Altech

Altech Technology Concepts is a specialist provider of communications services and solutions to the sub-Saharan corporate, enterprise and small business sector. Its 12-year history in this field, along with its highly-skilled technical team position it as one of the most respected and innovative players in the provision of physical networking links and connectivity in the country, regardless of whether those links are utilised for reliable inter-branch connectivity or fast, reliable Internet access.

The company’s world-class datacenter furthermore strongly positions it as a provider of managed services, right from creating a secure environment for its customers to conduct their business in, through to mission critical services such as e-mail, backup, archiving and converged data/voice services.

As businesses continue to seek out greater efficiencies from their technology investments, while not compromising on the reliability, performance and agility of their systems, they are likely to move into an era of computing that leverages a combination of on-premise, hosted and managed services-based IT.

Altech Technology Concepts’ business model has been designed with this realization in mind and is as such, geared up to meet the customers’ requirements for connectivity and hosting today; their requirement for hosting and cloud-based infrastructure in the near future; and their longer-term ambitions of running a combination of public and private cloud environments in the years to come.

The company’s end-to-end understanding and experience in the disciplines of physical link provision, Internet access, managed services and datacentre hosting positions it strongly to be the partner of choice for companies looking to make the best use of this new era of computing.

Product and Solutions

Physical Links - Fixed - Wireless Links

Digital communication is the lifeblood of the modern business environment and as such, the ability for a business to remain connected to its branch offices, as well as the Internet has become intrinsic to its success.

The integrity of the information carried digitally between branch offices over a wide-area network, as well as the integrity of information transferred to and from customers, partners and other individuals on the Internet relies heavily on the underlying physical links a network built on.

But one solution definitely doesn’t fit all and that’s the reason Altech Technology Concepts’ portfolio of physical link solutions can be delivered over either fixed or wireless infrastructure and have been designed to incorporate an array of different technologies, offering different permutations of cost-efficiency, reliability and performance.

From fixed fibre-optic links that don’t compromise on reliability or performance, to point-to-point wireless microwave links that allow for more flexibility and failover, Altech Technology Concepts has a physical link solution to suit businesses of every size and description.

Managed Services - hosting - Cloud Based Servers and Storage

While classically, organisations have been reticent to outsource the management and control of their business critical applications to third party service providers, a growing number of applications are proving to be far more reliable and cost effective when delivered by third parties.

With its world-class datacentre and extensive experience in enabling the underlying networking technology that so many of its customers rely on daily, Altech Technology Concepts has become one of the most respected entities in the business of exposing applications, such e-mail and groupware, firewalling, virus and spam detection (and eradication) and data backup/archival to its customers as a service.

The overriding benefits for customers, besides lower cost of ownership are the massive reduction in in-house infrastructure and staff required to guarantee access to those applications.

For customers that do however want to remain in control of their applications, but utilize the underlying infrastructure on which those applications are deployed as a service, Altech technology Concepts’ infrastructure hosting, datacentre co-location and infrastructure as a service (IAAS) offerings are the perfect solutions.

Internet Access - Premium Internet Access - Broadband Internet Access

The performance, reliability and cost of a point-to-point data connection between two branch offices or between a company’s premises and the Internet relies as heavily on the Internet Access solution used as what it does on the underlying technology used for the physical link.

And as with most solutions in the technology world, one size does not fit all.

Some customers requirements centre on performance and reliability, whereas others centre on performance and cost efficiency.

For this reason, Altech Technology Concepts’ Internet Access solutions have been designed so that customers are able to select the perfect solution for their needs, based on their ideal criteria.

Altech Technology Concepts’ Internet Access solutions can be separated into two categories, namely uncapped and usage-based Internet access products.

Instead of monitoring usage and ‘managing’ or ‘shaping’ down traffic that it not deemed to originate from a business application (as most internet service providers in South Africa do), Altech Technology Concepts’ network has been inherently designed to give higher priority to business related applications.

Outside of these considerations, the network has also been designed to offer higher priority to traffic carried across the various classes of access available to customers.

The overall result is a more balanced experience for customers, with an generally higher performance level across a wide array of applications.

With the variety of options available to customers, as well as Altech Technology Concepts’ proactive approach to monitoring, adjusting and upgrading its available backbone bandwidth, its customers will find a more pleasurable experience when using its Internet Access over the vast majority of competing offerings in the market.

Managed Networks - VPN - Network Monitoring - Network Analysis

Managing the reliability, performance and security of inter-branch networking links, let alone ensuing the integrity of connections from mobile workers and telecommuters are satisfactory and don’t pose a corporate governance risk is one of the most challenging networking disciplines today.

That’s the reason Altech Technology Concepts’ managed network service offerings have been designed to dovetail perfectly with the variety of physical link and Internet access solutions it has on offer.

Substantial cost savings can be derived in terminating physical links originating from a customer’s branch network points of presence around the country, and then utilising virtual private network (VPN) technologies such as multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) to ensure traffic is privately, securely and speedily routed across Altech Technology Concepts' network backbone to the relevant branch.

This approach can be used in instances where customers have infrastructure that’s hosted in Altech Technology Concepts’ datacentre, in their own private datacentre or in any combination of these two scenarios.

The same approach can be employed if customers require the ability for certain of their branches to failover to a wireless or ADSL backup connection when their primary connectivity fails, or to enable remote workers to securely connect into their corporate network to access essential applications and services.

Voice - VoIP - VoIP Bridging - Hosted PABX - Switching

Person-to-person voice communication still represents a large percentage of the total communication individuals within an organisation engage in on a daily basis.

It goes without saying then, that voice communications delivered through conventional private branch exchanges and analogue telephones are becoming inefficient to run and costly to maintain.

The presence of a Class 4/Class 5 voice over IP switch in Altech Technology Concepts’ network means the company is today able to route voice calls alongside data traffic and for all intents and purposes, able to begin provisioning voice services to its customers.

This allows Altech Technology Concepts to route customers’ calls far more cost effectively than a traditional telco would, and to do so regardless of where calls are terminated in the world.

And because the switch accepts a session initiation protocol (SIP) connections from a variety of sources including SIP clients, SIP gateways and directly from a voice over IP (VoIP) private branch exchange, integration of this solution with a customer’s existing legacy telephony environment is not only inexpensive, but quick.

In keeping with Altech Technology Concepts’ philosophy of uncompromising quality, it has put in place all of the technology required to ensure that the quality of the voice calls remains high and through continually monitoring and measuring the quality of calls, that customers continue deriving value from the solution implemented.

Web Solutions

The Internet is a dynamic and compelling environment, encouraging individuals, organisation and the public sector to share information, collaborate and bridge geographic distance with ease.

It’s also one of the most compelling mediums an organisation can make use of to spread awareness for the products and services they offer and to promote certain elements of their business strategy.

For these reasons, Altech Technology Concepts’ approach to web development is extremely ordered in nature and comprehensive in terms of the areas it covers.

Altech Technology Concepts’ aim when developing website is to understand a customer’s business and marketing needs before embarking on a project, so it can more effectively translate those priorities into an effective web strategy.

Although visual appeal is very important, balancing this with functionality and an understanding of bandwidth constraints in the South African market is equally important.

Once the website has been developed, Altech Technology Concepts’ understanding of search engine marketing and digital marketing activities, such as newsletters, mass mailers and the like can be employed to drive interest and traffic.

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