Comms Dealer

Dublin's Temple Street Children's University Hospital has been fitted out with free public Wi-Fi following a collaboration between wireless network provider Xirrus and Irish telco eir.

The Victorian hospital, which cares for 145,000 children per year, presented challenges during the implementation with due consideration given to the historical status of the building.

Shane Buckley, CEO of Xirrus, said: "There can be no higher priority for Xirrus than to provide reliable and safe Internet access to sick children and their parents in a hospital environment.

"In partnership with eir, we had the combined experience, technical expertise and Wi-Fi solution to connect patients and their families to a fast, reliable and secure Wi-Fi network."

The project included components such as a 200Mb ultrafast broadband connection and a content filtering solution.

The network installation includes Advantage Wi-Fi cloud management and application control to ensure that the Hospital can manage network accessibility, as well as content filtering, security and controls.

TalkTalk Telecom's full year results (12 months to 31st March 2016) saw EBITDA come in at £260m with TalkTalk Business revenues accounting for 30% of the Group, growing by over 5% year-on-year.

The on-net wholesale base, comprising the retail customers of businesses such as the Post Office and Utility Warehouse, grew year-on-year, as did TalkTalk Business' direct channel on-net base.

TalkTalk Business has also seen demand for data services continue to rise, with over 9,000 new high speed data lines connected and a strong pipeline of orders for the end of the year, up 23.7% year-on-year.

High speed data now accounts for 31% of the Group's corporate revenue, offsetting a decline in voice revenues (-16.2%).

TalkTalk Business MD Charles Bligh stated: "We expect to see this growth continue over the next year as we focus on strengthening our next generation network and delivering new services such as MyNet, SIP and unified communications to both our partners and direct customers."

VoIP Unlimited celebrated its 10th anniversary with 'petrol head partners' during a VIP day at Silverstone that included a behind the scene tour of Sahara Force India's F1 operations, a driving experience at Porsche's Silverstone track and a Porsche Cayenne off-road experience.

VoIP Unlimited MD Mark Pillow said: "It was a great opportunity to not only meet our partners face-to-face and gain a closer working relationship, but yo also say thank you for working with us."

Nimans has extended its own staff training programme and launched a Training Academy for resellers who want their staff to undertake a foundation course for telecoms.

The Basic Telephony course is designed for comms novices and includes information on telephony, mobile networking, IT services, convergence, UC and VoIP.

The first one-day session was attended by 12 people from seven reseller companies.

Nimans' Learning & Development Officer, Matthew Broadbent, stated: "Resellers found the course useful and it will be the first of many. We are looking to expand into other areas such as sales and management training."

Herts-based communications platform builder SpliceCom is claiming a march on its rivals because systems it sold as long ago as 2002 are 'Cloud Ready'.

"The fact that we planned for the future and got our product design absolutely right first time around means that all our existing on-premise voice systems in the field are cloud ready," said Robin Hayman, SpliceCom's Director of Marketing and Product Management.

"This offers our installed customer base investment protection and choice as they start to consider the migration of their voice solutions into the cloud to mirror their IT strategy."

Hayman claims SpliceCom's voice architecture allows existing on-premise customers to retain their current IP phones and system licences when migrating to SpliceCom cloud based systems.

And those wanting all the proven benefits of a cloud/on-premise hybrid solution, can retain their existing Call Servers to provide 100% on-site resilience should there be primary trunk issues, with local breakout for ISDN or SIP trunks.
 
"Customers wanting all the proven benefits of a cloud/on-premise hybrid solution can retain their existing Call Servers to provide 100% on-site resilience should there be primary trunk issues, with local breakout for ISDN or SIP trunk," continued Hayman.

"Just as the very first system we shipped back in 2002 is still in everyday use running the latest levels of software, so now, customers using our on-premise solutions have an easy way to migrate to cloud and hybrid solutions with minimal disruption and minimal cost."

ITSPA has announced the winners of its 8th annual awards, designed to celebrate innovation and best practice within the sector. The event took place at the Deck at the National Theatre and the awards were presented in nine categories as follows:

Best Consumer VoIP:  VoIPtalk (Telappliant)
Best Business ITSP (Small Enterprise): Soho66
Best Business ITSP (Medium Enterprise): SureVoIP
Best Business ITSP (Corporate): NFON
Best VoIP CPE: Polycom VVX 410 (Including 0365 Edition)
Best VoIP Infrastructure: Gamma SIP Trunking Service
Best VoIP Innovation: 8x8 Virtual Contact Centre 
ITSPA Members' Pick: Apple
ITSPA Champion: Dr Julian Huppert

Highly Commended:
Best Business ITSP (Small Enterprise): Foehn
Best Business ITSP (Medium Enterprise): Hello Telecom and VTSL
Best Business ITSP (Corporate): hSo
Best VoIP CPE: VTech VSP725A/VSP500A/VSP601A bundle and Yealink VP-T49G
Best VoIP Innovation: Gradwell Call Recording

Eli Katz, ITSPA Chairman, said: "Congratulations to all the winners and to those companies who were highly commended at this year's Awards. The success of this year's ceremony reflects another successful 12 months for ITSPA and our members."

