Comms Dealer

Ofcom has launched a major strategic review of the UK's digital communications markets as it seeks to ensure that the industry continues to meet the needs of end users.

The last such review lasted almost two years and ultimately led to the separation of BT's access network.

This time round the review is unlikely to focus on a further separation of the incumbent and ask where further deregulation can take place as a result of competition coming from so-called OTT players, according to Matthew Howett, Practice Leader, Regulation, Ovum.

"The review is taking place against the backdrop of the biggest shake-up of the industry for more than a decade, with both BT and Hutchison's Three trying to convince competition authorities that their acquisitions of EE and O2 respectively should be given the go-ahead," he said.

"This presents a challenge for Ofcom as it tries to envisage what the landscape will look like in the years to come.

"Clearly the review needs to consider these mergers - and indeed it will be useful input for the advice Ofcom gives to the relevant competition authorities.

"However, the regulator is keen to downplay this aspect, instead attempting to focus on how the review could lead to further deregulation of the sector. This is where OTT comes in."

Howett also noted that although Ofcom is a converged regulator it still largely regulates things in their individual silos and within the fairly narrowly defined structure of the European telecoms framework for regulating markets.

"As new, more nimble players such as Skype and WhatsApp have arrived on the scene and competed away traditional telco revenues, regulators have been somewhat constrained in their ability to react, and certainly have not responded in the way telcos might have liked," he added.

"This review presents an opportunity for the regulator to properly consider the impact these competing services are having on the sector, and whether this impact warrants further deregulation of the traditional communications markets along the lines of what telcos have been demanding.

"It would not be entirely cynical to think that the review will focus mostly on this aspect rather than on issues such as a further separation of BT or new wholesale access requirements - just a couple of areas under the spotlight as the proposed mergers are considered.

"Instead these are likely to be addressed as part of the proposed remedies to get those deals approved. Ofcom's wider strategic review could then be revisited once the dust settles following any eventual industry consolidation."

Hosted comms provider MyPhones.com has fuelled its accelerating drive into the UK channel following a distribution agreement with SOS Communications. The move is a key component of MyPhones.com's strategy to gain significantly more market share and comes as the number of subscribers to its Altos hosted telephony platform reaches an all time high.

"Subscriptions have increased by more than 1,750 so far this year," stated MD Dr Stuart Marsden. "Since the beginning of March we've been setting up subscriptions at a rate of circa 50 per day. This trend can only continue as resellers become more aware of Altos and its benefits." 

The agreement with SOS Communications will introduce Altos to a sizeable reseller base and the solution will be offered as the only hosted telephony product in the distributor's portfolio.

Work is also under way to establish SOS Communications as a direct provisioning point for Altos hardware; and dealer launch events are being planned to support these developments. 

SOS Communications MD Colin Hepher commented: "This opportunity offers huge potential for our resellers whether they are already selling hosted or not.

"Resellers have the option to white label the service, use their own carriers and choose the hardware.

"SOS Communications requires no minimum contract term or volume commitment and offers a simple, competitive pricing structure."

The management of all orders will be undertaken by MyPhones.com.

Pictured above: SOS Communications resellers gain their first insights into Altos

Billing solutions provider ebillz has joined the Chess Partner Services division as a billing product, supporting the drive of Partner Services to create a one-stop-shop partner programme for resellers.

Billing Director of the Chess Group, Arvind Meghani, said: "Our move to Chess Partner Services will maximise the support available to ebillz customers and increase investment in the ebillz system development moving forward.

"It also gives all partners of Chess a real opportunity to grow the enterprise value and truly own their customers.

"Teaming up with the expertise available across the Chess group will make 2015 a year of Growth and Opportunity for all our clients, bringing them more products, investment and marketing support than ever before."

Formed in August 2014 from the merger of Chess Wholesale and Avenir Telecom's Airtime division, Chess Partner Services supports telecoms resellers in their business growth by providing a range of support, products and solutions.

John Pett Sales Director of Chess Partner Services, added: "Our closer integration with ebillz opens up for ebillz clients the same opportunities all our partners receive, a chance to re-sell Chess' products and services, to acquire more of their customers wallet share & grow their business further."

Cisco has extended its cloud and data centre relationship with Microsoft to include a new technology platform designed to accelerate service delivery and streamline the journey to the Intercloud for cloud providers.
 
Cisco and Microsoft are launching the Cisco Cloud Architecture for the Microsoft Cloud Platform, an integrated solution that combines Windows Azure Pack and Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI) to help cloud providers rapidly deliver hybrid cloud services while drastically simplifying operations and reducing costs..
 
Additionally, 14 cloud providers today announced they plan to join Cisco's Intercloud partner ecosystem, bringing the number of Intercloud providers to more than 60 with a footprint of more than 350 data centers across 50 countries.
 
