PETALING JAYA: RedTone International Bhd is aggressively moving forward within the enterprise space, positioning itself as a WiFi infrastructure builder that offers end-to-end solutions.
The company has traditionally been focused on delivering corporate voice call, Internet and managed network services, but has shifted focus to WiFi infrastructure and network solutions.
Group CEO Lau Bik Soon said the voice-call market is not growing but remains a cash cow for the company.
And “with data being a huge growth engine, we are perfectly positioned to deliver total enterprise-class solutions to our customers,” he said.
He said that because corporate clients have stringent requirements with a need for comprehensive service level agreements and support, RedTone offers a money-back guarantee if standards are not met.
There are many benefits to the deployment of RedTone’s WiFi network solutions according to Lau, such as cheaper deployment costs, large scalability with access control, and manageability tools.
“There is a common misconception that WiFi is very slow, however if you build proper infrastructure to support the amount of traffic, speed does not become an issue,” he said.
Lau noted that Malaysia is still a very young market but widespread free WiFi access has made people very receptive to the technology.
He said RedTone has the expertise and capability to acquire sites necessary for such infrastructure building for its enterprise clients, especially those in the telecommunications space.
“We have the solutions to supplement the explosive demand for data, using WiFi to offload traffic from current 3G networks,” he said.
Current projects that the company is undertaking include building 1,500 WiFi hotspots in Penang for the state government, expected to be completed in April.
To date it has provided network solutions to 4,500 commercial buildings and hotels, and has built more than 3,000 WiFi hotspots for Telekom Malaysia Bhd.
With 200,000 registered users, the total number of hotspots built is expected to reach 5,000 by year’s end.
Asked how its WiFi business strategy would be affected by the eventual rollout of Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks, which are able to support a larger amount of data transfers, Lau said he did not see the two as competing technologies.
“I believe they will complement each other, and it is more about what is the best technology to deploy for a particular purpose, taking into account the environment,” he said.
For example, he said, WiFi would be best for in-building networks while LTE would be the better option in suburban areas.
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