Comms Dealer

Merseyside-based YRoam has launched in the UK aiming to cut the cost of roaming for mobile users in more than 100 countries.

The first product to come to market is the YR4, a portable device that connects to local 3G and 4G networks to create a secure personal Wi-Fi hotspot.

YRoam uses Cloud SIM technology to locate local networks that offer the most affordable rates and can connect up to five devices simultaneously with a range of up to 50 metres.

The YR4 also doubles as a power bank so the user can stay online and connected throughout their trip.

YRoam MD Matt Agrimi said: "We will be working with businesses to supply YR4 devices to all their staff as well as helping the individual traveller get online while they're abroad."

Ireland-based open access network operator enet is to invest £175k into Belfast and the greater Northern Ireland telecoms infrastructure.

The Belfast network which is live and fully operational combines enet's wireless network with a fibre presence covering all the main business districts including the city centre, Titanic Quarter.

The new network also extends outside Belfast to surrounding areas.

enet is planning to continue to develop the Northern Ireland network by interconnecting with several network providers.

Conal Henry, enet CEO, said: "This marks the first time that enet has managed infrastructure across the island of Ireland.

"enet's experience is that, over time, the existence of an open access network has a vital and major impact on the range, quality and value of communications solutions for businesses and homes."

This Northern Ireland announcement follows on from enet's first entry into the UK market in partnership with SSE Enterprise Telecoms.

Warrington-based hotel Wi-Fi company Airangel has secured a £1.7m funding package from Santander Corporate & Commercial to fund growth overseas.

Airangel has opened a new office in Dubai and is fast expanding across EMEA and Asia in response to demand for its software platform MyAirangel.

The cloud-based platform enables guests to access fast Wi-Fi connections while providing hoteliers and property owners with data insights that help them to engage more with customers and personalise the guest experience.

Airangel manages Wi-Fi connections in over 100,000 hotel rooms or apartments in 27 countries and has 18 million registered users.

CEO Dean Wilkinson said: "In the digital age, connectivity is central to the guest experience and a key factor in peoples' choice of hotel."

Maintel's indirect and channel sales division, Partner Services, experienced 63% organic growth in 2016, making it the fastest growing part of the Maintel Group.

The group has over 400 technical and support staff in the UK with accredited engineers across the Avaya portfolio and technical staff covering vendors including Genesys, CallMedia, Palo Alto and Red Box, as well as a range of legacy telephony environments.

Chris Bain, Director of Maintel Partner Services, said: "In 2016 we worked with over 90 channel partners on thousands of end customer requirements in the UK and internationally. We can manage projects and guarantee SLAs across the globe."

On toll fraud, VanillaIP's stance is unequivocal. "It's time for service providers and Tier 1s to take responsibility rather than passing the buck to resellers and their clients," stated CEO Dave Dadds. Backing up his words with actions Dadds announced that VanillaIP is introducing a Toll Fraud Guarantee. "The buck stops with us," he emphasised. "This guarantee should give great comfort to resellers that are rightly concerned about dial through fraud.

"Industry figures show this is a multi-million pound problem with single instances running into hundreds of thousands, even millions in some cases."

Dadds confirmed that VanillaIP fully supports initiatives from industry trade bodies including FCS and ITSPA, particularly around the stopping of fraudulent out payments. But ultimately, service providers and Tier 1s must grab the bull by the horns, he believes.

"Our experience in the cloud space over the last 10 years with SIP trunking and hosted PBX has shaped our view that SIP trunking will always be inherently more susceptible to fraud because there are third party 'boxes' located on site, all of which can be under the control of different parties and software revisions.

"For this reason we have excluded SIP trunking from our guarantee scheme."

The VanillaIP Guarantee is based on Uboss which enables partners to allocate daily credit limits to the end user HPBX extension.

Using near real-time rating all call traffic for both 'in Flight' and completed calls is rated to calculate spend. At 80% a warning email is sent and at 100% the extension is automatically blocked and existing calls disconnected.

"The guarantee itself is simple," explained Dadds. "The reseller will pay no more than 3x the User Daily Credit limit, or £50, whichever is the higher. This is because the reseller is in full control of credit limits.

"Cyber fraud is on the increase across many industries but when it comes to dial through fraud, much like if your credit card is cloned and money stolen, the bank will reimburse you. The buck stops with us."

Pragma is urging resellers to change their sales paradigms and encourage younger sales people to start offering customers Wi-Fi analytics as a marketing tool.

The distributor has partnered with Netherlands company So WiFi, whose guest Wi-Fi solution intelligently gathers information on visitors and provides information and data for customers to follow up on.

The solution is already finding traction in relevant vertical markets such as pubs and clubs, as reseller delegates at Pragma's partner conference last month confirmed.

"When young people walk into a pub they invariably log onto Facebook or Instagram, and often they're using a parent's device. With So Wi-Fi you get all their information," said Chris Morrisey, MD of Lily Comms.

"Most pub owners don't know how to market or use social media effectively, but with So WiFi they get a user portal so, for example, they'll know in advance when it's a person's birthday and they can send them a happy birthday message, such as 'come back to the pub to celebrate'.

"It's a different type of sale for us, but once you get your head around this it's a great opportunity, especially if you have younger or junior sales people who know and understand the power of social media."

