Comms Dealer

Money being redeployed from BDUK schemes with higher subscription rates than anticipated should be put to competitive tender according to Malcolm Corbett, CEO of INCA, the Independent Networks Co-operative Association.

So far around £130m has been earmarked for reallocation, but rather than giving the money back to BT, INCA is urging local authorities to seek competitive responses from BT and a range of alternative suppliers.

As the collective voice of more than 55 alternative broadband suppliers INCA has first-hand knowledge of the sheer value for money that these providers are delivering.

Malcolm Corbett, CEO of INCA, said: "INCA represents a wide range of alternative suppliers, and many are already making excellent progress delivering super and ultrafast broadband services in urban and rural areas.

"Increasingly, government and BDUK see these suppliers as forming an important part of the mix for maximising coverage and achieving the best possible value for money for local broadband schemes.

"More often than not, investment from altnets requires less public subsidy than telcos, for example, 50% rather than 85%, and regularly requires no public funding at all.

"This is in part due to their local knowledge of the community and geography, as well as the fact that they can be far more flexible in their approach and commit private investment to areas that BT finds challenging.

"In many of our towns, cities and rural areas, alternative suppliers are building new ultrafast and superfast networks with great success, creating the digital infrastructure necessary to help our businesses and economy thrive.

"Often they work in partnership with other providers and with community schemes, for example B4RN, Fibre GarDen and Cybermoor. It is unacceptable that many urban areas, in addition to the well-publicised rural notspots, still suffer from poor broadband.

"It is the alternative providers that are often willing to invest in digitally deprived areas when others would prefer to wait for a subsidy to materialise."

A recent survey among INCA's membership reinforced the fact that these providers are gaining momentum and significant traction. It revealed that more than 1 million premises can already connect to infrastructure built, owned and managed by the firms that responded, a figure set to rise to 10 million over the next few years.

The success of the sector brings extra capacity and investment to assist the Government in reaching its rural broadband targets and supports the emerging 'ultrafast' agenda outlined in the Digital Communications Infrastructure Strategy.

Corbett continued: "Partnerships between alternative providers, local authorities and community schemes can often pay real dividends. For instance the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham has struck a deal with ITS Technology to run fibre optic cable through the existing CCTV ducts on a concession basis.

"This means that not only are the costs and disruption of digging in a busy area dramatically reduced, but citizens and businesses get access to dedicated, ultrafast digital infrastructure, and the local authority will generate new revenues from an under-utilised asset.

"INCA is providing a platform for these alternative providers to collaborate and strike up partnerships that will improve the UK's digital infrastructure, and in turn help improve the UK's economic performance.

"It is by engaging the independent, competitive sector that coverage can be extended further and more quickly, with the maximum value for taxpayers' and investors' money, and to the benefit of the end user."

A business-only network provider that almost lost everything after the September 11th attacks and the latest recession is celebrating its 20th year with turnover now running at £10m-plus.

TFM Networks, which launched as Technology Facility Management in 1995, provides networks to UK hospitality, retail and construction companies.

The Buckinghamshire-based business specialised in hospitality and retail in its early years, redesigning networks for the likes of Travelodge and Officers Club, building the first check-in network system for Premier Inn.

However, on 11th September 2001, with the ink still drying on a deal with a major US hospitality chain, the hotel industry collapsed almost overnight, threatening to take TFM with it.

"Despite all the fantastic work we'd completed for major clients, the acquisition we made on 10th September was rocked by the terrible events of the following day," said Tom Yates, Chairman and Co-Founder of TFM.

"The US hotel market crash almost put us out of business and we had to sell many of our major assets and downsize in order to survive.

"Despite turning over millions the year before, we were reduced to just six staff and back to square one financially, turning over under £200,000 that year."

After a period of consolidation the company was reborn in 2003 as TFM Networks, developing a scalable MPLS solution over broadband with Tiscali.

The business was also quick to recognise the imminent rise of Chip and PIN and how this would create a need for faster, always-connected networks in the retail world.

