Comms Dealer

The Government's beefed up National Cyber Security Strategy and the £1.9bn of financial support that will underpin it has been welcomed by ITSPA but the industry body has called for Parliament to put more flesh on the bones of its plans to combat telephony fraud. 

Eli Katz, Chair of ITSPA, said: "Telecommunications fraud in an IP world creates extra challenges for the industry and, while we welcome the proposal to develop a new 24/7 reporting and triage capability in Action Fraud, we believe that more needs to be done to both improve cross-border cooperation around cybercrime as well as commit greater resource to bring cyber criminals to justice."

The international element involved in cyber crimes such as telecommunications fraud is an important area to consider. Cross-border cooperation is required to effectively tackle this crime, which continues to be used by criminals and terrorists as an important revenue stream.

Katz added: "ITSPA believes the option of communication providers refusing to pay for call traffic that originates from fraudulent sources needs to be explored further.

"We believe the necessary regulations are already in place but not currently enforced. Current estimates put the global cost of telecommunications fraud at $46 billion, adding 2% to the average user's phone bill. This solution would require improved cross-border cooperation but would effectively help resolve the problem in one fell swoop."

Equally ITSPA believes the extra funding announced today should in part help with greater resource and coordination within Government. Whilst ITSPA has developed good relations with the current organisations involved in tackling telephony fraud, more manpower is needed to encourage the industry to report fraudulent activity and in turn enabling law enforcement bodies to make successful prosecutions.

Katz stated: "It is difficult to bring a successful prosecution in telephony fraud and other cybercrime cases. We need to break the cycle of non-reporting. Equally, more resource within Government should help their liaison with industry to enable more prosecutions in the future. We look forward to a constructive future working relationship."

TeleWare has announced that, at midnight 1st November 2016, it achieved another milestone and successfully migrated its TeleWare Hosted Service fixed line call recording functions completely onto Microsoft's Azure cloud platform and data centres.

This was made possible after TeleWare made the world's first call completely routed, recorded and analysed through Azure on 13th September 2016.

The complete migration of the TeleWare Hosted Solution was achieved with no significant disruption to customers' normal service.

Calls will now be routed through the TeleWare London data centre and then directed onto the Microsoft Azure cloud for recording.

All fixed line call recordings will then be passed back into the TeleWare data centres for secure and compliant storage.

The move comes following rigorous testing and work to ensure reliability of service is the same as, if not better, than TeleWare's current solutions.

TeleWare worked with service providers to ensure a strong, reliable connection has been created so that call quality is not lost during the process.

Using Microsoft Azure's UK data centres also eases concerns regarding data sovereignty - data never leaves the UK. During routing, recording and analysing testing, TeleWare placed more than 10 times usual amounts of traffic through the platform, making sure that it was able to cope with abnormal demand levels.

Rob Corrigill, Chief Technology Officer, TeleWare said: "We have been through a steep learning curve to get to this point and there was a widely held belief that it wouldn't be possible at this stage of the cloud's development.

"From March to October we've gone from an idea to reality and are proud to be driving the industry one more step forward.

"Migrating onto the cloud will enable TeleWare to offer a service to customers which is scalable and will flex with their demands on a minute-by-minute basis.

"It also gives us the ability to leverage the full potential of the cloud. Above and beyond flexibility and other cloud benefits, both TeleWare and our customers will be able to take advantage of tools such as machine learning, Power BI, Streaming Analytics and, of course, our customer experience analytics."

Steve Haworth, CEO, added: "TeleWare was built on our fixed line recording products and it's fitting that this is the first product that is completely migrated onto the cloud.

"Earlier this year we achieved a world first call routed, recorded and analysed through Azure and that has paved the way for this momentous achievement. However, we won't be resting on our laurels and will swiftly be seeking out the next innovations and breakthroughs."

The Institute of Telecommunications Professionals (ITP) is encouraging all telecoms companies to prepare for the April 2017 apprenticeship levy deadline, following the Government's confirmation of the final details.

Launched to fund three million places for apprentices by 2020, the levy will commence on 6th April 2017 and will require employers with a wage bill of over £3m to contribute at a rate of 0.5%. Following its launch, and a period of consultation, the final plans have now been revealed.

