One of the Isle of Man’s key strengths is its world-class telecommunications infrastructure. This caters for the full range of voice and data communications requirements of both residents and businesses.
The Island has a history of being at the forefront of the introduction of new telecoms technologies. Through network operator, Manx Telecom, it was the first nation in the world to launch a 3.5G mobile broadband service and the first in Europe to launch a 3G mobile service.
Manx Telecom has also invested £25M in a Next Generation Network (NGN) which converges mobile, broadband and fixed line services on to a resilient IP network
As well as Manx Telecom, Cable and Wireless also offer a range of telecoms services through its ‘Sure’ brand, and has invested over £10M in its Isle of Man network.
Isle of Man businesses and residents enjoy 100% broadband availability offering speeds of up to 40Mbps downstream and up to 2Mbps upstream.
Off-Island Connectivity
Carrier class connectivity to and from the Isle of Man is provided via five discrete fibre cables owned by BT, Cable and Wireless and the Isle of Man Government-owned e-llan Communications Ltd which allow the creation of high bandwidth fibre optic rings connecting the Island with the North of England and Ireland.
These links can employ ‘self-healing’ technology which guarantees that if a fault occurs at any part of the link, voice and data traffic is seamlessly re-routed in the other direction. Similar resilient ring technology is also used for the Island’s internal delivery networks.
The transmission capacity available to the Island can be numbered in terrabytes, effectively future-proofing the Island’s telecommunications needs.
Regulation
The telecoms and broadcasting industries on the Isle of Man are regulated and licensed by the Isle of Man Communications Commission, which is a statutory board of the Department of Home Affairs.
Data Hosting
Behind the Isle of Man's e-business sector lies a sophisticated data hosting infrastructure served by five state of the art data-hosting centres owned and operated by Manx Telecom, WiManx, Domicilium, Continent 8 and Netcetera.
The Island also has a sophisticated internet hosting infrastructure. There is a choice of service providers whose range of services include hosting, managed services, internet security services, connectivity and consultancy. Web hosting business solutions are offered to businesses of all sizes.
Supporting this strong market sector is an extremely robust and reliable power network which is the envy of the UK operators in terms of its customer minutes lost performance. With plenty of spare generating capacity, diverse fuel supplies and connection to third party electricity and gas grid systems, there is no barrier to growth.
Power
The Isle of Man generates all its own power needs, including energy from renewable sources such as a hydro electric plant. The Island also exports power to the UK via a subsea cable.
The Island is also committed to power diversity, renewable energy and reaching the Kyoto and Rio targets for CO2 emissions.