Comms Dealer

Hants-based M12 Solutions is to provide a local loop unbundled Internet service from the Basingstoke and Winchester telephone exchanges and launch a new service brand, Giganet.

MD Andrew Skipsey said: "When we launched our rural Internet brand, Wessex Internet, little did we realise that we would be able to generate such a strong identity, clear culture and values, which have since helped us to distinguish ourselves.

"With Giganet we want to provide the same customer service to new customers who will get our connection via the new Openreach cabinets and fibre last mile service."

Research by 8x8 has brought into sharp focus the yawning gap between properly tooled up call centre agents and their ill-equipped counterparts who work in less structured 'informal' contact centres.

According to a new report from 8x8 'informal' agents outnumber formal contact centre workers in the UK by six times (4.6 million) and 46% of this category say they are unsupported and undertrained despite having equal responsibility for dealing with customer service enquiries across various channels.

Almost as many say that access to customer service technology would help them improve their performance with developments such as AI and chatbots cited as a potential boon to their capabilities.

Despite growth in the use of non-traditional channels, skills in managing social media and email contacts are lacking among a sizeable section of informal agents.

8x8 UK MD Kevin Scott-Cowell said: "When people think of customer service they imagine aircraft hanger sized contact centres full of headset wearing agents. This is a complete misconception.

"Informal contact centre agents are having to communicate professionally with customers across multiple channels, but in most instances they haven't been trained and don't feel confident.

"But with the right technology and training staff can be supported, even small teams.
"The advent of cloud-based contact centre technology means this doesn't have to be a huge investment, but will undoubtedly improve overall customer service."

Next Generation Data (NGD) has become one of the first data centres outside London to go live with the new BT Wholesale Optical and Optical Connect National service which delivers 10Gb, nx10Gb and 100Gb Ethernet symmetric point to point connectivity.
 
This follows a surge in cloud-based services at NGD which in turn is creating growth in network traffic.

With a direct connection to NGD's data centre BT's high performance optical solutions will support demand.
 
Nick Razey, CEO at Next Generation Data, said: "Our data centre is relied on by a rapidly increasing number of enterprise cloud users and service providers which makes the availability of high speed, highly resilient and secure network services a top priority."
 
Three years ago NGD was selected as BT's first data centre PoP as part of its 21CN Next Generation Ethernet Infrastructure.

Bob Sparks, founder of Cardiff-based Ayspark, struck gold as the lucky winner of a genuine gold bar at one of Fidelity Energy's 'Gold Rush Discovery' events staged in London and Manchester.

The event was designed to increase the understanding of the tools available to partners entering the energy supply arena, including marketing and sales support and the company's new portal.

"We have seen a significant uptake in portal usage, a number of new partner contracts have been signed and activity is around 20% up compared to before the event," said Fidelity Energy MD John Haw.

Haw will also be running an educational webinar on the 6th June at 10am.

Knight Corporate Finance has launched a new company to help channel businesses gain Government funding for research and development.

The new enterprise, Knight R&D, is headed up by Australian Rupert Mayo, a former scientist who spent over nine years leading teams in KPMG's R&D tax practice both in his home country and in the UK.

The new business helps ICT companies claim for Government R&D tax credits, an initiative that rewards UK companies for investing in technology development and associated innovation.

Companies that spend money developing new products, processes or services (or enhancing existing ones) are often eligible for a cash payment and/or corporation tax reduction.

The Government sees the initiative as an important contributor to the UK's efforts to keep R&D in the UK, particularly post-Brexit.

Mayo believes that passion and common sense are key to a successful outcome for claims, which can lead to a 33p in the pound payback on qualifying project expenditure.

"All too often I saw the 'Big 4' accounting firms hire people with extensive qualifications but litte enthusiasm," he said.

"With Knight R&D I have been able to build my own team based not just on their competencies but on their passion for technology and desire to help companies get their full entitlements."

Mayo claims his team also has a strong practical understanding of how companies undertake their R&D in the 'real world', outside of university style environments.

"We have good minds capable of rapidly grasping the concepts of our clients and we have software and electrical engineers who lead the technical side of our TMT claims.

"We take almost all the effort out of the company's hands. There may be some grey areas in the qualifying criteria but we help businesses to apply the rules as objectively as possible, ensuring there is always a fair and reasonable case for claiming while leaving the final decision in what to include with the claimant company."

Mayo says Knight R&D will only invoice on agreed success fees once the company receives its benefit.

"If required, we will also respond to any enquires from HMRC within the success fee," he added.

"However, to date this has not been required as our reports have served the purpose of providing HMRC with all the information it needs."

Former Head of BT Local Business and seasoned channel builder Jatinder Sispal (pictured) has joined CityFibre as Head of Carrier and National Providers assigned to drive the formation of new partnerships and deliver growth in pure fibre connectivity across the UK.

Sispal brings 22-plus years carrier industry experience as a senior sales and marketing leader in a career that includes a notable stint at Telstra where he was responsible for building the wholesale division from scratch.

He also led Colt's UK wholesale unit before heading up the firm's northern European indirect sales and marketing divisions. 

Sispal joins CityFibre from BT where he was Head of BT Local Business responsible for the enterprise division serving circa 700,000 customers a year and driving annual revenues of £400m.
 
His new remit is to advance the benefits of CityFibre's independent full-fibre networks to the carrier and national provider sector including content providers and data centre operators.

