David Allen, Innovation Manager, Colt
For businesses building secure and agile global digital infrastructure, resilience and security are top considerations. To provide primary and backup connectivity, at Colt we’re exploring several options, including the recently announced LEO solution and utilising cellular or mobile connectivity.
The challenge with cellular connectivity is making the most of the benefits without compromising on the overall experience or security. That’s why Colt’s Innovation team has been looking at a new approach that offers the best of both.
The challenge
The GSMA predict that the number of 5G FWA connections across 70 countries will increase by 358% by 2030, representing a rise from 17.3 million connections to 79.2 million. The demand is being driven by cost, flexibility and 5G’s impressive network performance.
While there are benefits to Wireless Access, there are also challenges. Cost and geographic coverage for Mobile Network Operators(MNOs) vary, especially at a global scale. in Europe alone, the market is fragmented with 200 MNOs supplying national services. Simply contracting or orchestrating connectivity across a distributed technology and commercial landscape is a headache. This patchwork of operators means performance of any one MNO is dependent on the cell tower coverage, occupancy and availability of the resources in that operator’s cell. This makes SLAs or network performance guarantees impossible to achieve.
Securing both network and data in motion across a radio and consumer mobile network is another challenge. Man in the middle, Denial of Service(DoS) and Intrusion or remote access to vulnerable devices are among the numerous security threats. In addition, software vulnerabilities exposed through internet connectivity are rife, compounded by weak security postures and the inability to monitor and detect anomalous activity increases the risk for data breaches. Likewise, standards such as the Digital Operations Resiliency Act DORA, NIS2, PCI DSS, NIST 2 and ISO 27001 become harder to achieve compliance without significant investment.
A new approach
We’ve been working with Wireless Logic’s Conexa platform to pilot an approach that offers an intrinsic private connection with embedded security delivered to customers with zero touch provisioning . The solution lowers the cost of integration into Enterprises and offers the ability to layer on a range of advanced cybersecurity and compliance tools.
It does this by bringing together Conexa’s adaptive SIMs, based on GSMA Safe IoT standards, that use any available MNO Cell network, together with Colt’s market-leading Network as a Service (NaaS) platform, On-Premise Edge and SD WAN solutions. Combined, they create a highly adaptive networking platform with benefits ranging from seamless corporate governance to bespoke network and security postures.
The Conexa uSIM and eSIM platform has embedded security and can dynamically attach to the best-performing local mobile network, offering performance and resiliency. Through a Colt On Demand interconnect, we provide a private peering for all traffic from Conexa SIMs that connects to Colt’s Telco Cloud to enable software solutions such as firewalls, compliance solutions or private gateways to Colt’s SD WAN or multi-cloud network.
Then, by adding in Colt’s On-Premise Edge and SD WAN, we can create a local service at a customer’s site that includes security and IoT solutions. Combined with the bandwidth flexibility delivered via NaaS, it offers an adaptive platform for enterprises, System Integrators and managed service providers.
For the IoT marketplace, this provides a means to build global, scalable and private solutions, regardless of whether devices and applications are in a fixed location or part of a transport system. This considerably simplifies the design, deployment and Lifecyle management, and Colt’s Premises Edge and Telco Cloud enables process automation for lean and cost efficient solutions which allows cutting edge AI Applications and Machine Learning algorithms to be embedded the network service.
What’s next?
Beyond enterprise fibre, FTTx, and LEO satellites, this opens the door to new and exciting access options, offering greater flexibility to cost-effectively connect a growing number of devices. These may have lower SLA requirements, but demand the same high level of security, especially in today’s world of increasing cyber threats.
If you’d like to learn more, feel free to reach out to the Innovation team via colt.net/contact-us.