Comms Dealer

Comms365 is targeting the fast growing market for Software Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) solutions where demand is forecast to drive revenues to circa $6bn in 2020, according to IDC. Meanwhile, Gartner expects 30% of enterprises to be using SD-WAN products in all their branches by 2019.

"The proliferation of data being consumed on a day-to-day basis by businesses is demanding a completely new way of managing networks," stated Comms365 MD Mike van Bunnens.

"Business owners and IT managers need to gain control over their critical and non-critical application traffic streams, utilise the combined bandwidth of dedicated private circuits and broadband access links for cost-efficiency and still deliver the experience their users expect and require."

In response to this market demand Comms365 has added Prism to its cloud portfolio, a SD-WAN application control service.

"Prism provides organisations with a lower total cost of ownership of their WAN while providing the equivalent and enhanced capability of a MPLS network," claimed van Bunnens.

"Legacy, expensive private networks are becoming saturated with cloud-based traffic. And SME businesses are increasingly utilising Software-as-a-Service from cloud-based providers for essential business productivity.

"SD-WAN is rapidly emerging as a new way to design and deploy a WAN, giving end users, network engineers and service providers the ability to adjust, optimise, automate and test their WAN connections through software controls."

More than one in three consumers are deterred from using more apps due to security concerns, reckons research by Rackspace.

The firm calculates that with the UK app economy estimated to be worth £7.1bn in 2016 and £8.8bn in 2017, these concerns could potentially cost the UK £2.bn in 2016, rising to nearly £3.2bn the following year.
 
Highlighting the fears of consumers, the research also showed that a third of those surveyed are concerned about the privacy of their data when using apps.
 
Darren Norfolk, UK MD of Rackspace, said: "Our research shows that security and reliability are the biggest concerns for consumers when using online services.

"Both these issues often boil down to having a robust and scalable infrastructure in place.

"Having access to expertise on how to run the infrastructure and plan for traffic peaks is something that can sometimes be forgotten. Look at Pokemon Go which went down shortly after the app was launched. The technology itself wasn't the problem, it was the fact that the IT team planned for 50 times less traffic than what they eventually received."
 

Children's hospice Julia's House has benefitted from a £1,600 donation made by Dorset-based Micron following a fund raising run in the Bournemouth 10k event by Team Superfast, a group of five Micron staff. They trained for six months prior to the event and smashed their original £750 target.

"The team did us proud and put in a fantastic effort," enthused Jonny White, Group Development Manager. "We're already planning to go bigger and better at next year's event."

Pictured l-r: Nina Thompson, Maxwell Brotherwood, Anna Williams, Gemma Hull and Dan Molyneux.

Six Degrees Group (6DG) has passed the £100m revenue milestone just five years after being founded by CEO Alastair Mills.

The company has grown from five to 500 employees and Mills attributes its stellar growth to a converged technology approach accelerated through solutions such as UCaaS, the expansion of data centre space, growth of cloud platforms and the roll-out of a next generation network.

Acquisitions also played a key role in expanding 6DG's portfolio and expertise. These include the purchase of providers such as Capital Support, Carrenza and Insite.

In the coming months Mills plans to develop application monitoring, managed compliance and security-as-as-service solutions while continuing to expand 6DG's public cloud integration services for Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.

Mills said: "Six Degrees has achieved a great deal in its first five years with a healthy mix of organic and acquisitive growth.

"For the coming years we will focus on three areas: To be innovative in the solutions we create, to deliver a more personalised service and nurture a great company culture that attracts and develops talented people."

An important element of 6DG's CSR culture is its work with WeSeeHope, a charity that supports children orphaned or isolated by extreme poverty in Southern and Eastern Africa. The company has so far raised almost £400k. It also holds the Investors in People Silver accreditation.

Giant images of BT's classic red K6 telephone box were projected onto several of the company's central London buildings, including its HQ near St Pauls, to mark the design icon's 80th anniversary on October 5th.

The K6, or 'Jubilee Kiosk', was designed by English architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (1880-1960) and first introduced in 1936 to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of King George V.

The kiosk became the first standard phone box across the UK.

Scott was also responsible for designing landmarks such as Battersea Power Station, Bankside Power Station (now home to Tate Modern), Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral, which also contains a K6, and Waterloo Bridge.

David Hay, Head of BT Heritage, said: "The red telephone box and in particular the classic K6 is an important part of the UK's history and regularly tops the polls as a design and cultural icon. They're recognised by people around the world. Many are now found in countries as diverse as the US, Cuba, Brazil, Switzerland, Hungary and Germany."  

Out of a total number of 46,000 working public payphone kiosks on the streets of the UK, around 8,000 are traditional red phone boxes, of which the majority are K6s.

The architectural significance of the traditional phone box has seen 2,400 kiosks designated as grade II listed buildings.

BT is also providing for sale a limited number of refurbished examples of traditional phone boxes.

To commemorate the K6's 80th birthday a small number of kiosks are being painted in a Union Jack design instead of the standard bright red.

Since 2008 BT has encouraged communities where their local phone box is not being used to make calls to buy it with the payphone removed for £1 under the Adopt a Kiosk scheme.

More than 3,500 kiosks have been adopted and transformed into a variety of new uses. Some have been fitted with life-saving defibrillation machines, others have been turned into art galleries, mini libraries, exhibitions and information centres.