The integration between Cisco and Microsoft technologies will aim to enable cloud providers to realise 'unprecedented value'.

The combination of Windows Azure Pack and Cisco ACI allows partners to deliver services - from network services and disaster recovery, to big data, and enterprise application services - at DevOps speed, reducing total cost of ownership and accelerating time-to-revenue.

This collaboration will deliver pre-packaged policy management libraries that allow cloud providers to implement applications more quickly with consistent policy management. In addition, Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 is integrated with the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) Manager to provide the operational simplicity and control that cloud providers need to manage their growing business.
 
Cisco and Microsoft plan to support their ecosystem partners with a full lifecycle go-to-market approach that delivers everything from service idea and demand generation to customer retention.

Nick Earle, senior vice president, Cloud and Managed Services, Cisco: ?said: "We want our service provider partners to move up-market with us and offer higher-end cloud services. By partnering with Microsoft we're able to deliver a tightly integrated, application centric cloud architecture. This new platform will help our partners accelerate the delivery of new and innovative hybrid cloud services for their customers."
 
Aziz Benmalek, general manager, Hosting Service Providers, Microsoft, said: "Cisco and Microsoft already have a strong relationship in the cloud and data center markets. We're expanding that collaboration with a solution that will allow our mutual partners to deliver services quickly and grow revenue faster with a cloud-enabled platform."

The global network security appliance and software revenue climbed 6% in 2014 to $6.9bn, driven by enterprises and network operators deploying security solutions aimed at protecting data and network infrastructure.

That's the upshot of Infonetics' Q4 2014 and year-end Network Security Appliances and Software report which tracks integrated security appliances, secure routers, SSL VPN gateways, VPN and firewall software, and intrusion detection and prevention products.

"Closing out 2014 on a positive note with strong performances by most of the top vendors, and especially Palo Alto Networks and Fortinet, the network security space has been on a roll as a result of some very large data centre and cloud projects," said Jeff Wilson, principal analyst for security at Infonetics Research.

"By next year quarterly revenue growth will begin to slow as the industry transitions to lower-ASP virtualised security solutions.

"But it's not all bad news. Integrated advanced threat prevention security solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT), mobile networks and industrial environments will help support overall market growth."

Q4 2014 saw the worldwide network security market, including appliances and software, grow 4% sequentially to $1.9bn.

The top four network security vendors for the full-year 2014 are (in alphabetical order) Check Point, Cisco, Fortinet and Palo Alto. Juniper slipped out of the top tier according to Infonetics.

Data improvement remains a challenge for businesses despite 90% of organisations believing their data could potentially boost profitability by up to 15%.

That's the finding of a new report by Experian, the global information services group, which identified two key reasons for the discrepancy.

The first being a lack of ownership and co-ordination with almost 63% of organisations lacking a coherent, centralised approach to data quality.

Secondly, the use of outdated methods to check data accuracy was highlighted with 29% of organisations still manually cleaning their data.
 
Boris Huard, Managing Director of Experian Data Quality, said: "Getting your data strategy right is vital if you want to be successful in this consumer driven, digitalised age.

"Our 2015 Global Data Quality Research paper highlights the importance of having a complete data strategy in place in order to ensure that data is well managed and optimised for maximum benefit."

The good news is that companies are increasingly switching on to the value of their data assets, with 95% of respondents stating that they feel driven to use their data to either understand customer needs, find new customers or increase the value of each customer.

"They recognise that more emphasis on data management and strategy will enable them to satisfy escalating customer expectations," added Huard.
 
"However, many challenges persist with the number of respondents who think they have data inaccuracies up from last year, and the majority still lack a clear approach to data quality."

Purple WiFi, the cloud-based Social WiFi software company, has added Location Based Services to its WiFi solution.  
 
Location Based Services offer the host venue insights into consumer information and behaviour. It also provides opportunities to market to and engage customers directly via features such as Facebook demographic reporting, zoning reporting and vouchering.
 
Nisa Cardiff and Camden Market are already utilising the geo-fencing feature, drawing invisible lines around particular sales areas or locations.

This allows the business to gauge what purchases the customer might be considering and send information or offers in real-time to their mobile device.
 
Purple WiFi also allows the business to understand who is visiting and using the free WiFi, how long they are online, as well as their age, gender and any other relevant information that's included in their social networking profile.
 
Nisa in Cardiff have found that providing free Purple WiFi has brought more customers into the shop and increased their dwell time. As a result, sales of coffee, snacks and other products have increased.
 
Using Location Based Services allows Nisa to track the customer's journey around the store and adjust product displays accordingly.

The team has already identified corners of the shop where nobody goes, which had not been recognised previously. They have also been able to increase their social media engagement, gaining 'Likes' and 'Follows' which provide an opportunity for regular dialogue with their customers.
 
