Comms Dealer

Frontier Voice and Data has merged with Netco (UK) to form a parent company called Frontier Data Telecom. The combined business will generate £5m-plus turnover and employs 40 staff at its offices in Woodford Green, Essex.

Prior to the deal both firms operated in their own specialist areas but having joined forces the new company has expanded its portfolio to provide customers with a wider range of products and services, including mobile telephony and enhanced connectivity.

Frontier Voice and Data MD Peter Southgate (pictured) said: "This merger brings together two of the region's primary telecommunications specialists and is aimed at providing new services to existing and prospective customers.

"By coming together to form Frontier Data Telecom our two companies are able to provide a new level of expertise, allowing us to meet the requirements of a wider range of customers."

BroadGroup has underlined a high level of activity in the market for data centre M&A.

The firm continues to be contacted by new investors interested in the asset class. These include real estate investors and pension funds, keen to diversify and attracted by returns, tenant quality and low churn.

It also includes private equity who have previously ignored the sector, or hedge funds or VCs keen to exploit growth in cloud.  These conclusions form part of a new paper by BroadGroup Consulting to be included in the next edition of Colocation Market Quarterly the European tracking service provided by the company. 

The company believes that trade buyers, keen to scale up their operations, broaden and diversify their offerings, and potentially preparing for IPO are also evident, with other investment coming in from Asia. On the seller side, BroadGroup sees options emerging from big telcos and managed services providers to smaller and more regional plays, to existing investors in the space.

"A big challenge is that often the seller has the 'wrong' kind of asset," comments Steve Wallage, managing director at BroadGroup Consulting.

"They could be too small - private equity often finds the assets are below their minimum threshold. Old and low quality facilities is often an issue afflicting telco assets. Data Centres could be in unattractive locations. Another factor could be an unappealing business model or the complexity of ownership structure."

However, the group believes that the single biggest hold-up is valuation.

"Sellers point to the growth in data centre demand from IoT, Big Data, cloud and the challenges in securing new data centre sites, such as power, telecoms and planning/zoning," added Wallage.

"Pricing of recent deals, such as the Equinix acquisition of TeleCity at a 27% premium to its stock price may be cited."

But overall the group believes that buyers are wary of multiples beyond 15x EBITDA.

They also point out the weaknesses in many data centre assets, the threats and challenges in the industry, whether from technology, cloud, commoditisation or the size and scale of competitors.

The Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) has welcomed the inquiry being held by the UK Government's Culture, Media and Sport Committee into cyber security.

The Committee, chaired by Conservative MP, Jesse Norman, has launched the inquiry following the recent online data breach at TalkTalk and its scope covers the protection of personal data online.

Julian Heathcote-Hobbins, General Counsel, FAST, stated: "We welcome this inquiry and have taken the opportunity to respond by written submission. Considering the widespread use of cloud computing, it is imperative that trust and confidence is maintained to protect personal data online.

"Business and consumers of software must realise risks in illicit copies, be pro-active and take responsibility in buying software and services from legitimate and trusted sources in order to work towards being safe. In other words, being sure of provenance."

C4L has appointed Brian Ellarby as Operations Director. His previous experience includes notable stints at Blue Chip, Fitness First and Carnival.

Ellarby has already restructured the operations side of C4L and kicked off a recruitment campaign to bolster the technical teams with service, provisioning and platforms engineers.

He's also on the look out for a change and risk analyst and head of engineering and delivery experts.

Ellarby will be focusing on migrations of all C4L accounts to coreTX.

Simon Mewett, CEO of C4L, said: "Appointing Brian as Operations Director was a considered and strategical move for C4L. We are moving into customer retention, operational efficiency and technical completions and required an experienced infrastructure specialist with a commitment to process to guide this through efficiently."

Daisy Corporate Services has provided City University London with a future-proofed contact centre solution through an upgrade to four virtualised Mitel MX-ONE platforms with dual data centre back-up.

Now almost a year since its implementation, the University is realising benefits in cost, support and reliability.

City University London signed a five-year contract with the Mitel Platinum Partner, Daisy, to upgrade its whole core network. This included four MX-ONE platforms in the University's main data centre and an additional system in a separate data centre for enhanced business continuity - all backed by 24/7 technical support.

With 19,500 students, 2,000 employees across 23 sites and more than 5,000 calls each day, it was vital that the University had a reliable system in place.

Matthew Craughwell, Telecoms Team Leader at City University London, commented: "As a university, a large number of people rely on being able to get in touch with you around the clock. The decision to upgrade to a virtualised solution was an obvious choice. A lot of support is currently being withdrawn on older telephone systems, and we simply can't risk being caught out without that all-important telephone system in place.

