Jola Cloud Solutions' Blog

The channel is well placed to help customers adopt new technologies such as 5G. Resellers will know which of their customers are in an area with 5G coverage and also what their requirements are. Many resellers may already be using 4G to solve their customers’ Internet access issues in areas with poorly performing fixed-line services, so 5G is a great opportunity to upsell to new 5G hardware and SIMs.

Is now the time to build offerings that use 5G services?

Now is definitely the time because there’s the opportunity to provide 5G-ready solutions. 5G routers also support LTE Advanced, which is already available in much more of the country than 5G. So by selling a 5G-ready SIM and router, the customer could enjoy a big performance boost even before 5G actually arrives. 

What is the appetite for 5G-ready devices?

In the mobile voice space, the latest handsets from all the main manufacturers are already 5G ready, so any handset replacement project is likely to have 5G readiness as a requirement. In the mobile router space, though, there are extremely few 5G options available although we expect that to change this year now that the major chipset and modem module manufacturers are now producing 5G components in volume.

There have been some high-profile cybersecurity attacks on IoT and M2M devices and deployments. The Bristol Airport's flight information system was hacked and held for ransom, and the digital signage in Union Street station was hacked as well, with the train information screens being used to display hardcore pornography at rush hour. These attacks were obviously highly visible and disruptive, but there are also hidden attacks where IoT devices are hacked to become part of botnets that are then used to power massive DDOS attacks against whomever the hackers are trying to target. In this scenario, the device owner may not be aware of their role until their monthly bill arrives and their connectivity consumption has increased dramatically.

Jola provides SIMs that are used in a wide variety of different IoT and M2M scenarios. We’re acutely aware of the need to protect our resellers and their customers from the consequences of falling victim to a cybersecurity attack. At the foundation of what we do is our Mobile Manager portal, which, with its real-time alerts and control, provides visibility into the SIM usage before the monthly bill arrives. However, our approach goes beyond just managing costs. If the application does not need access to the Internet, then why would you expose it online? Jola offers SIMs that provide secure private access back to a corporate network with no access to the Internet at all. This almost eliminates the ‘attack surface’ completely. Jola has also been involved in some extremely high-profile digital signage deployments where our approach to security has gone beyond just securing connectivity. We have provided secure devices with hardened device operating systems and configurations to deliver a truly secure solution.

Our goal is to enable our channel partners to embrace opportunities and benefit from our experience to deliver unique and differentiated solutions to their customers that are secure from threats that are undeniably out there.

What is FTTC?

It stands for fibre to the cabinet and it is fibre-optic broadband which offers faster Internet connectivity. Businesses looking to use their Internet connection for more than checking email and using Google may benefit from faster more reliable fibre-optic services.

In the SME sector we are seeing unprecedented demand for faster, more reliable connectivity.

My colleagues and I have spent a lot of time recently talking and writing about Ethernet, the challenges and opportunities. It is absolutely true that SMEs’ appetite for more and better quality bandwidth is insatiable. It stands to reason that when an organisation starts to consume more and more mission-critical services from the cloud that they will be more receptive to spending more on connecting to the cloud.

Demand for faster, more reliable internet connectivity is on the increase in the SME market but even the most competitive leased line prices fall outside the reach of some. This is changing with the availability of FTTC Ethernet.

BT or not BT, that is the question

I regularly speak with small and medium sized businesses about their Internet access.

Very often they’ve found our website or been recommended to us because their business is being held back by poor performance or poor reliability of their broadband.  Low bandwidth, high latency and packet loss can cause many applications such as voice over IP (VOIP) and video conferencing to be unusable.