Are telecom giants letting SMEs down?
South Africa’s Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are a mighty force in the South African economy, but tend to be overlooked when it comes to telecommunications infrastructure and products that allow them to compete more effectively in the market.
Darren Morgan, COO of Comsol, says SMEs have traditionally been treated as an afterthought by telecoms giants, who focus first on meeting the needs of the consumer market and enterprise clients.
Yet, with SMMEs and SMEs accounting for around 91% of formalised businesses and 40% of GDP, this market is one worth addressing, with fit for purpose solutions at the right price.
Comsol believes these businesses are too complex for consumer-grade offerings and have budget constraints that stand in the way of their using enterprise packages.
As a result, they are left navigating a fragmented and frustrating landscape where affordable connectivity is often unreliable, and reliable connectivity is simply unaffordable or too rigid to meet their needs.
Morgan says: “The telecoms giants tend to use most of their spectrum and resources on a consumer play because of the volumes.”
“What’s left over will be used to furnish other high-level enterprises, and they’ll use a very small amount of spectrum for the SMEs.”
“So you find SMEs either get a product that could be good, but is not being given the resources to be good, or they try to put SMEs onto a platform like unlicensed FWA or cheap fibre,” says Morgan.
“This results in the actual end product meeting the price point, but it’s unreliable and it’s not the right technology.”
“What they end up getting is generally not fit for purpose.”
Another pain point for SMEs is the SLAs they are offered.
“SMEs end up getting the ‘poor stepchild’s SLA’, and the top SLAs are kept for enterprise customers. It doesn’t really make sense, since reliable comms is as important to a small business as it is to an enterprise,” says Morgan.
Many SMEs resort to subscribing to a consumer service from the major telcos because they simply have no other choices.
“They might get multiple LTE services in, or they might get an FTTB service in with an LTE backup, which is also not ideal from a reliability perspective, and that’s what they’ve got to live with,” says Morgan.
Fit for purpose connectivity for SMEs
Comsol has moved to meet the needs of SMEs with Broadband Lite – a smart, scalable alternative that is fit for purpose for small business.
Built on Comsol’s national 5G FWA network, delivering high-speed, enterprise-grade internet access with the simplicity and cost-efficiency SMEs have been waiting for.
Morgan says much like today’s major telcos are doing, Comsol also set out to serve enterprises at first.
“Ten years ago, Comsol only offered an enterprise plan. We had a huge tranche of millimeter band spectrum, which was in those days only suited to enterprises. It was expensive.”
“The hardware we needed to use was expensive, and we were making that same mistake that the MNOs are making now where we were trying to take very expensive hardware and very expensive spectrum and trying to create a product that the SMEs would use,” Morgan says.
“Even though the reliability was excellent, the price mark wasn’t right so we weren’t hitting that sweet spot either.”
“This was the entire logic behind Comsol acquiring the 3GHz spectrum – it allowed us to offer reliable licensed band wireless last mile capacity with hardware that is a lot more cost effective,” Morgan says.
“For example, the Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) device is around five to six times cheaper than the same device that sits on our 28GHz network.”
“So we rectified our own error, by getting the right spectrum, getting the right hardware, and designing a product suited to SMEs,” says Morgan.
“Because we don’t have a consumer play, we’re able to take all of that spectrum and dedicate it to SMEs.”
“If you’re an enterprise customer wanting to buy a Comsol service, you’re likely to take the product that sits on our 28 GHz network.”
“It’s symmetrical, really high level, with a lock tight SLA, and all the bells and whistles. But if you’re an SMME, we can offer you pretty much our entire fixed 5G network with Comsol Broadband Lite,” says Morgan.
“It’s tailored to meet the SME price mark, offering a superior service at around the same price they are used to paying.”
“It’s fixed 5G technology, so the capacities are very high, and because it’s running on licensed spectrum, there’s no noise. With a next-day SLA, Comsol Broadband Lite offers superior quality connectivity for businesses that can’t afford downtime.”
“While many enterprises may use the product as a backup solution, this product is ideally suited to serving as the primary connection for smaller and mid-sized businesses – from a really small mom-and-pop shop with three people to an office of 50 people,” Morgan says.
Comsol’s new product is generating significant interest as channel partners start taking it to market, Morgan says.
“There’s a huge amount of interest. I think it’s hit the exact price mark for a superior service.”
“It’s not on an unlicensed wireless network and it’s not a cheap fibre service with a poor SLA. This is an SLA-driven connectivity solution using premium spectrum and, at the right price,” Morgan says.
Click here to learn more about Comsol Broadband Lite.
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