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Virgin Media Business continues the bandwidth battle with Big Red VPN

An endless battle for bandwidth is stifling innovation and productivity in British organisations, according to new research by Virgin Media Business. Rather than driving innovation, CIOs across the UK are caught in an annual cycle of budget negotiations and costly upgrades just to keep their Virtual Private Networks (VPN) running smoothly. In response to this growing frustration, Virgin Media Business today launched Big Red VPN, giving CIOs the freedom to deliver more through ICT.

An independent study commissioned by Virgin Media Business revealed that 60 per cent of UK CIOs want to help make their organisations more agile through the use of technology. But with over one third caught up in the yearly cycle of upgrading their VPN, at an average cost of £30,000 each time, CIOs are shackled to a repetitive battle for more budget, just to keep up with existing needs.

Big Red VPN provides a clear and simple alternative to the restricted bandwidth connections that are hindering innovation. Three packages are available, providing unconstrained bandwidth of 10Mbit/s, 100Mbit/s and 1Gbit/s respectively for a single, flat price. It gives business and public sector organisations as much bandwidth as they need at a fixed cost, without the hassle of complex in-life network upgrades or hefty upgrade charges.

Commenting on the launch, Virgin Media Business’s managing director, Mark Heraghty, said: “In a time when all organisations are looking to cut costs while supporting their objectives, it’s critical that technology drives innovation rather than hinders it. But the pressure of bandwidth constraints continues to be a hugely expensive, disruptive and frustrating challenge to overcome.”

“Big Red VPN is the next phase in our commitment to setting IT free. By tackling the traditional pain points for organisations, we’re helping CIOs move away from playing a game of catch-up, to enabling their organisations to plan for growth and innovation – without the constant worry of whether they have the capacity to support it. We believe in unrestricted innovation. We’ve got the network that’s capable of supporting that. There are only two telco providers in the UK with a national capability to do this.”

It’s not just the monetary costs of upgrades that’s a cause of concern. Caught in an upgrade cycle, more than half (52 per cent) of UK CIOs say they are constantly frustrated by the amount of time they have to spend securing budget for IT improvements. Time that could be spent focusing on improving the business.

“As the person trying to balance increasingly tight IT budgets while ensuring their organisation has the right technology to enable growth, CIOs have a unique challenge to deal with,” said Alison Adams, head of VPN products at Virgin Media Business. “Big Red VPN is set to end the upgrade battle for CIOs by giving back their most precious commodity – time.”