By Kathy Xu, Contributing Editor
GTT Communications has reached global scale with its cloud networking solutions, delivering network transport services, Wide Area Networking (WAN), internet, managed services and voice communications for enterprises around the world. As a number of recent moves have extended its low latency network connectivity between major financial exchanges and secure, private connections to leading cloud service providers (CSPs), the company has positioned itself as a challenger to the incumbent global enterprise network providers.
Through its acquisition of Interoute, one of the largest independent fiber network operators in Europe, GTT has gained access to a fiber network that covers more than 70,000 kilometers across both Western and Eastern Europe. The substantial expansion of GTT’s European network, adding to its extensive North American footprint and presence in Asia and Latin America, positions the company as the leading global challenger network provider.
The Case for Challenging the Incumbents
GTT is already a Top Five, Tier 1 IP network, bringing traffic directly online and transporting it seamlessly across its network, to any client location or destination in the cloud. It also offers the widest range of network access options, making it simple and cost-effective to integrate new locations and add bandwidth as needed.
What differentiates GTT from other Tier 1 IP networks is its globally available SD-WAN solution, which provides an unparalleled breadth of local access. By partnering with nearly 2,000 network access providers all around the world, GTT is able to offer Ethernet over Copper (EoC), DSL, cable, wireless services, as well as fiber in a bundle. This enables GTT to offer its customers the diversity and redundancy that they require at the application layer.
Many customers of incumbent Tier 1 providers continue to face common network issues such as network complexity, fragmented security and expensive bandwidth. This makes the field susceptible to a challenger that can better adapt to evolving enterprise requirements, particularly as they continue to move away from MPLS networks and toward IP-based architecture. This is where GTT comes in, offering its SD-WAN solution, which builds upon existing network architecture to provide growing businesses with the agility, flexibility and scalability they need to enhance global connectivity, optimize network availability and performance, and provide comprehensive end-to-end security.
Growth Continues
The strategic acquisition of Interoute is number 40 for GTT, which has built itself up and evolved rapidly over the past 12 years. Those acquisitions have followed a pattern, with each company considered for optimal fit into GTT’s product set, complementing its cloud networking services and integrating seamlessly and rapidly.
Delivering the capabilities that it has built up with a combination of simplicity, speed, and agility is GTT’s technology pitch as it challenges the Tier 1 network market. The company is also striving to differentiate itself from its competitors by taking a more customer-focused approach to working with clients which includes offering a common reporting platform and flexible contract terms. That approach also extends to service activation, with proactive procedures like deploying a SIM card and wireless service to a customer turning on an SD-WAN service but waiting for fiber installation to launch a remote site, reducing a potential months-long wait to days.
Adding a challenger to the Tier 1 networking market is increasing competition, to the ultimate benefit of all enterprises. With the extra route kilometers it has picked up in Europe through the acquisition of Interoute, and the extra miles it is prepared to go to meet unique client needs, GTT is poised to mount that challenge.
