Comms Dealer

ITSPA has broadly welcomed Ofcom's decision to limit the amount of mobile spectrum that companies can win in the upcoming spectrum auction.

Ofcom has determined that by 2020 there will be a 37% ceiling on all useable mobile spectrum that one operator can control.

ITSPA Chair Eli Katz stated: "Overall, we are pleased that Ofcom has listened to some of the concerns of industry and adjusted their plans according to the changing communications landscape. We believe this is a positive step to ensure that the UK mobile market remains competitive and open to innovation."

ITSPA had responded to Ofcom's spectrum consultation in February highlighting the need to resolve the current imbalance between the amount of spectrum being held by each of the four major mobile network operators in the UK.

ITSPA agreed with Ofcom's position that BT/EE should not bid for 2.3GHz spectrum and believe that an overall cap on spectrum is necessary to ensure effective competition.

Katz added: "While we welcome the developments as a positive move, we still believe there is a need to review the current wholesale access remedies to support the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) market.

"This is a fledgling sector that needs more support to ensure the wider mobile market is vibrant and open to disruption."

TrueSpeed Communications has secured £75m funding from Aviva Investors to support the roll out of an ultrafast full fibre broadband network across south west England.

TrueSpeed was established in 2015 and provides residential and commercial customers with multi-gigabit capable symmetrical speeds through a full fibre network.

TrueSpeed already provides this service to homes connected to its fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) network throughout the Chew Valley, Somerset.

The partnership with Aviva Investors (the global asset management business of Aviva) allows TrueSpeed to accelerate its expansion strategy to pass up to 75,000 homes and businesses in the region.

Sean McLachlan, Senior Director, Infrastructure Equity, Aviva Investors, stated: "There is a clear and growing demand for this essential infrastructure across the country, in particular rural locations.

"The funding Aviva Investors is providing will allow TrueSpeed and its management team to accelerate its business plan and network expansion to provide world class infrastructure to users who are currently underserved."

TrueSpeed CEO Evan Wienburg said: "This investment will enable TrueSpeed to roll out the full fibre network infrastructure and services the region has needed and will provide our customers with a high-quality broadband and data capabilities for the first time.

"This brand new infrastructure will be capable of handling the speed requirements of our customers now and in the future at a competitive price and with a regional service focus."

Marcus Allchurch, Partner at Acuity, advised TrueSpeed throughout the fundraising process. He said: "Securing this funding will make TrueSpeed a major UK provider of ultrafast contiguous FTTP network services. 

"Aviva’s commitment to this investment has been admirable and is testament to the perfect storm which is being created in the global digital infrastructure market, as the demand for services makes 20th century telecoms infrastructure obsolete.\"

TrueSpeed CEO Evan Wienburg added: "Acuity helped us to build a robust business plan that made sense to the investment community. 

"This level of investment for an early stage fibre company such as TrueSpeed has not been done before in the UK and gives us fantastic certainty and a considerable commercial advantage." 

Acuity Advisors LLP has notched up decades of collective experience in the telecoms sector, working with carriers including BT, Vodafone, Telefonica, EE, Telia, Telenar and numerous mid-market sector participants.

Nuvias Group has acquired Benelux distributor DCB which will become its Cyber Security Practice for the region.

DCB has offices in The Netherlands (Veldhoven) and Belgium (Zaventem) and works with vendors such as WatchGuard Technologies, Kaspersky Lab, Trustwave and Centrify.

Paul Eccleston, CEO Nuvias Group, said: "DCB is a value-added distributor with a strong reputation and a large partner base.

"The DCB product range is fully aligned with the Nuvias Cyber Security Practice."

IT services company Firstnet Solutions has launched a 24/7 help desk support service with over 300 certified network consultants employed at its new facility in Leeds.

The team of in-house professionals is based at Firstnet's Tier 3 data centre from where they will provide round-the-clock support with first, second and third line engineers available through the night.

Clients are guaranteed to speak to a live technical consultant within 60 seconds of calling.

MD David Cusworth, said: "With threats from cybercrime spreading on a global scale it has never been more important for organisations to have immediate access to expert technical support which is capable of providing a helpful response in a timely fashion - any time of day and any day of the year.

"Our live consultants are available 365 days a year with multi-technology remote support to keep everything running smoothly and securely.

"Each client is allocated a Team Leader and Project Manager, supported by certified field engineers to make site visits when a remote resolution is not possible. Tiered service levels and custom response requirements are available. We also provide a range of web-based incident reporting and status tools for end users."

An ice cream van has been commissioned by Nimans to whip up sales of WLAN products. Head of Category Sales Paul Burn helped to serve 250 free ice creams with TP-Link branded wafers to staff from the logoed vehicle.

"The day was a resounding success and the ice cream van proved a great focal point," he said. Even the sun came out despite the unpredictable Manchester weather. For WLAN, Nimans has it licked."

Pictured: Nimans' Ian Brindle, Head of Conferencing and Handset Sales, with Solutions Business Manager (Networking) Judith Addison.

Solar's in-house tech team has developed a Skype for Business solution that offers the call quality of enterprise grade telephony services.

