Comms Dealer

telent Technology Services has been awarded a contract for the maintenance of over 1,400 street-based CCTV cameras and associated CCTV Matrices and Operator Interfaces, which collectively form a pan-London Traffic Control CCTV system operated by Transport for London (TfL).

The cameras are distributed across each of the 32 Greater London Boroughs as well as the City of London, and provide the eyes on the street for TfL, the Metropolitan Police, City of London Police, London Ambulance and media services such as the BBC and TfL's 'JamCam' service.

The system monitors traffic flow and as such assists greatly in the management of road incidents, bus lane and yellow box junction enforcement. The system also provides real-time information feeds to media channels and the travelling public.

The new contract has a term of up to seven years and will provide for a comprehensive maintenance service, the supplementary works required to replace obsolete or damaged units, and the deployment of temporary cameras to cover special events.

Iain Blackmore, Head of Traffic Infrastructure for TfL, stated: "Our Road Modernisation Plan is seeing huge investment being made to the capital's roads, improving journeys for all Londoners. This new contract is a good deal for London and will allow us to continue to actively monitor the capital's roads, helping keep disruption to a minimum."

Hats off to VoIP Unlimited's marketing executive Aimee Looker who raised over £558 while hosting a charity pub quiz in aid of HeadSmart, a campaign launched by The Brain Tumour Charity.

Looker, who is taking part in the London Marathon in April, added the money to her marathon pot, boosting her fundraising total to £970. She hopes to raise £2,500 for the charity by May.

The HeadSmart campaign aims to raise the awareness of brain tumour symptoms in children and young people, which include persistent or recurring vomiting, headaches and deteriorating vision.

The Brain Tumour Charity is the leading funder of brain tumour research in the UK, spending over £12 million to date on pioneering projects that will help adults and children with brain tumours.

Looker said: "I'm pleased with the turnout we had at Patrick's for the pub quiz. All the teams did well and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it.

"VoIP Unlimited has pledged to raise at least £10,000 in funds for The Brain Tumour Charity by this November, to raise awareness of brain tumour symptoms in children and young people. I'm just so happy to be doing my bit."

Jabra is celebrating a triple win at the Red Dot Design Awards 2015.

The headset maker was picked out for its Sport Pulse Wireless earbuds with built-in heart rate monitor, and wireless headsets Jabra Stealth and Jabra Storm.

Jabra fended off competition from 4,928 entries from 56 countries to win the awards.

Darcy Clarkson, Senior Vice President at Jabra states that: "Again, Jabra has won three Red Dot Product Design awards in one year, demonstrating that our intelligent audio solutions are on form with the latest design trends."

Sinclair Voicenet, provider of call recording and advanced contact centre applications to the public safety, financial and commercial sectors, has notched up turnover by more than 42% in the last financial year with a corresponding rise in profitability.

Director Peter Gough (pictured) said: "We have made a significant investment in developing new technology solutions and growing our sales and support teams to meet increasing customer demand."

Over the last 12 months Sinclair Voicenet has also experienced a 20% increase in headcount, and established an Advanced Services Group to streamline installations of complex applications that require high levels of technical expertise.

The firm is now the only partner of NICE Systems which is fully certified to manage and deploy advanced applications without having to rely on vendor support.

Sinclair Voicenet has also continued to invest in new products under the SmartVoice brand name.

"The coming year will see further success as we continue to expand the business, target a number of new markets and unveil significant new products," added Gough.

Node4 has expanded its application development and managed cloud offering with the acquisition of open source technology services company Reconnix.

The acquisition will strengthen Node4's existing portfolio of cloud solutions and allow it to develop its PaaS offering so that customers can develop, run and manage web applications.

Based in Newark, Reconnix provides managed services for dedicated and cloud infrastructures, professional services for open source projects, open source application support and application development.

Reconnix customers include Morphsuits.co.uk, Visit Cornwall, Internet Watch Foundation, Johnnie Walker and Home Outlet (Wolseley).

The Reconnix team of 30-plus technical experts and engineers will continue to work from the Newark office and will become part of the Node4 team.

Steve Nice, co-founder and CEO of Reconnix will take up a senior management role as head of Node4's Open Source business. 

Node4's existing cloud offerings and broader portfolio of colocation, network connectivity and telephony and communications packages will be offered to Reconnix customers.

Andrew Gilbert, Managing Director, Node4, commented: "This latest acquisition will strengthen our expertise in three key areas that will be critical to our future success - application development, operations management and infrastructure management."

Steve Nice, Founder and CEO of Reconnix, added: "There is a clear synergy in the aims and ambitions of both companies and I believe the acquisition will bring further opportunities for both our employees and our customers."

Houghton Le Spring based Intelligent Communication Solutions has joined forces with BT Business Partner Sales' expanding channel as an Authorised Partner.

