LONDON -- Research commissioned by Viatel has shown that around half of IT managers expect their bandwidth requirements to grow by over 50% in the next five years, but do not expect to see more than a 5% increase in their budgets. With other pressures such as storage, green technologies and compliance strongly competing for budget, and a significant proportion of the survey (28%) believing that their bandwidth requirements would double within five years, companies may stand to face serious WAN problems in the future.

"Having adequate WAN bandwidth is critical for almost all business activities today," said Michael Davies, product director, Viatel. "If companies do not have sufficient bandwidth, a number of problems can occur, including delays to external communications and business critical applications such as order processing, billing, ERP, finance and sales.This can translate directly to a loss of revenue as these processes are held up in congested networks. Considering that 20% of the survey expects their bandwidth requirements to grow by 150% or more, the problem may well reach boiling point in the next few years."

Viatel Holding (Bermuda) Ltd. (OTC: VTLAF)