Comms Dealer

CityFibre has completed the £90m acquisition of national network infrastructure assets of KCOM Group, excluding the Hull and East Yorkshire areas. The deal was initially announced on the 14th of December last year.

CEO Greg Mesch has said: "By combining the highly attractive KCOM network assets with our own, we are well-positioned to tap into future growth in the rapidly evolving UK fibre market.

"With a significant presence in 36 cities, 21 of which are completely new markets for us, we are now established as a credible alternative, and the largest independent provider of wholesale fibre infrastructure on a national basis.

"Moreover, the £180m funding package we have closed equips us to push hard on commercialising the acquired assets, which we've already begun to do with our first new service provider relationship on the acquired Bristol network.

"It also funds our continued organic growth trajectory towards our medium term goal of dense network presence in 50 towns and cities, with an estimated addressable footprint of 35,000 public sector sites, 10,000 cell sites, 350,000 businesses, and 5.0 million homes.

"This is an audacious acquisition which elevates us to a much more significant place in the UK network infrastructure arena, and we look forward to continuing to prove out our strategy across a vastly expanded footprint."

St Albans-based distributor ICON has reacted fast to the burgeoning WLAN, IoT and critical messaging markets, building on its long-term Spectralink relationship with a revamped product line and expanding its portfolio following the addition of products from global wireless network infrastructure provider 4ipnet, including wireless LAN controllers, access points, hotspot gateways and switches.

"With the Allied Telesis Extricom Wi-Fi solution, relaunched late last year, these additions will enable us to support channel partners who need to deliver traditional or real-time WLAN infrastructure solutions in sectors such as hospitality, healthcare, and the more demanding education and logistics markets," explained Mark Shane, Sales Director, ICON.

"We have also extended our capability to support channel partners delivering critical messaging and IoT solutions by adding Multitone to our Fusion and BlueSky messaging portfolio."

To help realise its 2016 growth ambitions ICON has invested in a year-long campaign to develop the wireless solutions market targeting end users in the hospitality, healthcare, retail and food manufacturing sectors. "We are seeking channel partners to work with us to develop these opportunities," confirmed Shane.

"During Q1 we will also announce a partner support programme for our UC solution Wave IP, designed to strengthen partner margin and generate new sales."

Tata Communications has lifted the lid on its flagship Global SIP Connect service as a white label solution for service providers.

The SIP trunking offering will enable service providers to expand their voice services to customers through Tata Communications' global network reach and unified communications portfolio without major up-front investment in building their own solution.

Infonetics forecasts that 62% of enterprises are expected to use SIP by 2017 for a portion of their voice connectivity requirements.

Anthony Bartolo, President of Collaboration and Mobility, Tata Communications, said: "As demand for cloud-based unified communications continues to soar, SIP trunking is becoming a critical tool for businesses looking for best in class voice services.

"Global SIP deployment can be time consuming and complex to execute due to interoperability and regulatory challenges and our new white label offering enables service providers to overcome these challenges on a global scale while eliminating the huge cost of building new solutions from scratch."
 
Mike Sapien, Principal Analyst, Ovum Research, added: "Our research shows that enterprises of all sizes are expanding globally which increases the difficulty in providing integrated global voice infrastructure to support enterprise communications and applications.

"Global SIP services are now a critical ingredient in creating an IP platform to enable many enterprise applications including all aspects of enterprise voice and unified communications."

The latest leg in Channel Telecom's nationwide partner workshop tour saw Tim Nelson, Head of IP Voice, join forces with BT Wholesale and Broadsoft specialists at the Gotham Hotel in Manchester to hold a face-to-face boot camp style event designed to help partners upskill their salespeople to win more hosted VoIP orders. 

Nelson said: "Given the increasing demand for hosted solutions, training events like this are essential in keeping on top of a growing market".

Channel recently launched the third instalment of its nationwide MPLS workshops in London, with plans to host further workshops and hosted training events in Birmingham, Manchester and again in London.

Clifford Norton, Managing Director, commented: "Providing partners with product specific knowledge and information means that they are more comfortable in selling and supporting the growing number of services we are able to offer."

