Celebrating a decade of connectivity progress

Wireless technologies have been disrupted beyond recognition in that time, but our mission has always been the same: Venn Telecom wants everyone everywhere to easily access the benefits of world-class connectivity.

Creating reliable connectivity when it seemed impossible

“I just wanted to fix unreliable connectivity and make sure it worked – wherever and whenever it was needed,” said Pierre-Gilles, our CEO and founder.

Venn’s vision began ten years ago, in February 2014, with Pierre-Gilles as a solo entrepreneur carrying out installations and remote deployments. At the time, he says, operators were not meeting the growing connectivity demands of cloud transformation in industries like construction.

“You needed to wait two or three months before getting a connection - until then, nothing can start. Imagine how impacted they were. I thought, okay, that's a problem I could solve.”

To solve the triple problem of coverage, speed and stability, he developed a solution using Peplink routers to combine multiple mobile networks for better connectivity. This led to the founding of Venn Telecom in 2014, which initially served the construction industry in Belgium.

As Venn steadily grew, it established partnerships and adapted to new technologies, searching for faster and more stable connectivity solutions.

And then, in 2019, everything changed.

“Starlink for us was really out of this earth. Suddenly, the problems of coverage, speed and stability were covered at almost 80%.”

“All the needs we were covering yesterday were solved - which can be terrifying - but on the other side, our objective has always been to help. We only saw the positive. I thought, okay, think of all the problems we can solve. Let's jump in. So, we did.”

With Starlink’s advent, the technologies have changed beyond recognition, but Venn’s approach has remained the same; we continue to use focused innovation to solve tricky connectivity challenges.

A decade in wireless innovation

The core of what we do is reliably connecting people, says our CTO, Martin Langmaid.

“If you can trust your network is going to be available, you can build on top of that. Operational excellence and capabilities can be digitally transformed because you know your connectivity will always be there.”

In the last decade, in our quest to provide connectivity excellence, Venn Telecom has always pushed the innovation envelope, says Martin.

“When Starlink came along, we showed how determined we are to innovate and to adopt new things. A large part of my job is to keep an eye on innovations and to make sure we take advantage of those - really leverage them for the best things we can for our customers.”

A lot has changed - what does 10 years of connectivity innovation look like? Here’s a short timeline :

1. Hello world: Pierre-Gilles Dehaye founded Venn in 2014.
2. In 2015, we launched our maritime and construction services.
3. 2016 saw demand, and the company grew - we opened in France & the Netherlands to support international clients.
4. In 2017, we began full enterprise deployments, and Venn expanded to more industries.
5. 2018 was a banner year for us as we doubled our employees - and our revenue.
6. An essential step forward was taken in 2020 as we built our portal for mobile and managed routers with Kenobi.
7. We became active on all continents and also one of the first authorised Starlink resellers in 2022.
8. In 2023, we opened new offices in the UK and Brazil, taking Venn Telecom to the global market.

In 2024 and beyond, our expansion means we are fast becoming the international enterprise that we support. We understand the complex connectivity needs of growing global businesses - because we are one!

A decade of partnership

In the last decade, we have partnered with pioneering companies to design and deliver innovative solutions.

We’d like to highlight and thank some of our partners, friends and fellow travellers on this 10-year journey:

• Peplink has always had our back from our earliest days. Our C-team has always believed in the power of Peplink’s pioneering technologies - and they keep proving us right every time! For example, their newB One 5G offers a powerful, flexible and future-proof solution to growing business demands.
• When Starlink took to the skies, we saw the immense potential of this disruptive and innovative technology. We’re proud to say they saw our potential too, making us one of the very first authorised resellers.
• There are too many to list here, but we work with and thank providers of global data worldwide every day, united in our goal to ensure reliable coverage.
• And we couldn’t have done it without all the people: all of our staff, past and present; our clients, our supporters and our peers; and of course, you. Thank you!

Where will the next 10 years take us?

The future for Venn is global - and the future is global coverage, says Martin. “Venn is always focused on adopting innovations that help our customers and simplifying them to make them deliverable, operationally, internationally.”

“As we grow and expand, we want anyone to be able to contact us with a connectivity challenge and solve it for them fast.”

“We want it to be just as efficient to deploy in Australia as it is in Austria, in Belgium or Brazil, in Mexico or Malaga. Wherever you are, Venn Telecom will deliver the very best, the latest, the most transformational technology extraordinarily quickly on a global scale.”

We have high hopes for the connected future as Starlink and Peplink continue to bring new and more cost-effective models to the market.

This has a big impact on businesses when they make choices to improve or add to wireless connectivity on existing company networks. Implementation is already differing across industries, as network architecture can be tailored to industry demands and to address any cybersecurity challenges.

No one can see exactly what the future holds, but we can see infinite potential. Technologies change, but our mission stays the same as Pierre-Gilles’s goal on day one: creating reliable connectivity wherever and whenever it is needed.