In 2006 TFM Networks installed a QoS-enabled broadband MPLS VPN for high street fashion retailer H&M. This guaranteed a consistent high quality service that the retailer could depend on. TFM's growth subsequently accelerated and the company continues to go from strength to strength.

Stewart Yates, CEO of TFM Networks, commented: "We have come a long way since we began in 1995. Our ability to adapt and committed people got us through a continually evolving technological and economic landscape not to mention the worst terrorist attack and economic recession in living memory.

"We remain a proud family-run business that continues to deliver networks that have helped UK businesses grow immeasurably over the last decade.

"We're already preparing business for the next wave of challenges we will face as communications technology and our online activity continues to dominate our lives.

"Growing online demands are driving the expansion of networks requiring more data intensive networks and the expansion of IP addressing into v6.

"We're also embracing the Internet of Things, a world of interconnected smart devices that will automate a variety of services for business and consumers alike.

"We're looking forward to the next twenty years in a rapidly evolving industry."

Brian Lodge has been named MD for South West Communications Group following former MD Harry Langley's move to the FD role, taking over from Sarah Tadd who retired.

Langley held the MD post for nine years but health issues prompted his move to a less demanding role.

CEO and Chairman Tony Rowe OBE said: "Harry's workload was becoming a challenge and Sarah's retirement presented an opportunity to make some changes at board level as part of our wider plan to achieve a turnover target of £30m.

"Our new Commercial Director, Jon Whiley, has taken on some of Harry's commercial duties and will support the sales department, headed up by Sales Director Sarah Flowers."

Director of ICT John Holdstock and Director of General Operations Sean Doyle have been elevated from their Non-Executive Director roles to full executive directorships on the board.

GCI Channel Solutions has relocated its midlands-based operations to Grade 1 listed Darley Abbey Mills in Derby. GCI moved to the historic building, which dates back to the 1700s, following a £1.2m investment from owners Patterns Properties.

"The refurbished open plan office is the ideal location for our fully cloud-based business," said Mark Whitehead, Director of Channel Sales. "The Mills provide a collaborative open plan and stylish working environment.

"While staff will benefit from a vibrant collective working environment, beautiful surroundings and great onsite facilities, for GCI the move was an important element in the growth of Darley Abbey Mills and the Derbyshire business community, marking major milestone in the establishment of a Creative Village in the area by attracting creative businesses in media, technology and telecommunications."

Virgin Media Business has been awarded preferred supplier status in all ten categories of the Government's new Network Service Framework (NSF).

The framework is now operational and is estimated to attract more than £500 million of public sector ICT spend by the end of this year.

Released by the Crown Commercial Service (CCS), the NSF is the main procurement communications framework for public sector organisations in the UK.

The framework will help healthcare providers, emergency services, local councils and other public sector organisations realise greater flexibility and value when they're looking to procure a full range of communications services including mobile, VoIP, video conferencing and local area networks.

By securing a place in every category, Virgin Media Business cements its status as a leading supplier to the public sector and enables it to fulfil cross IT service requirements. To gain acceptance on each of the lots, suppliers were asked to pass a series of technical and commercial hurdles.

Peter Kelly, Managing Director, Virgin Media Business, said: "Virgin Media Business has a long track record of working in partnership with the public sector. It's essential these organisations have the tools and solutions they need to securely communicate, share information and collaborate with each other. We are delighted to be recognised by Crown Commercial Services as a preferred partner with outstanding products and services."

Virgin Media Business has nearly 20 years experience servicing public sector organisations including more than 250 NHS organisations, 60% of the UK's police force and half the UK's fire and ambulance services. It works with over 3,000 schools and universities to enable more innovative learning and local councils to improve connectivity in communities.

Customer contact technology specialist Sabio has appointed Ben Le Feuvre as Head of its Network Services business.

He joins from Capita IT Enterprise Services and in his new role will be responsible for developing Sabio's expanding network services portfolio.

The proposition leads on SIP Trunking and Inbound 08/03 solutions but also encompasses data connectivity and interactive text as well as traditional ISDN services managed through the company's customer billing portal.

