Comms Dealer

CityFibre's rolling campaign convoy across the UK's major cities is gathering pace following the company's acquisition of KCOM's network (excluding the Hull and east Yorkshire areas), giving it 21 additional metro footprints that are now being prioritised and prepared for launch as new CityFibre Gigabit Cities.

In the line up for a pure fibre alternative to the incumbent are Milton Keynes, Manchester, Leicester, Sheffield, Northampton and Nottingham with more city opportunities in the pipeline.

CityFibre's mission is to team up with like-minded launch partners in each city.

"Bristol was the first of the acquired KCOM network-based cities to be launched as a new Gigabit City in partnership with Triangle Networks," commented CityFibre's Commercial Director Rob Hamlin.

"We're now looking to replicate a similar city launch partner model across other acquired cities.

"An ideal launch partner is typically a mature service provider with a good reputation and established customer base in or near the project city.

"Knowledge of the local market is important and the provider should also have marketing resource that is available to work with the CityFibre team week-by-week. A strong, established sales engine is also key."

Hamlin explained that CityFibre will help its launch partners to map existing assets/customers plus potential new customers to the relevant pure fibre city network.

This information will then be used to help drive upgrade, retention and run heavyweight acquisition marketing campaigns alongside the partner.

According to Hamlin, CityFibre's launch partners have a rare opportunity to take fresh products to market and attract new customer types by leveraging the media attention and sales leads that result from targeted, joint local marketing campaigns with CityFibre.

"It's about innovating and accelerating our launch partners' business growth," he added.

Paul Anslow, MD of Triangle Networks, stated: "By becoming CityFibre's launch partner in Bristol we've effectively been given the opportunity to not only sell something fresh and innovative directly to businesses, but also to become a wholesale aggregator for other business CPs in our area. We're already working with many of our local competitors for example.

"CityFibre understands the importance of a local presence and gives us and our customers an alternative to the previous incumbent-only option."

Channel Telecom MD Clifford Norton has called for greater industry collaboration to tackle toll fraud, but his personal crusade has so far fallen on deaf ears.

"I have tried to get the industry to talk to each other," he said. "I have even invited some of the larger companies to discuss this in an open forum.

"Out of the 20 asked two responded. I have reported it to all the official bodies and even provided proof of certain people and companies actually committing the fraud. The police are far too busy and the regulatory bodies have little or no power. The industry's response to these issues is poor.

"The only real way to get the industry heard would be to get a good group of telecom companies together and lobby our concerns to the Government. This would of course need to be backed by various politicians."

Chris Harding, SIP Encrypt Product Specialist, Firstcom Europe, also wants more collaboration in the channel to address fraud but he believes there is potential for conflict due to confusion over who along the supply chain bears the financial responsibility when toll fraud occurs.

"As we are all ultimately on the same side, the industry could consider a policy where once toll fraud has been proven then the charges are not passed on, meaning that the revenue stream never reaches the perpetrator," stated Harding.

"A complete industry fix would be for the major carriers to not pay their international bill for fraudulent use. This would close down the services overnight. More often than not anti-fraud measures are aimed at the symptom rather than the cause. One way of getting rid of premium rate number scams would be to scrap revenue generating numbers altogether so there is no profit to be had."

Unless the authorities can become more effective at catching the perpetrators of fraud, the only option is to ensure it becomes ever less profitable, believes Ben O'Leary, Revenue Assurance Manager, Gamma.

"Steps such as communicating within the industry about monitoring techniques and stopping the flow of funds will be important over the next five years," he said. "The EU regulatory roaming data cap is a useful model and addresses the same basic problem, cutting off unwanted traffic.

"To address fraud, a similar regulatory requirement could be that all networks must offer the ability to bar any services at an agreed industry-wide threshold on an opt-out basis."

Tony Martino, Managing Director, Tollring, observed: "In other areas of the market such collaboration exists to strengthen protection against computer viruses and bad credit, for example," he stated.

The appointment of Clive Sawkins as Non Executive Director at TM Solutions signals a ramping up of the company's growth ambitions.

Sawkins is currently CEO of BCS Global Networks and brings wide industry experience including a background in emerging technology such as building public and private cloud solutions. 

His previous roles include senior positions at Cisco Systems where he was responsible for UC, telepresence and video collaboration; Avaya where he was Vice President UK&I; Unisys and Nortel Networks.

