‘Amidst economic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions and skills shortages, enterprises across the world are adapting themselves to the requirements of the digital-first age. Those capable of succeeding in that marketplace will be data-driven, AI-enabled and cloud-centric…’
– Jan Hein Bakkers and James Eibisch, IDC
The future enterprise needs agile, secure and sustainable networks to achieve its goals, and our combined portfolio, as a result of the acquisition of Lumen EMEA, is already empowering customers on their digital transformation journeys.
The acquisition has allowed us to considerably expand our reach and capabilities. Our combined portfolio has been put together using a ‘best of both worlds’ approach. Rather than simply having two portfolios living next to each other, we took the hard route, opting to leverage the strengths of both businesses into one converged product.
Our customers need infrastructure that’s flexible, secure, easy to manage and environmentally conscious. Which is exactly what our new portfolio is driving. What’s more, it puts us in a number of leading positions in infrastructure and connectivity.
After the acquisition, Colt:
- Is the largest optical services provider in Europe by revenue – providing customers with the widest reach and options for their high bandwidth networking needs
- Is operating AS3356 jointly with Lumen – the largest IP backbone globally, supporting trillions of pounds of internet-driven business
- Is able to bring customers closer to the public cloud than any competitor – for example, no one in EMEA has more AWS cloud on-ramps than Colt
- Can provide customers with enhanced Network as a Service (NaaS) capabilities, enabling real-time and self-service consumption of networking with the largest enabled EMEA footprint
We want to provide the best access, anywhere in the world, at the best cost, resiliency and latency for whatever our customers need. We want to be an easy, one-stop-shop for our customers’ digital infrastructure requirements and technology needs, whilst also building on our ‘ESG by design’ strategy.
NaaS: real-time infrastructure for the digital era
At the heart of this approach is Colt On Demand, our NaaS platform. Through this, we offer real-time quoting and ordering to cloud on ramps, key data centres and tens of thousands of Colt on-net buildings. This is in addition to real-time bandwidth up and down-grades and real-time delivery of network services to the biggest hotspots of connectivity.
We have delivered NaaS for customers across multi-cloud access, DC to DC backbone and customer access, to provide a few use cases. Our customers benefit from having near-instant access to cutting-edge global digital infrastructure which they’re in control of.
Intent-based networking: a glimpse into the future
We’re also taking steps towards intent-based networking, where network adjustments align with business objectives automatically. One of the first milestones is customer-defined routing, allowing customers greater control over how their traffic is managed over a cost-efficient packet-based network. This evolution will eventually lead to fully-automated networks that optimise themselves based on intent, further reducing complexity and improving efficiency.
Discover more
To provide an in-depth analysis of our integration journey, we sponsored IDC to write three Spotlights papers on how we’re progressing with integrating our people, networks, and product and solutions. We’re excited to announce the release of the final paper ‘Bringing Products and Solutions Together’.
Paper three highlights the strengths and challenges of our expanded portfolio and also explores relevant market trends. For a deeper dive into how our integration is enabling next-generation digital infrastructure, download paper three.
Or, if you’re ready to discover how Colt can transform your business, contact us for a consultation.