"We're committed to developing our Network Services proposition at Sabio, so bringing in Ben Le Feuvre, with his expertise in developing and growing UK voice and data services operations, is a great move for Sabio," commented Sebastian Henkes, Sabio's Managing Director.

"A key driver behind organisations selecting Sabio is our ability to back all our solutions with a services wrap, significantly reducing complexity for our customers. Sabio Network Services is an important part of that offering, and we look forward to expanding this part of our business under Ben's direction."

Le Feuvre added: "Sabio Network Services complements the company's broader customer contact technology portfolio. I'm looking forward to helping develop the Network Services proposition and making it a compelling choice for organisations wanting to streamline their solutions and services supply chain.

"In addition to helping organisations optimise their core telephony spend, Sabio Network Services can add value by easing the transition to more resilient and flexible next generation services. Taking full ownership of the whole telephony estate is an extremely powerful proposition, especially with Sabio's single point of support model."

Le Feuvre brings over 25 years senior carrier and channel expertise to Sabio, and joins the company after five years heading up Capita IT Enterprise Services' Voice Network Services business.

He served as channel director at Gamma Telecom from 2007 to 2010, and before that helped Telstra establish its wholesale, service provider and dealer channels in the UK.

Earlier in his career Le Feuvre worked with other major carrier and communications organisations including Siemens, WorldCom and Tiscali.

Business leaders wanting to take their first tentative steps towards the cloud while retaining a hardware presence on-site are prime targets for resellers of ShoreTel Connect, a new solution launched to the UK market that offers a single platform with three deployment options and a common user interface.

The vendor has mid-market firms in its sights and according to a senior industry analyst the launch enables UK resellers to more easily approach businesses with an all-embracing UC&C solution that allows customers to readily migrate to the cloud in their own time or continue with a CPE-only solution.

In detail, ShoreTel Connect Onsite is an end-to-end UC solution that customers own, maintain and control; ShoreTel Connect Cloud is a fully hosted and managed end-to-end UCaaS solution; while  ShoreTel Connect Hybrid enables Onsite customers to have applications delivered via the cloud. Hybrid apps such as ShoreTel Fax and ShoreTel Scribe (voicemail transcription) are also available.

Rich Costello, Senior Research Analyst at IDC, noted: "The new common platform enables ShoreTel to offer customers what they want - a choice of premises, hosted or hybrid solutions with a consistent user experience across a common software stream.

"The common platform also makes UC&C easier for its channel partners to deploy and support as well as for customers to migrate from one model to another as needed. With its fully integrated solution, ShoreTel eliminates the need for customers and partners to piece together complex solutions from multiple parties."

ShoreTel Connect introduces new features such as personalised call handling and call routing for both office and mobile devices; collaboration tools including IM, audio and web conferencing, point-to-point video and desktop sharing; feature integration and collaboration apps for smartphone, tablet and wearable devices; integration with CRM systems; and apps like voicemail to text, emergency notification, integrated call recording and enhanced paging.

ShoreTel's President and CEO Don Joos said: "ShoreTel Connect helps customers determine how and when to move communications to the cloud by offering hybrid options along the way, no matter how many sites or employees.

"Whether customers prefer to subscribe to a managed cloud service, invest in an on-site system or deploy a combination of the two, there is a single UC solution that delivers the same user experience and capabilities to the entire team." 

The new ShoreTel Connect client is consistent across the deployment types. With one click, users can escalate a conversation from an IM to a call, to an online meeting, and then to a web desktop share and video.

The browser-based app also facilitates collaboration among internal teams and enables external users to engage and collaborate without the need for plug-ins, multiple application windows, passwords or complex set-up.

As part of the ShoreTel Connect roll-out the vendor also introduced a contact centre solution scalable to 1,000 users for ShoreTel Connect Cloud and ShoreTel Connect Onsite.

ShoreTel Connect Contact Center introduces multiple interaction channels including inbound and outbound voice (with the ability to incorporate campaign dialling and automated call backs from queue), web chat, web call back requests and email routing.

