Comms Dealer

Nimans has presented BT with a Product of the Year crystal decanter for development of the BT 8500 call blocking DECT device.

Erik Raphael, Director BT WiFi and Devices, collected the prize during a ceremony at BT's London head office.

Nimans' Group Sales & Business Development Director, Richard Carter, said: "The BT 8500 has been a roaring success for us as it combines high performance telephony with call blocking functionality."

Cloud-based contact centre specialist 8x8 has supplied EasyContactNow (ECN) to fast growing web design and SEO company Trendzer.

Trendzer started with one office but is rapidly opening premises in new areas.

With over 10,000 customers, Trendzer needed a telephony system to allow staff to answer calls quickly and effectively, and 8x8's ECN system automatically directs calls to the most appropriately skilled agent, based on specific industry knowledge.

There is no need to transfer customers between multiple agents which improves the customer experience and reduces call resolution time.

Trendzer now uses the system for outbound website and SEO remote access training, sales calls, and for inbound customer support.

Having access to analytics and reliable call recordings has helped Trendzer identify areas for improvement, track call volume and optimise its service.

The progressive dialing feature is also improving productivity by saving agents' time, as there is no need to manually dial numbers.

Richard Russell, Sales Manager at Trendzer commented: "The system from 8x8 has transformed our inbound and outbound calling, meeting our complex and diverse needs across multiple departments and offices."

Kevin Scott-Cowell, 8x8 UK MD, added: "We support fast growing companies such as Trendzer by ensuring their communications systems are a help, not a hindrance, to scale their business."

Hats off to NFON UK for winning ITSPA's Best Business ITSP (Corporate) award.

NFON UK MD Rami Houbby said: "We are absolutely chuffed to have won the award. It is a confirmation for the market that NFON has a scalable enterprise-grade proposition for seamless migration from old to new."

A coalition of comms industry leaders have presented an open letter to Ofcom CEO Sharon White outlining a 10-point plan to reform BT's Openreach subsidiary.

The coalition comprises Jeremy Darroch, Group CEO, Sky; Dido Harding, CEO, TalkTalk; Jeroen Hoencamp, CEO, Vodafone UK; Malcolm Corbett, CEO, Independent Networks Cooperative Association; and FCS CEO Chris Pateman.

Their plan focuses on three main areas - reforming Openreach's governance so that it can act independently; giving Openreach the tools it needs to function as a world-leading network operator; and creating an Openreach that delivers for all of its customers on an equal basis.

"We believe it's vital the people who decide what 'good' looks like should be Openreach's customers," said Chris Pateman.

"FCS was disappointed Ofcom's review of digital communications stopped short of recommending the complete structural separation of Openreach from the BT Group.

"Ofcom believes improvements can be delivered without the hassle and delays of a full separation, but our 10 point plan represents the industry's proposals on how this can be accomplished.

"Importantly, as our plan makes clear, we believe this can be accomplished swiftly and cost-effectively, using well-proven corporate governance principles.

"And it can be benchmarked against experience from other regulated utilities, both in the UK and overseas.

"We are throwing down a challenge, underpinned by sound research and experience. A challenge to Ofcom, Openreach and the industry to work together to shape the future for the good of all market players and all customers."

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."