Skype for Business has seen a significant uptake from within the business community but it can be limited in its enterprise grade telephony offering, according to CEO John Whitty.

"Skype for Business is a great tool but it comes up short with regards to its telephony features," he said.

"This has become a cause of frustration for many businesses which is why we developed Solar Skype Connect (SSC).

"SSC addresses a number of customer pain points by creating a scalable, cost-effective, next generation answer to the question of how to achieve optimum and feature rich telephony via a flexible model. It's something we're proud of."

Whitty also announced that SSC will be available to resellers of the Microsoft Office365 package.

"Delivered as either cloud, hybrid or on-premise, SSC allows businesses to migrate services towards the cloud gradually, in a controlled manner and at very low risk," said Whitty.

Openreach has kicked off a rebranding exercise that, says the firm, illustrates a new era of greater independence from the wider Group.

The development is part of BT's agreement with Ofcom under the Digital Communications Review and signals Openreach's revised governance and independent board with the removal of the 'BT' element from its logo, a move that 'reaffirms Openeach's commitment to treating all communications provider customers equally', stated the company.

The changes begin this month across the Openreach fleet and will be ongoing until approximately April 2021 on all vehicles, customer facing websites and apps, stationery, employee workwear and passcards, buildings and signs.

Openreach CEO Clive Selley said: "Removing the 'BT' element from the Openreach logo is a visual sign to reflect how we deal with everyone on equal terms.

"We want our brand to be consistent and recognisable so we're keeping the distinctive typeface and name, as our research suggests it will mean our engineers continue to be recognised when they knock on your customers' doors."

Microsoft has taken the wraps off its new partner strategy at this week's Microsoft Inspire event in the US.

Having confirmed last week a sales and marketing staff cull at the company, Microsoft has announced the One Commercial Partner strategy, ostensibly designed to help partners make more sales through the cloud and digital transformation markets.

Ron Huddleston, Microsoft CVP of One Commercial Partner, said: "We're bringing together partner-focused teams from across the company into one organisation.

"One Commercial Partner brings together the things that work so that every partner can benefit, regardless of size, business model or geography."

All Microsoft partner staff will have the responsibility to work with partners in one of three primary functions - building partner abilities, go-to-market and selling.

"Our focus on selling with partners is something I'm particularly passionate about," added Huddleston.

"Many partners have told us that bringing their solutions to market and connecting with customers is an area where they'd like better engagement and support from us."

As part of the commitment Microsoft is investing in two key programmes, Azure co-sell and Channel Managers.

With Azure co-sell, Microsoft sales reps are paid up to 10% of the partner's annual contract value when they co-sell qualified Azure-based partner solutions.

Channel Managers is a globally distributed force that will be '100% dedicated' to partners, helping them sell solutions built with Azure, Microsoft Office and Dynamics 365.

"Together these programmes represent a $250m investment to materially increase our partner dedicated personnel and add to our new Azure co-sell incentives," Huddleston said.

Microsoft also launched Microsoft 365, which combines Office 365, Windows 10 and Enterprise Mobility + Security; and the Azure Stack offering which supports hybrid clouds and edge computing applications, by enabling Azure optimised hardware from the likes of Dell, EMC, HPE and Lenovo.  

Gradwell Communications CEO Simon Mewett and Chief Product & Marketing Officer Julien St John-Dennis have left the business following an MBO and a change of institutional investor.

The move sees the appointment of Nick Caw as CEO and Andrew Peters who becomes COO, both bringing strong experience in the IT and telecoms market.

The company says the new investment group is supportive of its focus on core strengths in calls, connectivity and cloud.

It was also confirmed that Gradwell will further develop its VoIP platform over the coming months and introduce 'positive changes' in customer support, billing and sales processes.

Founder Peter Gradwell remains with the company as CTO.

Splicecom has unveiled its new voice platform to reseller partners at a series of regional roadshows.

SelectVoice is a single platform voice solution developed from the ground up that can be deployed in the cloud, on-premise or any blend of the two, and is available through capital purchase or pay monthly terms - or a blend of the two.

"Splicecom's heritage is in developing IP PBXs, phones and business management systems," stated Robin Hayman, Director of Marketing & Product Management at Splicecom.

"We've been doing this since 2001. Our SelectVoice system is the latest step on this journey, providing a single platform solution for the smallest business to the largest enterprise."

"Even in the cloud, each customer enjoys their very own system. We don't force them to share it with other businesses as is the case with hosted.

"SelectVoice can run on our MAP and MAP Solo platforms, a reseller provided server, or the customer's existing virtual server for on-premise deployment.

"In the cloud Splicecom can provide micro, small, medium or large vMAP virtual servers, or again the reseller or customer can run it on their own cloud infrastructure."

Stuart Bell, Head of Sales for the UK & Ireland at Splicecom, added: "We have a simple per user licence model that remains the same, totally independent to how SelectVoice is deployed or paid for.

"One price for an outright purchase and one for pay monthly. This makes it easy to price at the point of sale for cloud, on premise or blended requirements. Basically, take the number of users and multiply by the licence price, plus the cost of the phones - it's really that simple."