"Rather than a complete 'rip and replace', Daisy installed a much more efficient system that would still operate with our 3,000+ handsets. And now we have the benefit of support around the clock, which costs us about the same as the 8am-6pm support we had previously."

John Holt, Managing Director at Daisy Corporate Services, added: "It is important that organisations in the public sector are aware that they could potentially find themselves without that vital system support for their telephony solution.

"Support for older systems is being withdrawn and City University London is a prime example of how institutions can not only ensure that their communications are covered, but they can also make significant savings through the system's reliability and the reduced amount of power that the system requires compared to that of traditional platforms."

Approximately two thirds (65%) of UK office workers are frustrated by poor business broadband speeds, according to new data from Solar Communications that reveals that each worker is losing on average 47 minutes per week - or 34 hours every year - of working time due to broadband downtime.

The research, carried out among 1,000 UK office workers, also reveals the issues caused by slow broadband, with 55% of respondents saying it has prevented them from doing their jobs - a figure that rises to 74% for workers in London. Around half (51%) confirm they often experience slow broadband at work.

The majority of office workers (70%) agree it is important that they can access the internet and applications whenever they want, but 57% confirmed that slow broadband means this is often not possible.

It's not just office workers who are losing out due to slow broadband, as one in ten agreed their company had lost business as result, revealing the wider business implications of inadequate broadband provisions.

John Whitty, CEO of Solar Communications, said: "The UK still has a long way to go when it comes to providing superfast broadband that is fit for purpose for business and slow broadband having a negative impact.

"The data reveals that the average lost working time per employee per week is 43 minutes, so for an organisation employing 50 people that means 3,400 hours of lost productivity every year.

"The government has launched a number of schemes to help SMEs in particular move to faster broadband, but it's vital these are extended to ensure as many businesses as possible can benefit."

The UK government has invested over £1 billion in improving broadband and mobile infrastructure with the aim of providing superfast broadband to 90% of the UK by 2016.

Opus Team has implemented Unify's OpenScape Business at Helena Romanes School, upgrading its entire communication infrastructure.

OpenScape Business, implemented to all end users across the entire 35-acre campus, will transform the way that over 200 staff members work and communicate, while also driving cost savings and efficiencies for the secondary education provider.

The Helena Romanes School and Sixth Form Centre is situated in Great Dunmow, Essex, and caters for 1,300 pupils between the ages of 11-18.

Helena Romanes School believes that a large part of being able to provide great education outcomes lies in the teacher's ability to communicate effectively - not only with students, but also with parents and peers.

The school also recognised a need for a communications solution that would enable it to become more agile and make efficiency and cost savings, given the squeeze on education budgets.

Liz Evans-Barlow, Business Manager at Helena Romanes School, commented: "Selecting Unify's OpenScape Business has enabled the school to reach its goals of communication technology transformation, future proofing and cost savings. The solution is delivering efficiencies, an enhanced more resilient service and is even enabling us to ensure that we are ahead of the curve with compliance."

Matt Boyce, Sales Manager at Opus, added: "It is imperative for schools to be able to provide seamless communications experiences between parents and teachers and also amongst teachers themselves.

"In fact, it is critical to being able to deliver excellent education. At the same time, school budgets are being squeezed so technologies need to be excellent but efficient."

Tony Smith, UK&I Channel Sales Director at Unify, added: "Alongside our Professional Partner Opus Team we have been able to deliver a robust and future proof communications infrastructure to Helena Romanes School, one of a number of secondary education institutions that are realising the benefits of this."

The latest edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report provides insight into the future of 5G networks, including a forecast of 150 million 5G mobile subscriptions by 2021. South Korea, Japan, China, and the US are predicted to lead with the first, and fastest, 5G subscription uptake.

5G will connect new types of devices, enabling new use cases related to the Internet of Things - the transition will open up new industries and verticals to ICT transformation.

The report, a comprehensive update on mobile trends, reveals a significant increase in mobile video consumption, which is driving around six times higher traffic volumes per smartphone in North America and Europe (2015 to 2021). North America data traffic per active smartphone will grow from 3.8 to 22 GB per month by 2021; in Western Europe, the increase is from 2 to 18 GB per month.

With 20 new mobile broadband subscriptions activated every second, global increase in mobile subscriptions is another clear driver for data traffic growth. As of now, there are the same amount of mobile subscriptions as there are people on the planet; in 2016 we will reach the four billion mark for smartphone subscriptions alone.