Intelligent Communication Solutions MD Les Wray said: "This partnership means we can expand our portfolio of products and offer a truly unified solution to our customers.

"We take a consultative approach to our customers to ensure we provide the best solution for their requirements. We are growing rapidly and have recently acquired a new 12,000 sq. ft office which we will be moving into in May."

Martin Clarke, General Manager, BT Business Partner Sales, said: "The passion that Les Wray and his team have to deliver quality solutions to local businesses was a key factor in us partnering with them.

"The team have an ability to sell across the BT Business portfolio to UK SME customers and also scale up as they will be moving into new premises later on in the year."

A new refinancing agreement has secured Claranet a long-term facility with the introduction of Goldman Sachs' Private Capital Team alongside existing finance providers RBS, ABRY Partners and Ares Management. Charles Nasser (pictured), Claranet Group founder and CEO, said: "Our financing  extends to 2020 and brings greater flexibility for us as we plan for further growth and development of our products and services.

"RBS, Ares and ABRY, our existing funding partners, have shown long-term commitment to Claranet and our strategy. Additionally, we are thrilled to partner with Goldman Sachs to support our evolution."

Ares and Goldman Sachs have provided a unitranche facility of £82m with RBS providing further support of a committed facility of up to £25m.

The arrangement takes advantage of the lower cost of debt made possible from Claranet's strengthening position, and gives greater flexibility to the company as it continues to grow across Europe.

Mohith Sondhi, Director, Structured Finance Corporates at RBS, said: "We believe the market remains fragmented in continental Europe and hope with the support of committed facilities in what we regard as an innovative structure, that Claranet will carry on their impressive growth and the successful delivery of their strategy."

The latest refinancing follows a successful financial year-end in June 2014 that saw 24 per cent revenue growth across Europe reaching a total of £127.4m (€175.8m).

The strong results demonstrate the success of Claranet's acquisition strategy, expanding its product portfolio and increasing its customer base and overall market position.

This led to an adjusted EBITDA figure of £23.0m (€31.7m) - 97 per cent up on the company's 2013 result of £11.7m (€16.1m). The total contracted future revenue of the Claranet Group as of 30 June 2014 was in excess of £185.7m (€256.3m).

Nasser added: "The refinancing is just the latest step to secure the long-term success of Claranet. We now have greater financial support that strengthens our hand in responding to the growing consolidation of the managed services sector in Europe."

IT services company Phoenix has opened a brand new, state-of-the-art Configuration & Distribution centre in Farnborough, Hampshire.

The centre, which represents an investment by Phoenix of approximately £500K, will create 20 new jobs in the area. This facility adds to existing capabilities in Northampton.
  
By expanding its regional network of distribution centres, Phoenix can provide its clients with quick and efficient delivery of required IT hardware, wherever their location.
 
This centre takes Phoenix's total storage and staging capacity to over 30,000 sq. ft. with Northampton representing 15,000 sq. ft. respectively. 

The building is protected by around-the-clock security and offers 1000 pallet locations and 120 metres of work bench space among many other features. 
 
Mark Ramsden, Head of Professional Services at Phoenix, said: "Opening this centre means that we can provide more flexibility to our customers in supporting complex rollouts of their IT projects.

"We understand that being agile is essential to our clients and we are delighted that our investment in this facility enables us to deliver that."   

Channel Telecom has taken a party of guests on an all-expenses paid four-night skiing trip to Méribel ski resort, home to the 1992 Winter Olympics.

Clifford Norton, MD, said: "We had a terrific time on the slopes with excellent snow on stunning pistes. Naturally there was some great après ski with a very good group of guests.

"We were also able to discuss our development plans for the year ahead in a relaxed atmosphere with some of our most important partners. We look forward to more reward and incentive events for our channel community in the coming months."

Hosting company Storm Internet has added StormCloud Private to its portfolio, giving customers the flexibility, scalability and reliability of the cloud but with the security and enhanced performance of a dedicated server.

Salim Benadel, CEO and founder, said StormCloud Private was developed in response to feedback from customers and market research, with the aim of bringing down the cost of Private Cloud compared to current industry standards.

Benadel said: "We've put a lot of R&D into this product to ensure it will help SMEs to get the most out of their IT infrastructure.

"This new product will help our customers speed up the release of their products and critical applications, cut back on their IT spend and provide the security that their users need to transact safely online.

"In a nutshell, it will allow our customers to host multiple servers securely and affordably in their own private cloud environment."

A key feature of StormCloud Private is the ability for users to create Windows and Linux Virtual Machines (VMs) on demand, within minutes and without needing to pay extra per VM.

"Customers can easily grow their cloud by simply adding in new parent servers as required, meaning seamless expansion becomes an affordable reality," added Benadel.

"This allows our clients to cut back on hardware expenses and the costs associated with a dedicated server."