Sawkins is also President of the OVCC, a global industry body focused on video and unified collaboration. 

TM Solutions Director Duncan Wilkinson said: "We are delighted to have someone of Clive's calibre joining the board and assisting with our growth strategy."

The countdown to Twin Town Challenge 2016 has begun as organiser and STL MD Brendon Cross reveals that just four places remain up for grabs in the 100 car rally in aid of charity SpecialEffect.

The Challenge takes place on 27th-30th May and will see 100 cars costing less than £500 drive from Witney to its twin town of Le Touquet and back via Silverstone and Croix en Ternois, including a street party with live bands, a civic reception on the beach and a money can't buy auction.

"Twin Town Challenge 2014 raised £130,000 with 50 cars, so this year we are taking 100 cars and hope to raise £250,000," stated Cross. "Not only is it a great weekend but, as one of the participants in 2014 said to me, it was the best fun they'd ever had raising money for charity and the best networking event too."

SpecialEffect uses technology to enhance the quality of life of people with physical disabilities by adapting games consoles and using eye gaze technology to help children and adults to play computer games.

The money raised by Twin Town Challenge 2014 has enabled SpecialEffect to establish a games room for young people to visit and to take on more specialist staff to meet the growing demand for support and services.

This month Witney MP and Prime Minister David Cameron officially opened the Games Room alongside Cross and SpecialEffect founder Dr Mick Donegan (pictured above).

Cameron told Donegan: "You are making an enormous difference to lots of people and I will do anything I can to help. It is also bringing together the things I am passionate about, because it shows business can be a force for social and economic good."

Cross added: "I am so proud of all the people who took part in Twin Town 14 and gave so generously while enjoying such a fun weekend in a £500 car." 

Click here to find out more or to book a team

Brokerage firm Traderight has become the first financial organisation to implement VIA Trade, the cloud-based telephony and trader voice system.

Launched by VIA and Speakerbus in January, VIA Trade is a communications solution that removes the need for an on-site traditional telephony network, freeing up space across the trading room floor.

VIA Trade has been successfully deployed in the company's office in Chelmsford servicing a team of traders.

VIA Trade combines VIA's cloud-based infrastructure with the Speakerbus iTurret (the dealerboard).

Traderight has also installed VIA Voice across its office in Central London, as well as to the company's remote workers.

Steven Blois, IT Manager, Traderight, said: "When we heard that VIA was teaming up with Speakerbus to develop a trader voice system we quickly took the decision to combine all communications across the business in order to increase the connectivity and productivity of our team.

"We now have in place an innovative, dependable and secure solution that offers full integration between office telephony and trading dealerboards."

Alex Tebbs, Director, VIA, ADDED: "VIA Trade is a communications platform for those companies working across capital markets, commodity trading, hedge funds or brokerage sectors.

"The cloud-based solution is resilient and incorporates voice and data recording to ensure our clients remain FCA complaint at all times."

Content Guru's multi-channel outbound customer engagement application, storm CONTACT:OUTBOUND, boasts new features such as automated and live agent dialling and fully integrated campaign support across SMS, IM, email and social media, enabling organisations to deliver outbound services on any scale.  
   
CONTACT:OUTBOUND is a component of the multi-channel Cloud Contact Centre Suite.

Administrators can provision campaigns through the secure, web-based storm administration interface, selecting agent groups, data sources, pacing profiles and multi-channel options.

storm then automatically delivers the campaign, mass broadcasting personalised multi-channel messages at specified times, while also assigning agents to automatically contact customers.

For agents, all interactions take place in a blended inbound and outbound environment within the DTA (Desktop Task Assistant). 

Agents can handle multi-channel inbound enquiries and then be automatically connected to an outbound call when they are available, which is closely monitored by storm in real time.

Using predictive dialler logic, these storm generated outbound calls are only connected to live agents if they are successful, increasing efficiencies as agents no longer have to waste time dealing with unanswered calls and answerphones, and are instead better able to deliver multi-channel support.

Administrators can also set business rules to ensure that outbound dialling rates are synchronized with agent availability and that abandoned calls are kept within regulatory Ofcom limits.

OUTBOUND also leverages storm's database, DATA MANAGEMENT, for campaign delivery.

