About

Swindon, UK. 29 October 2009 – Allied Telesis has partnered with the Kenton Group to provide the Isle of Man with a high-speed, robust network based on fibre to the premises to meet the needs of its ever-expanding economy. Once primarily known as a financial services centre, the Island’s economy has diversified in recent years, adding new skills and specialisations, including a fast-growing eBusiness sector.

The Isle of Man is a major offshore business centre with an increasing number of global companies basing themselves on, and operating from, the island. The Isle’s leading telecommunications provider, Manx Telecom has a very diverse client base, including the world’s largest poker operator, e-Gaming companies, online bookmakers, e-music platforms, global payment processors, international e-money providers, global banks, international insurance companies, and a range of public sector organisations.

Manx Telecom realised that it needed to offer an upgraded Ethernet network to meet the 21st century requirements of its growing client portfolio and asked the Kenton Group, which was the incumbent supplier for its Ethernet over Copper network, to bring fibre into the network in places where copper would not provide a suitable base.

As part of the project, the Kenton Group turned to Allied Telesis to provide a reliable and easily maintained solution to deliver fast Ethernet services up to 1Gb over fibre. The new Ethernet based network extends beyond Douglas, the Isle’s capital, and now provides IP telephony and data over both copper and fibre cables across the 12 exchanges that connect the whole island.

“The Isle of Man is home to an increasing number of the world’s financial services companies and eBusinesses and we had to be able to give these institutions the communications system they need,” said Mike Loundes, Director of Customer Services and CTO of Manx Telecom. “Not only did it have to provide 21st century connectivity but we needed to know that it was a robust system, with the built in security that is so necessary for modern businesses.”

“Having worked with Allied Telesis for over ten years, they were the first choice to provide a managed fibre solution that would be both reliable, easy to run and easy to maintain,” said John Larkin, Managing Director of the Kenton Group. “The provision of new Ethernet Services from 10Mb up to 1Gb were an essential part of this network and the Allied Telesis Converteon range provides us with kit we can rely on.”

“By offering highly resilient equipment, featuring hot swappable power supplies, resilient management, and hot swappable blades, Manx Telecom can be assured that its network will stay online even when parts need replacing or upgrading,” said Melvyn Wray, Senior VP of Product Marketing EMEA, Allied Telesis. “Also, with in-band remote management, Manx Telecom can quickly check on the status of the remote equipment installed in customer premises, without needing to send out an engineer, thus further reducing downtime.”

The project started in 2008 and is now up and running successfully.