The key details are:
• Employers not eligible to pay will receive funding towards the costs of training an apprentice.
• The government will provide an additional 20% payment to train 16 - 18 year olds whilst a ring-fenced amount of £60m will be kept to increase funding in disadvantaged areas.
• For those with less than 50 employees, 100% of the training costs will be paid by the government if taking on apprentices between the ages of 16-18.
• The same will apply to smaller employers taking on 19 - 24 year olds in care, or with an education and health care plan.
• Employers agreeing to train 16 - 18 year olds on apprenticeship frameworks will be offered an additional payment, equal to 20% of the funding band maximum, to help them adapt to the new funding model.
• The government has increased the amount of time businesses have to spend their funds from 18 to 24 months.
• Businesses will now also be able to transfer their digital funds to other employers in their supply chain or sector in 2018.

Ann Potterton, CEO of the ITP, commented: "Following the launch of the levy earlier in the year, many businesses have been anxiously waiting to learn the finer details and understand how this will impact their business.

"It's good news for smaller organisations, with access to more funding than we had originally anticipated. We have been running an apprenticeship scheme for the industry for the past three years, and have seen the benefits apprentices can bring to grow new talent within an organisation. We would encourage all telecoms companies to get prepared now in order to meet the April 2017 deadline."

The ITP is offering an exclusive consultancy service for the telecoms industry to help businesses get ready for, and understand, the implications of the levy.

It has been running its telecoms apprenticeship scheme of its kind since 2013 creating more than 60 roles during that time.

Following independent audits of its information security management systems (ISMS), supplier of billing and provisioning solutions, Union Street Technologies, has been certified by the British Standards Institution (BSI) for the ISO/IEC 27001 standard in Information Security Management.

The internationally recognised ISO 27000 family of standards provides organisations with guidance on how to manage data assets securely and ISO 27001 provides a rigorous set of requirements for ISMS.

By adhering to these requirements, organisations are able to establish highly organised, risk-based methods of managing personnel, IT systems and processes in a way that ensures sensitive data is protected.

MD Tony Cook said: "Over the past few years there have been a number of high profile data breaches all over the world. These led us to completely re-evaluate our approach to data security. Protecting our partners' data is of critical importance to us and we have an absolute desire to adopt best practice in this area."

According to Cook, complying with the standards set out by ISO 27001 required significant investment.

He explained: "Qualifying for ISO has required us to make some big investments into our security and hardware infrastructure. This has included the deployment of new firewalls, multi factor authentication and building a completely new cloud environment to host our solutions.

"We have also appointed a dedicated Standards and Security Officer to continually assess our security processes, to ensure they are followed correctly and to make certain that our organisation operates to the highest standards for data security.

"Perhaps the biggest investment of all was in training our 90 staff on our ISMS processes. Getting all staff involved and training them effectively is absolutely the key to success in this area. It won't matter how robust your security processes are if your team are not adhering to them properly."

Juniper Bridge has launched Sonar 2.0, the first piece of software within its updated product portfolio.

Sonar 2.0 is configured connectivity monitoring software that manages and monitors any IP device, on any network, anywhere in the world.

It allows the configuration of specific reporting using SMTP and is secure by protecting individual ports in the device.

Sonar can also be combined with Juni24/7, by outsourcing the configuration to Juniper Bridges's 24/7 technical support team to ensure that end users can view, manage and modify the alerting and reporting at anytime.

Sonar works by utilising an operational dashboard that displays geo locations of client UK and global sites.

Central administrators have visibility and the connectivity status of all live sites in real time, if any of these sites go down, proactive email and SMS alerts are automatically distributed to key personnel, to get these sites up and running as soon as possible.

Sonar can be used for both voice data monitoring and fully scalable allowing for additional sites and employees for monitoring purposes.

Founder Steve Larkin said: "2016 has been landmark year for Juniper Bridge and we're excited to finally launch Sonar as the first piece of software within our new product portfolio.

"Sonar is a versatile platform that proactively manages the network and customer sites using simple protocols. It not only provides an overview of what's happening now but also helps businesses improve performance by analysing data."