Cloud-based marketing and analytics Wi-Fi software company Purple WiFi has rebranded to Purple, 'the intelligent spaces software company', to better reflect the organisation's wider scope of focus.

Purple is now focused on visualising data about any physical space, pulling in all sorts of data points, including sensors, security cameras and even overlaying weather data onto purchase pattern data.

When this is combined with the information already available through Wi-Fi data, Purple plans to be able to help brands to predict behaviour.

The firm refers to this process as 'Intelligent Spaces' and can help brands to learn more about their location, customer base and help them to take action.

The evolved Purple offering includes a selection of products and features suitable for both small business and for enterprise.

Small businesses can continue to take advantage of Purple's free guest Wi-Fi product and purchase a cloud software license, which allows open access to marketing and analytics tools.

Enterprise customers have the option of four product lines: Wi-Fi, Location, and two new offerings, Fusion and Provision.

Sir Terry Leahy, Purple Board Director, said: "Being able to have 'Intelligent Spaces' that actually learn and react to customers will help retailers to enhance the planning and efficiency of physical retail spaces.

"It also improves the vital link between online and offline customer data, helping them to build loyalty and trust, and heralding an exciting new era for the high street."

Gavin Wheeldon, CEO at Purple, added: "The world moves fast, and at Purple we are not afraid to change our brand and product to move with it.

"Wi-Fi marketing and data is still and always will be the core of our business, but we've decided we need to offer more than Wi-Fi analytics alone to truly understand what is going on in a venue.

"If you can collect the data about any physical space, including Wi-Fi data, we can visualise it. We are calling this 'intelligent spaces' and it will change the way venues understand and communicate with their customers."

BT is to create 1,000 permanent UK jobs as it works to meet its commitment to answer more than 80% of BT Consumer customers' calls from within the UK by the end of 2016.

BT's Consumer division has already filled an extra 1,000 roles in its UK contact centres to enable it to service more of its consumer customers in the UK.

The company will beef up its numbers by the extra 1,000 between now and April 2017.

The first place to benefit from the announcement will be Swansea where the company will recruit an additional 100 customers service roles to add to the 50 extra advisors recently hired at the site.

The rest of the jobs will be spread across the UK at BT's other existing contact centres. Further details will be announced in the coming months.

All of the jobs will be frontline roles in customer care.

The company wants to recruit new advisors to answer customers' queries, as well as apprentices and some graduates.

Libby Barr, MD of Customer Care at BT Consumer, said: "We announced in September 2015 that BT Consumer is going to answer more than 80% of its customers' calls in the UK by the end of 2016 and this means we need more people in our UK contact centres.

"We will have created 2,000 permanent UK jobs by the end of this process, including agency transfers, which is a fantastic boost for the UK economy and many regions where we are already a significant employer.

"Our advisors have recently agreed to support our investment back in the UK by voting to adopt a new work pattern to ensure we have more people available to answer calls in the UK at weekends and in the evenings."

BT Consumer is spending an extra £80m over two years to boost performance, in addition to the hundreds of millions of pounds it spends each year on service.

Nimans says it is taking wireless communication to the 'extreme' with a series of digital cordless telephones that boast a talk range of up to 2km.

The EP 802 is part of the company's range of comms solutions from Engenius. Described as the most powerful consumer rated cordless telephone in Europe, the device combines a stylish design with a six floor building penetration.

The EP 802 complements the original EP 801 version and includes user friendly features such as a ‘walkie talkie' style function, easy set-up and nine handset expandability.

Nimans' Head of Conferencing and Telephony Sales, Ian Brindle, says the compact unit also boasts a 50 entry phonebook, speakerphone, built-in 2.5mm headset jack and a 38 digital channel autoscan.

In addition, the intercom facility will still function even if there is a power outage, as the handsets can communicate with each other and broadcast emergency messages.

"This is the second version of our popular Extreme telephone that is fully compatible with the original model," he explained.

"They live up to their name, ensuring people can talk longer and further. They can be easily expanded for the ultimate long range cordless flexibility, across a host of many different industries and environments, from car showrooms and warehouses to farms and office complexes."

Aa more robust model is also available, the EP800. This IP20-rated device has a speakerphone function, 50 phonebook entries and is expandable up to a maximum of four bases units and 36 handsets.