"The new browser-based interface, called ShoreTel Connect Agent Interaction Center, combines easy management of multiple contact channels, deep contextual transaction information, agent and service KPI information, supervisor/agent interactions, web chat, and agent controls within a single pane," said Eugenia Corrales, Senior VP of Product.

The solution provides support for up to 1,000 concurrent agent logins for both cloud and onsite deployments, offers real-time and historical reporting including statistics of call centre activity, detailed agent activity and call-by-call details on outbound calls.

Also on offer are enhanced customer self-service capabilities with customisable interactive voice response (IVR) scripting; as well as deep integrations to workforce optimisation and CRM solutions including support for real-time adherence.

"Our ShoreTel Connect common platform enables the delivery of a feature-rich cloud contact centre solution to meet the needs of today's multi-channel, multi-site organisations," added Corrales.

Fibre optic network provider SiFi Networks has strengthened its executive management team with the appointment of David Thomas as Head of Network Operations.

He will be responsible for the managing to day to day operations of the organisation's technical infrastructure and the integration of multiple ISPs seeking to deliver value-added services to customers.

With over 33 years experience in the telecommunications sector Thomas was previously a senior executive at BT and managed the company's UK Central Operations Unit which monitors the whole BT voice and data network.

Thomas has also been responsible for service development, engineering and customer operations at Carrier1, which operated Europe's largest telecoms and IP backbone serving over 13 countries with customers such as Telewest and AOL.

While acting as Consultant Managing Director for London's Go Networks he built the voice and data carrier from scratch helping the company reach an annual turnover exceeding $24 million in short timescales.

Ben Bawtree-Jobson, CEO of SiFi Networks, said: "We are thrilled to welcome David who will become an important part of the SiFi Networks team.

His expertise and experience in this sector will enable us to further enhance the operational management of our FiberCity model."

Nimans is holding four-day technical accreditation and one-day top-up courses for Panasonic's NS700 comms system during September at venues in the north and south of the country.

Nimans' Head of System Sales John McKindland said: "We've run similar courses before which were full to capacity and demonstrate resellers' thirst for knowledge about the NS700."

The NS700 'smart hybrid' solution is suited to small and medium sized offices and call centre environments.

Installation and configuration, new hardware, high density card wiring, programming and IP cell stations are covered in the training.

O2 has extended its fleet management product portfolio with the launch of plug-and-play telematics for the vehicle rental and leasing markets.

The move follows a link-up with Geotab - a specialist in GPS fleet management and vehicle tracking solutions - and brings together Telefónica's experience in telematics (having installed over 100,000 telematics units worldwide) and Geotab's technology and motor manufacturer database. 

The two additions to Telefónica's portfolio - called O2 Track and Go and O2 Smart Tracking - provide real-time data on a range of metrics, and both products plug into a vehicle's OBD-II port and can be moved between cars.

The solutions give fleet managers deeper insights into their rental or lease fleets and help companies reduce operational costs while enabling real-time remote vehicle diagnostics and driver behaviour monitoring.

Two levels of vehicle tracking allow rental and leasing company fleet managers to choose the level of data they wish to see to control their fleets.

O2 Track and Go gives fleet managers the ability to get real-time vehicle location, trip visualisation, unlimited geofencing, alerts and reports track the location of the vehicle, both historically and in real-time, as well as get live updates in case of an engine fault or if the vehicle has been involved in an accident.

O2 Smart Tracking provides all the capability provided in O2 Track and Go as well as allowing fleet managers to instantly see other information such as the driving style of the driver, seat belt engagement, vehicle diagnostics and car mileage.

They can also track the vehicle's fuel and oil levels, tyre condition and battery status.

"Telematics is now a must-have for all organisations looking for the most accurate data about their business vehicles," stated David Taylor, MD of Machine to Machine for O2 in the UK. "O2 track and Go and O2 Smart Tracking will help fleet decision makers achieve significant operating efficiencies." 

Geotab CEO Neil Cawse added: "Rental and leasing companies need reliable and secure fleet management solutions that are easy to install, manage and switch out as their fleet changes."