BDR CEO Bahman Rahimi agreed: "Currently, this is not a big volume sale for us - they are usually £3-4K opportunities - so you can't necessarily send a heavyweight salesperson out to sell one of these a week, but my young son is getting amazing results selling the product.

"And we are thinking of going a step further and building on this by creating a fully managed marketing solution for clients."

Daan Donders (pictured), founder and CEO of So WiFi, which has rapidly grown a global footprint, commented: "We solve issues that many businesses have with social media and make it work for them.

"We are urging partners not to see it as a technical and complicated solution, but as a marketing tool that runs through Wi-Fi. We have achieved great traction with Pragma's channel in just a few months. We'll now get a lot bigger in the UK."

Channel distributor Pragma recognised its star performing resellers at its annual awards dinner staged after the company's partner conference at The Belfry last month.

Top winners were Focus who picked up Overall Reseller of the Year, treble winner Lily Comms and Conceptunet which won Best New Reseller of the Year for its work in securing one of the biggest enterprise wins of last year with Oxleas NHS Trust.

The full list of winners were: iPECS Innovation Awards - Sirus and Network Communications Group; New Reseller of the Year - Conceptunet; Phone-Link Reseller of the Year - Lily Comms; iCall Reseller of the Year - Lily Comms; Braxtel Contact Q Reseller of the Year - Yorkshire Telecom; SoWiFi Reseller of the Year - BDR; Pragma Reseller of the Year Awards - Cloudsource Technologies, BDR, 5G and Lily Comms; Overall Reseller of the Year - Focus.

New Reseller of the Year - Conceptunet (left)

Overall Reseller of the Year - Focus (below) 

Wholesale connectivity provider Entanet has migrated its line rental billing to Elevate, the cloud-based billing system created by Strategic Imperatives.

"We built Elevate when we recognised that the industry remains largely dependent on cumbersome and inefficient systems that often affect growth and profitability," said Tim Sayer, Head of Business Development at Strategic Imperatives.

"At Elevate's heart is a clear focus on usability and simplicity. The system is increasingly being adopted by communication providers due to its real-time nature, ease of use and auto-scaling technology."

Neil Watson, Head of Service at Entanet, added: "The migration process was seamless with Imperatives' onboarding team undertaking full project management. During the process they also identified and resolved legacy revenue leakage and reporting issues."

Key vendor partners joined forces with Swallowfield-based Nuvola Distribution to host a partner update and golf event at the Forest of Arden hotel on 9th March.

Presentations from Nuvola, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, ShoreTel, Talari Networks, Ingate, NetConnect and Vurella put a spotlight on issues such as the value of a true end-to-end solution, cloud versus hybrid and CPE, margin in wallboards, contact centre and CRM integration, along with security.

Nuvola MD Michael Lloyd commented: "The morning sessions were informative and insightful, prompting fantastic feedback from our reseller partners. It was also great to welcome on board new resellers who attended the event. We have some new vendors waiting in the wings and are actively recruiting resellers. Watch this space for more information on our next customer event in the summer."

Nuvola Distribution was created in 2013 out of Nuage Communications, a channel-only services business with expertise in UC, VoIP, contact centre, WLAN, Skype for Business and mobility.

Nuage has since evolved into the services division of Nuvola which distributes UC and VoIP technologies and services.

The Managed Services & Hosting Summit series of events is expanding to Amsterdam in April, assessing the impact of market trends and compliance on the MSP sector in Europe.

Expert speakers from Gartner and a leading legal firm involved in assessing the impact of the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will be providing keynote presentations, speaking as evidence emerges that many MSPs need to 'up their game', particularly in their sales and customer retention.

Customers are demanding more, so Bianca Granetto, Research Director at Gartner will examine new research into digital business and digital transformation market dynamics and what customers are really asking about.

Another keynote speaker, Renzo Marchini, author of Cloud Computing: A Practical Introduction to the Legal Issues, is a partner in law firm Fieldfisher's privacy and information law group which has over 20 years' experience in advising clients across different sectors and ranging from start-ups to multinationals. He has a particular focus on cloud computing, the "Internet of Things", and big data.

Finally, for those seeking guidance on the high level of merger and acquisition activity in the sector, David Reimanschneider, of M&A experts Hampleton, will look at where the smart money is going in the MSP business and what the real measures of value and time are, and when to sell.

The European Managed Services & Hosting Summit 2017 which will be staged in Amsterdam on 25th April 2017 will build on the success of the UK Managed Services & Hosting Summit which is now in its seventh year and will bring leading hardware and software vendors, hosting providers, telcos, mobile operators and web services providers involved in managed services and hosting together with channels including Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and resellers, integrators and service providers seeking to developing their managed services portfolios and sales of hosted solutions.

The European Managed Services & Hosting Summit 2017 is a management-level event designed to help channel organisations identify opportunities arising from the increasing demand for managed and hosted services and to develop and strengthen partnerships aimed at supporting sales.

The event has attracted a strong line up including many of Europe's leading suppliers to the MSP sector such as: Datto, SolarWinds MSP. Autotask, Kingston Technology, RingCentral, TOPdesk, ASG, Cato Networks and Kaseya.

For further information or to register please visit: HYPERLINK "http://www.mshsummit.com/amsterdam"www.mshsummit.com/amsterdam