"CityFibre is driving forward the construction of full-fibre infrastructure across the UK and I wanted to play a key role in this agile and revolutionary organisation," stated Sispal.

"Our focus is to enable customers to innovate knowing they have the support of a true alternative infrastructure partner that's committed to extending its reach and delivering service excellence."

CityFibre's Commercial Director Rob Hamlin commented: "Jatinder brings decades of invaluable experience to his new role and is fully aligned with our vision to transform the UK's digital infrastructure. The team is already benefitting from his insights and energy for the task at hand."

Sispal has started work on building automation into CityFibre's channel operations enabling partners to transact 'smartly' and deliver fibre connectivity through his four key sub-verticals - carriers, data centre operators, SIs and VARs.

"We're already introducing CityFibre to a new prospect base," added Sispal. "We are ambitious, innovative and focused on keeping the proposition strong and simple."

Sispal is a Chemistry graduate from Bangor University and holds an MBA from Cardiff Business School.

Elitetele.com CEO Matt Newing has answered a plea for help posted on Instagram by Comms Supply MD Karl Alderton who called for a buyer to rescue his firm from liquidation and save the jobs of all staff. Newing said: "Karl approached me as one entrepreneur to another via Instagram to ask for help.

"I recognised his passion for the sector and empathised with his challenge of trying to maintain sales growth while being distracted by the requirements of being an MD and the wider work-load that brings.

"In buying Comms Supply, the trading name of Comms Consulting, we are giving Karl the opportunity to grow his business with the support of our wider team.

"He's created a reputation for working with the IT channel to deliver connectivity and telecoms alongside wider IT solutions.

"We are continually looking to improve our IT services and I know Karl and his team will bring fresh ideas and energy to what we are doing."

Newing confirmed that Comms Supply will operate under the Elitetele.com brand and continue to serve its customers with the same services by the same people.

Elitetele.com has acquired 13 businesses since 2008 and has a £20m war chest to invest in firms with complementary niche technologies.

ITSPA has welcomed the release of guidance produced by NICC for the use and secure implementation of SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) ALG (Application Layer Gateways).

SIP ALG is a feature often enabled in routers to prevent some of the problems that can be caused by Network Address Translation (NAT) and Firewall functions interfering with the SIP traffic.

This can be particularly problematic for VoIP calls, causing phone registrations, inbound calls and call transfers to fail.

Currently, many routers are shipped with SIP ALG enabled as default with very little straight forward guidance to disable this feature. This causes huge disruption for consumers and is incredibly time consuming and expensive for both ITSPs and ISPs to resolve.

NICC (the technical forum for the UK communications sector that develops interoperability standards for public communications networks and services in the UK) has produced guidance that recommends SIP ALGs being be disabled by default; SIP ALGs being easily configurable (i.e. to be disabled/enabled) by end users as part of the normal administration of the equipment; and
configuration status displays should clearly indicate that a SIP ALG is either disabled or enabled.

Eli Katz, Chair of ITSPA, said: "Our members are pleased that NICC has worked up useful formal guidance for the industry to consider. This is an issue that has long been a problem for ITSPA members. We produced a position paper about SIP ALG, which we took to NICC. We are pleased that they decided to undertake a review into this area, resulting in the production of this beneficial guidance."

The next steps will be to educate the industry and particularly router manufacturers to consider this guidance when developing new products.

Katz added: "The problems around SIP ALG hurts us all but particularly consumers who understandably find these technical issues incredibly frustrating. The aim now is to educate the Internet industry to ensure that future router purchases bare this guidance in mind and resolve these unnecessary problems."

TalkTalk Business has welcomed South West Communications Group  as its newest cloud-hosted unified communications partner.

The solution offers IP telephony services and unified communications (UC) features using Mitel handsets, all hosted and managed on the UK-wide TalkTalk network.

The solution requires only a limited investment in hardware, free upgrades, free inter-site calling via integrated voice and data networks and 24/7 support to replace on-premise telephone systems and traditional ISDN and PSTN lines, which are becoming rapidly outdated.

swcomms MD Brian Lodge said: "We have been supplying cloud-hosted IP telephone and UC solutions to our customers for a number of years but wanted to offer them a broader choice, especially with ISDN services scheduled to be phased out by 2025.

"We already resell TalkTalk Business's connectivity solutions and this move is a natural one as both parties have already built up a healthy rapport."

Alexandra Tempest, Director of Partners at TalkTalk Business, said: "More UK businesses are moving from ISDN to IP telephony services each year in order to take advantage of the capabilities and flexibility that these products can offer.

"With its expertise of combining both IP telephony and the connectivity services that underpin them, swcomms is in a great position to help UK businesses to grow and flourish."

Volume sales of mini PCs (housed in a space-saving small case design) through Western Europe's largest distributors continued to grow in Q1 2017 even though demand in the overall desktop segment remained weak, according to data published by Context, the European IT market research company.

While overall desktop PC sales fell by -10% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2017, sales of mini PCs were up by +26% over the same period. As a result, their share of the desktop market increased by 7 percentage points from 18% in Q1 2016 to 25% in the same period this year.

"Mini PCs have enjoyed rising popularity over the past year because of their space-saving design and improvements to their performance, and many PC vendors have increased their focus on the segment to leverage rising demand," said Marie-Christine Pygott, senior analyst at Context.

In Q1 2017, the top three vendors in distribution - HP, Intel and Lenovo - posted year-on-year volume growth of +47%, +8% and +78% respectively.