Colony provides co-working spaces in Manchester City Centre. Across six locations (and with two brand new venues opening early 2025), they offer a diverse range of workspace solutions including private office space for companies of all sizes. Hot desking, private office space, event space, meeting rooms and even a podcast studio.
Born from the idea that creatives, entrepreneurs and freelancers need an optimised environment to come together to work, now, eight years later, you’ll find a wide range of tenants from all sectors within their venues, including those from the tech, media, creative, recruitment and design sectors.
Colony came to Telcom at a time when the business was growing and the company wanted to elevate its internet offer; to continue to attract the vibrant, buzzy sectors that are key to Colony’s sense of community. Obviously, all of these sectors are in the business of sharing huge files at speed, collaborating constantly, and using cloud-based design tools, so there’s no room for laggy connections or awkward access.
The challenge
Colony came to Telcom with some specifics in mind. Most critical among the deciding factors for the provider were…
Rapid response: an ISP that would respond to tenant queries and quickly resolve issues.
Money matters: a cost effective but reliable solution to make sure tenants continue to receive value for money.
High on the capacity: fully managed, high capacity WiFi and LAN, so that tenants’ needs could be supported.
The solution
We supply 10Gbps primary fibre internet connections into each of Colony’s venues, and monitor and manage WiFi and LAN networks across their sites.
We also provide Colony’s VoIP solution across their offices. Clear-cut comms, over the internet. So Colony’s many tenants can video conference, chat and text over the UK’s fastest business internet too. The VoIP solution future-proofs Colony’s comms set up, ready for the PSTN switch off in 2027.
We also support tailored offers for specific tenants. For example, providing dedicated lines and static and private IPs, where the individual business calls for it. For businesses needing a direct line, we portion off part of the venue’s connection so it can be piped directly into their space.
The outcome
“What we offer to our clients is a productive workspace. And a huge part of that is having reliable, fast internet. Working with Telcom, we get close service, technical support, and technical delivery. The product works. What more can I say?”
- Alex Campbell, Co-Founder and Head of Product, Colony Coworking
With Telcom accountable for installation, management and operation of Colony’s connectivity and fibre network across their venues, the business still has the peace of mind of a single point of contact, simplifying ops and encouraging a close relationship.
And in terms of new business; for prospects interested in the internet offer, Colony is able to tell them it’s never gone down. And if there ever was a problem, direct access to the provider, who owns and manages the network, ensures whatever’s wrong is resolved quickly.