Mush Rahman, Project Management Team Leader for Content Guru, commented: "Organisations are under more pressure than ever to meet heightened consumer expectations. Being reactive is no longer an option, businesses must proactively engage with consumers, who are becoming increasingly wary of standard dialler campaigns and less receptive to legacy call centre methods.

"It is now more important than ever that organisations deploy contact centre solutions that align with these changes in consumer receptiveness to maintain customer satisfaction and loyalty as well as strengthen their brand image.

"Demands are increasing for convenient interactions and tailored content. OUTBOUND's multi-channel and intelligent routing capabilities empower organisations to manage mass outbound campaigns in a more personalised, streamlined and dynamic way that complies with industry standards and consumer expectations, while also boosting agent productivity, morale and overall contact centre efficiency."

North east UC specialist ITPS has been appointed to G-Cloud 7 in two categories, infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service.

Garry Sheriff, MD, said: "Bidding for public sector contracts was previously a long and drawn out process that put off a lot of SMEs and smaller companies from pitching for work. It also saw public sector bodies spend a lot of time and effort whittling suppliers down to a shortlist.

"Public sector bodies looking for cloud IT services can now go straight to the list to find pre-approved suppliers like ourselves, and have the reassurance that we have the expertise and track record for the job.

"It's a very cost-effective, efficient way for the public sector to buy ICT services, and helps SMEs access a huge potential market.

"We were confident we could meet the criteria for inclusion on the approved list of government suppliers, so it is great news to have received the official stamp of quality on our expertise."

CensorNet has acquired Danish multi-factor authentication vendor SMS PASSCODE.

CensorNet will integrate SMS PASSCODE's adaptive multi-factor authentication technology into its cloud-based Unified Security Solution, which brings together email and web security.

"This gives us the full range of security solutions," CensorNet CEO Ed Macnair tells IT Europa.

"The fast growing security business and its channels need to offer comprehensive tools, especially covering the area of applications.

"Most organisations have no idea what applications are being used and how their data is being accessed. A multi-faceted security solution to see all - email, web and apps is what is required.

"Our vision is to provide organisations with a single pane of glass that gives them visibility and control of web, cloud applications and email.

"With weak or stolen passwords still being the major source of network breaches integrating SMS PASSCODE's authentication capability to our solution was a no brainer."

Automated communications specialist ANT Telecom has added VoipSec's cloud-based voice security solution, EasySBC, to its SIP trunk offering, allowing customers to deploy secure SIP without the need for significant upfront costs for security hardware.

The company also becomes VoipSec's first reseller of EasySBC in the UK.
 
Prior to its partnership with VoipSec, ANT Telecom faced the challenge of selling SBC hardware with a significant upfront cost that often negated the ROI of SIP trunking.

"With reports that ISDN is going to be phased out by 2025 over the next decade, there's going to be a mass migration towards SIP," said Paul Smith, Managing Director, ANT Telecom.

"While we have been determined to offer a full SIP trunk package including security, the additional hardware costs proved difficult for many organisations, particularly small and medium sized companies that didn't have the budget.

"As VoipSec is a software only service, we're able to simply add on the security in line with our existing commercial model, giving us a unique advantage and differentiator in the market."
 
Paul German, CEO, VoipSec, added: "ANT Telecom faced the same issue that all SIP trunk resellers have, which is to either move forward and sell non-secure SIP trunks or continue to implement hardware-based SBC which impacted on the take up of SIP.

"Our solution is created to fit easily into a reseller's existing proposition and ultimately support their sales and business growth by ensuring customers experience the cost benefits of SIP without exposing themselves to unnecessary risk."

Systems integrator and managed services provider Maintel has been named as one of London Stock Exchange's 1,000 Companies to Inspire Britain. The report is a celebration of the UK's fastest growing and most dynamic small and medium sized businesses.

To be included in the list, companies needed to show consistent revenue growth over a minimum of three years, significantly outperforming their industry peers.

Angus McCaffery, Director at Maintel, said, "It's an honour to be recognised as an important industry player and to be included alongside many influential British companies.

"With a great team behind us and by acquiring companies which add greater value to our customers, we've achieved more organic growth over the past few years than many of our peers."

Xavier Rolet, Chief Executive, London Stock Exchange Group, said: "High growth SMEs are the driving force behind the UK economy, developing the skills, jobs and growth we need."

Pictured (l-r) Xavier Rolet KBE with Angus McCaffery