Rima Qureshi, senior vice president and chief strategy officer, Ericsson, said: "5G is about more than faster mobile services - it will enable new use cases related to the Internet of Things. For example, Ericsson has built a prototype test bed for applying 5G networking functions and data analytics to public transport, which can save resources, reduce congestion, and lower environmental impact. ICT transformation will become even more common across industries as 5G moves from vision to reality in the coming years."

Other highlights from the latest Ericsson Mobility Report include:

• Video dominates data traffic: Global mobile data traffic is forecast to grow ten-fold by 2021, and video is forecast to account for 70% of total mobile traffic in the same year. In many networks today, YouTube accounts for up to 70% of all video traffic, while Netflix's share of video traffic can reach as high as 20% in markets where it is available.

• Mainland China overtakes the US as world's largest LTE market: By the end of 2015, mainland China will have 350 million LTE subscriptions - nearly 35% of the world's total LTE subscriptions. The market is predicted to have 1.2 billion LTE subscriptions by 2021.

• Africa becomes an increasingly connected continent: Five years ago (2010) there were 500 million mobile subscriptions across Africa; by the end of 2015 this number will double to 1 billion. Increased connectivity improves the prospect of financial inclusion for the 70% unbanked through mobile money services starting to take form across Africa.

• ICT powers the low-carbon economy: ICT will enable savings in energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across all other industrial sectors. The total emission reduction could be up to 10 gigatonnes of CO2e, representing about 15% of global GHG emissions in 2030 - more than the current carbon footprint of the US and EU combined.

CityFibre and HighNet are to collaborate on a project to transform Glasgow's digital connectivity and make it Scotland's third Gigabit City. CityFibre is to build an ultra-fast pure fibre network in Glasgow with HighNet, the Scottish ISP providing services to thousands of UK businesses.

The deployment in Glasgow city centre will kick off in early 2016 and support Internet connectivity up to 100 times faster than the UK average.

A dense network build in Glasgow city centre will be the first phase of deployment, and among the first businesses to benefit will be the customers of HighNet's channel partners.

Up to 15,000 businesses across the city will stand to benefit when the city-wide roll-out is completed, based on CityFibre's Well Planned City model. Other projects include Aberdeen, Coventry, Edinburgh, Peterborough and York.

"This design approach accommodates current and future capacity requirements from the business community, public sector, mobile operators and data centre providers," said Greg Mesch, CityFibre CEO (pictured above).

"Ultimately, the network could form a backbone for a future deployment of a gigabit-capable fibre-to-the-home access network.

"HighNet has made this project possible and its strong customer base and partner network will be crucial to its success."

Glasgow is CityFibre's third Gigabit City project in Scotland, and when complete CityFibre will have an established network presence in Scotland's four largest cities, making it the largest wholesale fibre infrastructure provider in the country after BT Openreach, claimed Mesch.

HighNet MD David J Siegel (pictured left) added: "This collaboration marks a step change in HighNet's evolution as a B2B ISP. Access to high quality, high capacity Internet capability can be truly transformational and we are leading the charge in Glasgow."

So here we go with the traditional review of the year that was, and consider what clues it offers for the year ahead, writes Clive Jefferys, Managing Director of telco recruiter JMA Network.

It was a strange year in telecoms recruitment as placements and revenues produced an exact reverse of the traditional hiring calendar.

Normally we expect peak flow between February and June of each year, but here at JMA and across the recruitment industry sales performance ambled along with no particularly outstanding months.

At the time, a lot of wise heads in HR and Recruitment (myself included) took this as a sign of growth petering out.

There was plenty of anecdotal evidence to support this, what with falling joblessness and an all-time peak in the employed workforce in the UK. There were a lot of tyre-kickers out there too, clients and candidates that looked, but didn't buy.

Then it all changed in July with double activity in interviews and cash, repeated in August, September, October and November.

A key factor had changed - the salaries secured for new hires went up significantly. It became apparent that many of our clients got sick of losing out to counter-offers.

So they upped the ante in advance and counter-offered the counter-offer, before the counter-offer even came about.

They demonstrated how much they really wanted the lucky candidate by taking into account the going rate for a job, not the salary a person was already on.

Here's the proof - our fastest growing clients this year have enjoyed short lead times to filled jobs because they offered the highest salaries.

This applies to billings, support, engineering as well as those pushy sales people.

Conversely, we still have January and February vacancies live on our books, with companies that have been less flexible with the cash.

So there's an important message in this about recruitment and growth plans for 2016. It's not rocket science, and I am not the one pulling the levers. As ever, it's all about you!