Neil Scoresby, Head of Payphones, BT, added: "The success of the Adopt a Kiosk scheme has shown the huge amount of affection communities throughout the UK have for red phone boxes, particularly the K6.

"They're loved around the world, so much so that lots of people have actually bought one from us. Owning your own phone box has been a huge hit and we think the Union Jack design will prove to be popular."

TeleWare has achieved Microsoft silver competencies for Data Analytics, Data Platform and Data Centre.

Paul Millar, Chief Innovation Officer, TeleWare, said: "Being a part of the Microsoft Partner Network is central to our business and these three competencies showcase our expertise in today's technology market and demonstrate our knowledge of Microsoft's products and services.

"We're always looking for more opportunities to demonstrate our expertise and are constantly evaluating which competencies will best suit our products and business."

Gateshead-based Advantex Network Solutions is investing more than £350k in new facilities, doubling capacity at the firm's Follingsby Park-based head office.
 
The company secured a £75k grant from regional growth fund Let's Grow North East as part of an overall funding package to support its expansion plans which include the development of a new data centre alongside additional office space to house a growing workforce.
 
New training and product demonstration facilities are also being developed as part of a package of measures that come on the back of 40% growth in sales for Advantex in the last financial year.
 
The firm has also earmarked part of the investment towards the development of new superfast broadband services provided to businesses across Teesside and Wearside.
 
Following the cash injection, the company will be eyeing further growth in the next 12 months as it targets a £6m turnover by 2017.

Co-founder and Sales Director Stephen O'Connell said: "We're seeing strong traction as economic confidence looks to hold-up and businesses continue to invest while eschewing traditional approaches to IT provision and service support.
 
"We're also pleased to be able to continue to invest in recruiting talented people.
 
"The next few months promises to be even busier as we look to develop our presence further in core sectors.
 
"Education providers, which will be facing a changing IT landscape over the next year, can benefit from new strategic IT and wider commercial and e-Learning packages and technologies."

Advantex was established in 2002 and is an accredited Microsoft, Cisco and Mitel partner currently employing more than 60 people.

The sales operation at Cardiff-based comms firm Glamorgan Telecom has new leadership following the appointments of Michael Kennelly as Sales Director and Joe Volosky as Head of Telesales.

The pair are tasked with expanding Glamorgan Telecom's presence across south Wales and south west England.

Their appointments follow a MBO by MD Kelly Bolderson who aims to increase Glamorgan's revenues by £1m a year until 2018.

Bolderson said: "Michael and Joe's experience and skills will be a huge benefit to us as we continue to expand our service offering across Wales and the south west."

Kennelly added: "Technology has advanced at pace in recent years and there is a great opportunity for us to provide cost-effective solutions to our clients and drive growth. My job is to make sure we communicate that clearly."

Volosky said: "This role will allow me to play a big part in how the telesales department operates, and there is plenty of room to grow and nurture the team to support our prospective and current customers."

Pictured (l-r) Joe Volosky and Michael Kennelly

The latest version of Tollring's iCall Suite is designed for use in the cloud, on-premise or as a hybrid model.

The new multi-tenant call analytics and call recording service for data visualisation and fraud detection enables organisations to monitor business-critical call metrics by accessing real-time reports, intuitive dashboards, visual wallboards and call recordings via live tiles that are optimised for mobile devices. 
 
Tollring MD Tony Martino stated: "Our launch comes at a time when more and more end customers are reviewing their business processes and communications strategies as they consider migrating to cloud telephony.

"For those who are not ready to embrace the cloud, they no longer need to choose between the previous desktop version or the online version - they can now use one system with no loss of features."

Channel partners such as BT, Mitel and BroadSoft are already using iCall Suite 2016. 

"Customers monitor inbound and outbound calls including calls queuing and how many times a customer has called with no response," added Martino. "Every unreturned missed call is a missed opportunity and can result in a dissatisfied customer and increased churn."

He pointed out that companies that analyse their business communications are proven to gain significant advantage over competitors.
 
"The channel also benefits from competitive advantage through features such as utilisation analytics across multiple customers/tiers of partners, providing valuable insight," added Martino.

"Advice based on usage profiles highlights variances in behaviour. And revenue assurance tools are becoming not only a way for the channel to bill accurately, but even more importantly, a way to differentiate themselves, adding real value to their service offering."

iCall Suite 2016 also offers proactive fraud management using call limit profiling methods; self-provisioning in the cloud; a pay-as-you-use commercial model with opportunities to white label.

Three acquisitions by Direct Response Contact Centres (DRCCs) have kicked off a new phase of expansion according to Group CEO Ian Mitchell.

Ipswich-based Ansaback and its sister business CallScripter have been bagged along with Kent-based GoResponse.

The deals were financed through DRCC's existing liquidity as well as an acquisition finance facility from investment firm Boost&Co.

"These acquisitions represent a new and exciting phase in the continued development of our business," stated Mitchell.

"Uniting these companies means we can open the door for organisations to easily embrace seamless multi-channel communications, business analytics and digitalisation. This offers significant new avenues of opportunity for both clients and our employees."

Chris Robinson, founder and Chairman, added: "We are poised for continued growth via future acquisitions and sustained organic sales."

There are no plans to change the executive management or employment structures of the acquired businesses.