ticked off, it’s important you don’t forget one key rule – not all business requirements are created equal.

If I use Google at home or at work, I don’t require the same performance of internet access as road warriors remotely accessing their Virtual Desktop Interface, nor do I need the same security protection that running an on-line business would require.

Treating access as a commodity doesn’t deliver high quality, consistently available access to the information and services that employees and customers require. Internet performance plays a vital role in ensuring businesses growth and success; choosing the right service delivers simplifications and improvements in governance that maintain the perception of your brand, inside and outside of your organisation. 2013 can also be a big year for the Internet within your company, the year when internet access is tailored to reflect your business requirements and help deliver a competitive edge.

** In Gartner’s recent report, “Critical Capabilities for Pan-European Network Services,” Colt received an overall score of 4.0 out of 5 for its Internet access, as part of Gartner’s research into Pan-European network service markets and players.