ITS Technology Group has won a contract with Herefordshire Council to provide a high-speed fibre network on Skylon Park, Rotherwas, the region's first high technology-enabled business park.

The services will be delivered using Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) along duct infrastructure already developed around Skylon Park.

Bill Jackson, Chairman of the Enterprise Zone, said: "We, with council backing, have already invested in ducting, around 4.5 km so far, in preparation for fibre based broadband services to be installed.

"ITS will add to that network, and install fibre through it to provide services to customers.

"Businesses need superfast and ultrafast broadband if they are to compete with other companies across the globe.

"It helps level a playing field for our investors, many of whom are dealing in complex and sensitive information, which they need to share across multiple sites around the UK and the world in different time zones. They simply cannot wait for hours to download or upload data."

Roy Shelton, CEO at ITS, added: "ITS has now signed a number of similar agreements to extend and commercialise councils' assets in order to provide competitively priced and swiftly deployed high speed broadband services.

"This agreement to design, build and operate Skylon Park's high speed fibre network will enable businesses to have further competitive advantage and support Herefordshire Council's vision of a truly technology enabled business park."

The Government's updated cyber security strategy has been welcomed by ISPA which applauds a more interventionist approach, including measures to block malware attacks through a Government DNS filter.

ISPA will be working with its members to understand the implications of a more proactive technical approach so that concerns around the impact on existing infrastructure and services, privacy etc are fully worked through across industry.

ISPA Chair James Blessing said: "ISPs are investing heavily in their cyber security and ISPA fully supports making the Internet a more secure place. Now that the strategy has been published and confirms a move to a more interventionist approach, we look forward to working with members and Government as to what this means for the UK Internet industry.

"ISPA believes that a partnership approach is required to most effectively address cyber security, with law enforcement, Internet companies, individual users, ISPs and businesses working to protect networks, follow good cyber hygiene, mitigate threats and bring offenders to justice."

G-Technology, a brand of Western Digital, has appointed Beta Distribution as an authorised pan-European distributor for its range of storage solutions.

Ted Harris, Business Manager at Beta, said: "We have established a strong reputation in the creative reseller channels across Europe with our targeted approach and tailored product portfolio. G-Technology continues to complement this offering."

Pangea has launched a pre-Ethernet solution that enables telecoms resellers to collect revenue from their Ethernet deals from the day they make the sale, providing instant connectivity to customers via a 4G-connected Pangea router.

The router works as an initial connectivity device until the Ethernet line becomes active three to six months post-order, meaning an invoice can be drawn up and revenue collected immediately by the partner.

Once the Ethernet has been delivered, the Pangea router can then be used as a failsafe or disaster recovery option, should the original Ethernet ever go down.

Pangea can also offer this service with a Static IP that allows for various VoIP and hosted products to be sold at the same time.

Pangea MD Dan Cunliffe said: "Having worked with telecoms companies for many years, and especially with those focused on the channel, we know that the book to bill time for Ethernet is a challenge.

"It is unfortunately not something that is going to be solved anytime soon by the Ethernet infrastructure providers.

"However, we do know that by implementing our pre-Ethernet product you can access these revenues sooner and help to keep your customers happier.

"Furthermore, the service can be seamlessly changed to a disaster recovery service or given a public static IP once the Ethernet is in place."

Mobileum has been acquired by Audax Private Equity, a private equity firm focused on building middle market companies.

"Audax is an ideal partner for Mobileum at this stage in our growth and the partnership places us securely at the centre of an exciting time in the telecom industry," stated Bobby Srinivasan, CEO of Mobileum.

"Analytics enabled back-end systems coupled with conversational engagement solutions will be key catalysts in helping CSPs to compete and re-position themselves in the new digital economy and those that can best combine these solutions will thrive.

"Working with Audax, we expect to be able to significantly increase our M&A activities and continue to help our customers to optimise revenue and accelerate digital transformation."

Previously known as Roamware, Mobileum was founded in 2001 and has since sold its roaming and analytics solutions to over 600 mobile operator customers worldwide.