Industry hopes for greater competition in the UK mobile market have been quashed by the Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA) approval of BT's £12.5bn takeover of EE, according to ITSPA.

Despite the CMA concluding that the deal will not significantly impact competition, Eli Katz, the Chair of ITSPA, believes that the acquisition is a deep concern for the industry and he questioned why the CMA's final report did not consider potential wholesale mobile remedies when approving the proposed BT/EE merger.

"Particularly, given the panel had expressed differing opinions in its provisional report around the merger's effect on the wholesale mobile access market," he explained

ITSPA says the wholesale market is 'highly restrictive' and hampers the ability of new entrants to compete, and that MVNO access to mobile operators' networks is reducing, therefore restricting their ability to compete.

"The CMA panel was split in its provisional findings report as to whether the BT/EE transaction would lead to a significant lessening of competition in the market for wholesale mobile access," claimed Katz.

"ITSPA members have differing opinions on the BT/EE merger but it must be taken into context with the wider market consolidation currently taking place, particularly the proposed tie up with O2 and Three.

"This would be extremely damaging. There is already substantial evidence in other European markets to suggest that prices rise when the number of mobile operators in a national network decreases from four to three operators."

Katz called for a review of the wholesale mobile access market and effective remedies agreed before any merger between O2 and Three can be considered. "We would urge the EU Commission to consider these recommendations in its current inquiry," he stated.

"A fully functional wholesale mobile access market would encourage innovation, competition and result in improved outcomes for UK consumers. The UK's mobile market could become as competitive and innovative as it is currently for fixed telephony."

The Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA) has approved BT's acquisition of EE.

There will be a distinct EE line of business following completion of the acquisition. This will be led by Marc Allera who will become EE CEO following completion of the deal.

BT Chief Executive Gavin Patterson said: "It is great news that the CMA has approved our acquisition of EE. We are pleased they have found there to be no significant lessening of competition following an in-depth investigation lasting more than ten months.

"The combined BT and EE will be a digital champion for the UK, providing high levels of investment and driving innovation in a highly competitive market. I have no doubt that consumers, businesses and communities will benefit as we combine the power of fibre broadband with the convenience of leading edge mobile services."

A prospectus will be issued in the week commencing January 25 with the deal set to close on January 29 when Deutsche Telekom and Orange will receive shares in BT. BT will report its Q3 2015/16 results on February 1.

Following completion of the deal Deutsche Telekom will have 12 per cent of BT shares and Orange will have four per cent. A representative of Deutsche Telekom will be appointed to the BT Board in due course.

Polycom's just-launched cloud-ready collaboration infrastructure software, Polycom RealPresence Clariti, offers a simplified per-user licensing model with a lower entry point, and enables the mass deployment of video collaboration across businesses of all sizes.

Clariti also offers a hybrid cloud capability allowing users to 'burst' into a cloud service for planned and unplanned spikes in capacity demand.

Customers have multiple options for deploying the RealPresence Clariti solution, including on-premises, through hybrid or hosted IaaS offerings from partners, or directly in their own cloud networks.

The RealPresence Clariti solution includes Polycom RealConnect capability, allowing both Skype for Business users and those who use other platforms to seamlessly connect.

Ashan Willy, Senior VP, Product Management & Worldwide Systems Engineering, Polycom, said: "As visual collaboration enters the hyper connected phase employees have high expectations of being able to connect from anywhere, and from any device at any time.

"The RealPresence Clariti solution offers simple, easy-to-use, collaboration software that provides cloud economics, cloud deployment options, and cloud hybrid capabilities to Polycom's infrastructure suite."

Polycom has also expanded support for developers to extend capabilities with the new Polycom Sandbox. This virtual lab will provide access to Polycom's rich set of APIs and SDKs so that partners, ISVs, and customers can build applications and integrate visual collaboration directly into their workflows.

Polycom will offer a full set of support tools, including a community-based resource designed to facilitate the open exchange of information in the pursuit of innovative application development and workflow integration.

Polycom is also expanding the RealAccess service delivery platform across the entire RealPresence Cloud platform to provide organisations with diagnostic insights and data to help organisations more effectively manage their entire collaboration solution.