The South African business connectivity landscape has become a battleground where price takes precedence over service, driving a race to the bottom. As resellers and operators compete to offer the lowest cost, the quality of service is sacrificed, leaving businesses with unreliable connections and substandard customer support. This short-sighted approach threatens the very essence of what constitutes a business-grade service.
Competing on Price, Not Service
The heart of the problem lies in the obsession with price competition. Hundreds of resellers in South Africa rely on a limited pool of operators, all offering services at similar baseline pricing. This lack of differentiation forces resellers to cut corners, often reducing the quality of service to unsustainable levels.
The cheaper the price, the less attention is paid to service delivery. What should be a robust, business-grade connectivity solution quickly devolves into a fragile offering that can barely meet the demands of enterprise operations. This results in businesses receiving consumer-level broadband services masquerading as professional-grade connections.
CPE | A Symbol of Decline
The decline in service quality is clearly visible in the customer premises equipment (CPE) provided by many resellers. Instead of offering durable, business-grade devices, companies often supply low-cost, unreliable CPE from Eastern Europe. These plastic "dinky toy" devices lack the resilience needed for mission-critical operations. Even their power systems reflect this inadequacy, with many of these devices relying on two-prong shaver plugs, a far cry from the industrial-grade power solutions businesses should expect.
When the CPE itself is so unreliable, how can any business expect their service to be dependable?
No Difference Between Business & Broadband Services
In this race to the bottom, the lines between business services and broadband have become so blurred that, in many cases, they are indistinguishable. No single Internet service provider (ISP) seems able to consistently deliver on the promises of a business-grade service within an agreed SLA (Service Level Agreement). Businesses are left to fend for themselves, with little recourse when things go wrong.
Emails to service providers often go unanswered, and when businesses finally get a response, they're asked to self-troubleshoot. The responsibility for diagnosing and fixing issues has shifted to the customer—a practice entirely unacceptable for a service that is meant to be business-grade.
The Path Back to Business-Grade Telecommunications | SD-WAN
Given the current state of connectivity in South Africa, the only real solution for businesses is to take control of their telecommunications by deploying Software-Defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WAN). SD-WAN offers a flexible, resilient, and cost-effective alternative to traditional connectivity, with the ability to deliver the quality of service that businesses deserve.
Here’s how SD-WAN can restore true business-grade telecommunications:
Multiple Connection Pathways: SD-WAN allows businesses to aggregate multiple connections from different providers, ensuring that the failure of one connection doesn’t cripple the entire network. This eliminates the dependency on any single ISP and adds redundancy at no extra cost.
Quality of Service (QoS) and Prioritization: Unlike standard broadband services, SD-WAN solutions are built to prioritize traffic based on business needs. Critical applications such as video conferencing or VoIP calls can be routed over the best available connection, ensuring consistent performance.
Centralized Management and Automation: SD-WAN allows businesses to manage their entire network from a single, centralized dashboard. Network policies can be automatically applied across multiple sites, and traffic is intelligently routed based on real-time conditions.
Enhanced Security: With SD-WAN, businesses gain access to features such as end-to-end encryption and integrated security, ensuring data remains safe while traversing the network. Traditional broadband services rarely offer this level of protection, leaving businesses vulnerable to cyberattacks.
Proactive Support and Monitoring: The best SD-WAN solutions come with advanced monitoring tools, giving businesses real-time insights into their network performance. Instead of waiting for something to break, businesses can take proactive steps to address issues before they impact operations.
By implementing SD-WAN, businesses can reclaim control over their connectivity, sidestepping the broken system of price wars and subpar services. It’s the only realistic path to restoring the reliability and service quality that South African businesses desperately need.
Wrapping up, In this race to the bottom, SD-WAN stands as the only way forward for companies seeking to elevate their connectivity to a truly business-grade standard. It’s time to stop competing on price and start focusing on delivering real value and service.
Ronald Bartels ensures that Internet inhabiting things are connected reliably online at Nepean Networks - the leading specialized SD-WAN provider in South Africa. Learn more about the best SD-WAN provider in the world! 👉 Contact Nepean