At Camden Market, the team has taken advantage of Purple WiFi's Facebook demographic and zoning reporting capabilities. This has enabled the identification of visitor's interest preferences from Facebook, which can be compared with national averages in order to show distinctive characteristics and better target marketing campaigns for specific traders.

Camden Market has found the vouchering tool to be particularly useful for photography competitions and promoting live events.
 
In addition, Camden Market has also looked at footfall in detail across the estate, identifying choke points and pinpointing common entrance and exit points, as well as how men move through the space versus women.
 
The customer has the right to opt-in or opt-out of tracking. If a customer is not opted in, Purple WiFi's software can still detect an anonymous MAC address, confirm whether that MAC address is a new or repeat visitor, and see how long that device stays.
 
If a customer is opted in, the device MAC address can be linked to personal data, such as their age, gender, name, email address, location, language, Likes, etc. meaning relevant vouchers can be pushed to the visitor.
 
David Morris, Head of IT at Nisa Retail, said: "The system is providing us with essential demographic information about consumers visiting these sites. The intention is to use this data to gain competitive advantage, drive consumer promotional activity and record the impact against sales."
 
Jac Timms, IT Manager, Camden Market, added: "Providing a large outdoor and indoor public hotspot over Camden Market had its challenges, but thanks to Purple WiFi's cloud based solution we were able to get up and running very rapidly. The set up was fast and Purple WiFi helped us to fine tune the system and increase location accuracy, it was smooth from start to finish.

"Being able to market to visitors when they arrive at specific venues combined with rich analytics has been a real bonus for us."
 
Gavin Wheeldon, CEO, Purple WiFi, stated: "From the retailer's point of view, useful customer information and footfall data can be collected and used to better target offers and in-store signage.
 
"From the customer's point of view, offers can be delivered direct to their device when they are in the location looking at a product area, meaning the offer is relevant there and then.

"But this is only the beginning. The next stage of development might include functionality such as requesting help from retail assistants, and skipping queues to pay all via the customer's mobile device."

Nimans has introduced a spring time bundle for its iQ X600i system (part of a family of iQ products), now available with four handsets at a 54% discount off RRP. The offer runs until the end of May.

The X600i Gateway is an Asterisk-based platform for up to 100 users, while the iQ TX 150 and TX 170 SIP handsets boast HD voice clarity and many features.

iQ Business Manager Judith Addison said: "The X600i and four associated handsets (two of each) represent a powerful way for resellers to maximise their margins as the combined retail price is over £1,200."

An industry survey has revealed the high costs IT managers are facing when dealing with unexpected downtime. Of those surveyed, the largest group (37%) estimated that the cost-per-minute of their downtime fell into the £10,000 - £20,000 bracket.

With 80% of those questioned giving their Recovery Time Objectives as two hours or greater, the results mean that the potential losses to UK businesses are significant.

The study, conducted by Timico, gave insights into the disaster recovery habits of IT managers in the UK, and revealed a lack of awareness despite the predicted cost of outages.

Timico's survey revealed that almost a quarter (24%) of IT managers acknowledged having an outage within the past month but despite that, over 70% admitted to never having worked out the cost of the resulting downtime.

Tom Moores, Sales Director for Cloud and Hosting at Timico, said: "It's no secret that downtime is inconvenient, but the physical cost to a business is troubling too.

"Being offline not only stops orders coming in during the downtime period - but also has the knock-on effect of damaging customer relationships, which can be even more costly in the long run.

"With our survey of IT managers estimating that the cost per minute of downtime often runs into the tens of thousands, it really is time to invest in adequate disaster recovery solutions."

The research also found that over 60% of SMEs had not yet rolled out any form of cloud-based back up within their business.

Moving to the cloud negates the need for dual site replication, an option still favoured by 18% of those businesses questioned. Shockingly, despite the risks, a minority of respondents even admitted to never backing up their data.

Azlan is helping resellers get to grips with Software Defined Networking (SDN) with the launch of a fully-equipped proof-of-concept and demonstration centre at its HP Enterprise Group (HP EG) Demo Lab facility in Basingstoke.

Jonathan Kaiser, General Manager Products and Services for the Azlan HP Enterprise Group, said: "SDN promises to re-define the way that infrastructures are designed and managed. But while it is deliverable today, most VARs and end user customers are only just starting to learn about the concept and everything that it entails.

"We have set up the SDN demo facility so that resellers can brief both their own teams on the technology and show their customers what SDN is all about and the benefits it can deliver."

According to IDC the worldwide SDN market for the enterprise and cloud service provider segments will grow from $960 million in 2014 to over $8 billion by 2018, a CAGR of 89.4per cent.