Opengear has strengthened its distribution in the UK&I with a double deal, signing up MB Technology and Memory Bank.

Opengear is a provider of infrastructure management solutions and its link-up with MB Technology gives it access to a number of top ranking VARs.

The Manchester-based distributor offers services including deal registration programmes, product demonstrations, evaluation programmes and vendor support. 

Opengear's agreement with Memory Bank, a connected company to MB Technology, enables it to address the Irish market.

"MB Technology and Memory Bank both have a sound understanding of infrastructure management technologies and they know how to put these solutions together as well as the verticals they fit into," stated Derek Watkins, Vice President of Sales EMEA & India for Opengear.

Andy Kelly, Director for MB Technology, added: "Opengear is currently developing a channel package which includes reseller tools to get on-board, educate and nurture each business."

The EU's decision to block the acquisition of O2 by Hutchison under the EU Merger Regulation has been welcomed by industry bodies ITSPA and the Federation of Communication Services (FCS). Eli Katz, the Chair of ITSPA, stated: "If the deal had gone ahead it would have resulted in price rises, negatively impacting UK consumers.

"ITSPA feels that a competitive landscape in the UK telecom market is vital to provide the best outcomes for consumers and businesses. A reduction from four to three mobile network operators would have threatened this.

"The Commission was right to state that merger would have resulted in fewer MNOs willing to host virtual operators, consequently the damage to the MVNO market would have hindered innovation and competition, resulting in negative outcomes for UK consumers."

FCS CEO Chris Pateman also welcomed the news. "We are pleased to see the EU has taken such a strong line on this merger," he stated. "Hutchison's proposed 'remedies' amounted to little more than a licence to re-arrange the deck chairs. They fell well short of what is needed to genuinely encourage innovation on anybody's terms but the incumbent operators'. 

"The big issue goes far deeper than agreeing terms to merge two tentacles of what amounts to a four-armed monopoly. The mobile phone market in the UK - and indeed across the EU - needs some fundamental reform.

"To really drive innovation, encourage competition and deliver consumer value in mobile telephony requires the kind of wholesale competition we currently take for granted across the fixed line networks.  

"That's something no merger enquiry will ever deliver by itself. It requires EU-level vision and Government-level commitment to push for the rights of consumers against the vested interests of corporate providers.

"The EU has tinkered at the edges with its welcome roaming commitments and price caps. But it's competition, not bureaucracy, which will deliver sustainable consumer choice. And there's no real sign of any willingness to deliver that big-picture view."

John Colley, of Warwick Business School, is a Professor of Practice in the Strategy and International Business group and researches large takeovers. He is also a former MD of a FTSE 100 company.

Commenting on the news he said: "It comes as little surprise that the EU competition authorities have said enough is enough on the rapid concentration of the UK mobile telecoms sector.

"Following the merger of T-Mobile with Orange, subsequently purchased by BT, the industry was reduced to four players. The proposed merger of Three with O2 would have made it three players and the evidence from markets elsewhere shows that three players results in higher prices for consumers compared to four. In effect competition reduces and the consumer pays the price for that.

"It is clear that the merger would have substantially reduced costs in requiring less shops, marketing, administration, head offices and there would have been benefits in terms of reduced network operating costs. However, the reduced competition would have meant that Three/O2 would not have to pass those savings on to the consumer."

Openreach customer service engineer Alex Lacey came to the aid of an injured runner 24 miles into this year's London Marathon and carried him to the finish line.

Lacey overheard St John Ambulance volunteers tell the lame runner he wouldn't qualify for his medal if they gave him first aid and he didn't finish.

"I saw this man holding the barrier with his eyes rolled up and legs like jelly," said Lacey.

"I carried him to mile 26 where two other runners helped me lift the man over the finish line. He was then taken away for treatment by a St John Ambulance team.

"As we went down the Mall the crowds were going crazy and willing us to get there. That moment will stay with me for the rest of my life. It would be devastating to get to mile 24 and not complete the race. I couldn't see that happen."

Lacey was running in memory of his late father who died of cancer, raising £4k-plus for the Clic Sargent children's cancer charity. He hopes to identify the man he helped via social media.

Distributor ScanSource has posted its Q3 2016 results (ending March 31st), reporting a 5% year-over-year increase in net sales to $798.4m.

The figures include the acquisition of KBZ in September 2015.

Net sales in constant currency excluding acquisitions decreased 1% year-over-year.

"Although sales fell below our expected range primarily from a lower volume of big deals, we are pleased to deliver EPS growth of 20%," said Mike Baur, CEO, ScanSource.

"Our 10.6% gross margin reflects the value-added services we provide to our customers and vendors."

The distributor focuses on point-of-sale (POS), barcode, physical security, video, voice, data networking and emerging technologies with two segments, Worldwide Barcode & Security and Worldwide Communications & Services.

Operating income for the quarter ended March 31st, 2016 totalled $21.6m. Non-GAAP operating income of $25.3m increased 5% year-over-year from $24.2m.