Comtel supplies Bandwidth Barn

The Bandwidth Barn, based in Cape Town, has been in operation since 2000 and is today regarded as one of the leading ICT business incubators in the world.

The ICT sector

Focusing on the ICT sector, the Bandwidth Barn encourages technology and provides ongoing training and support needed to help ICT SMEs to overcome the entry barriers to employment, start-up, survival, growing their businesses and in doing so accelerate their development to enter the market successfully.

BWB provides and manages the voice and data solutions and services to its customers within the building, among other things. The Altrix Systems solution was a perfect fit as things are a specialist vendor in providing telecommunication hardware and software applications to the multi-tenant industry.

Effective tool for the BWB accounts

Comtel deployed its multi-tenant billing engine in June 2009 as an effective tool for the BWB accounts and management team to account for the Internet usage to its tenants. In November 2009, Comtel installed a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) gateway to provide better quality and pricing for all cellular calls.

Milla said: “Afterwards a lengthy tender process, Comtel was taking everything into account awarded the contract to supply bulk data services via dedicated wireless links over their network. Having carefully considered all the offerings while the tender process, Comtel's solution was ideal for the Bandwidth Barn. The solution's mature and structured architecture suits our environment perfectly. It makes it a lot easier dealing with a company who understands our environment and our client's unparalleled requirements. Comtel made installation of data services pleasantly efficient, and the technical support team has been impressive while the transition process.”

Jalaal, CEO of National Hotspot provider Redbutton, had this to say: "RedButton is happy to be partnered with Comtel Communications in the provisioning of our wireless internet hotspot services. We have worked with Comtel for over three years and the service offering has allowed us to provide a different solution/backbone in other words often more suitable to our venues than regular ADSL connectivity. Not all of our venues are happy with signing up for ADSL lines and the process of setting one up may often be slow and costly. Comtel's solution provides us with an extra degree of flexibility and suitability and this enables us to better address the needs of our clients in a quick, efficient and cost-effective manner."

The Internet

Asked whether there were any improvements to the Internet, Jalal continued: "Our Internet experience at the BWB has improved quite noticeably since Comtel Communications came on board as the preferred bandwidth provider to the barn. Fast and reliable Internet connectivity is a crucial component of our office environment and Comtel and the Barn have enabled us to provide the quality service that each of our customers expect."

Comtel provides billing and infrastructure solutions to many other multi-tenant developments in the country and is considered a specialist in this area. The Altrix Systems are completely converged, and the range of equipment supports any network-type infrastructure and reticulation topology.