Comms Dealer

According to its organisers the 15th ISPA Awards staged on July 12th in London proved the strength of UK Internet industry, with ISPs of all sizes sharing the spoils.

In the ISPAs 15th year, 15 awards were given out covering the spread of the Internet sector, from consumer and B2B services, to hosting, safety and inclusion.

In a close contest Sky won the Consumer Fixed Broadband while Plusnet won Best Consumer Customer Service.

Catalyst2 walked away with two awards, picking up Best Business Customer Service and the Customer Choice Award, which is decided by ISPs own customers.

KC improved on last year's commendation to be named the overall winner of the Internet Safety & Security Award. The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) was commended for the role in making the internet a safer place.

New for this year, the Best Superfast Award went to Hyperoptic, a company who has grown since winning Best New ISP at the 2012 ISPAs.

Kent Wimax provider VFast took home Best Fixed Wireless, reflecting the growth of this innovative new services.

"ISPA would like to congratulate all the winners and thank all the attendees, judges and sponsors for making the evening possible," said Nicholas Lansman, ISPA Secretary General. "It's been a crucial year for the internet industry in the UK and the 15th Awards show the sheer diversity and innovation in a successful part of British industry".

The evening was compered by comedian Sean Collins, with a keynote speech from broadcaster and technology critic Bill Thompson.

WINNERS:
Best SME Business Hosting Award - Storm Internet?
Best Large Business Hosting Award - Fluidata?
Best Internet telephony Award - Telappliant
Best Managed Service Innovation - Media Service Provider
Best Business Customer Service Award - Catalyst2
Best Consumer Customer Service Award - Plusnet
Digital Inclusion Award - myLovelyParent
Internet Safety & Security - KC
Customer Choice Award - Catalyst2
Best Fixed Wireless Award - VFast?
Best Business Fixed Broadband Award - Entanet
Best Consumer Fixed Broadband Award - Sky Broadband?
Best Superfast Broadband Award - Hyperoptic

Internet Hero: ISPA Council chose Julian Huppert MP for leading the political campaign against the Communications Data Bill and for being one of the few MPs to understand the internet.

Internet Villain: ISPA Council felt that Recep Erdogan's continued censorship of the internet and calling social media 'a menace to society' means he earns the Internet Villain award in 2013.

Mobile made up 26% of search traffic tracked by SEO firm RKG in Q2, up from 24% in Q1 and just 15% a year ago. Google and (Bing-powered) Yahoo each got 28% of their traffic from mobile, and Bing only 15%.

Google got 31% of paid clicks from mobile (a sign that its enhanced campaigns are helping?) against 19% for Bing and Yahoo. Monetisation still lags, but (as suggested by other reports) the gap is narrowing; mobile rose to 22% of ad spend, fueled by 165% and 261% yr/yr increases in tablet and smartphone spend.

Then again, tablet advertisement prices were roughly even with PC prices; smartphone prices remained 40% lower. One problem for Google is that Apple's iOS made up 69% of mobile traffic, and Google has to give Apple a big cut on much of revenues.

Hot demand for video has prompted closer investigation of the fees that telcos and carriers charge each other.

The European Commission has undertaken a number of unannounced inspections of various telcos active in the provision of Internet connectivity in several Member States, and following its investigations has raised concerns that the companies may have violated EU antitrust rules that prohibit the abuse of a dominant market position.

The Commission officials were accompanied by their counterparts from the relevant national competition authorities.

The high demands on systems by video has already caused conflict in the US, where Verizon and Cogent Communications are in dispute over the cost of carrying heavy video traffic, with the result of some of Verizon's customers seeing a poor Netflix performance.

Unannounced inspections are a preliminary step into suspected anticompetitive practices. The fact that the Commission carries out such inspections does not mean that the companies are guilty of anti-competitive behaviour nor does it prejudge the outcome of the investigation itself, it says.

There is no legal deadline to complete inquiries into anticompetitive conduct. Their duration depends on a number of factors, including the complexity of each case, the extent to which the undertakings concerned co-operate with the Commission and the exercise of the rights of defence.

Deutsche Telekom said in a statement that data and emails had been seized from its offices, and confirmed that the 'the allegations are that the companies, coming from various markets, may have abused their possibly dominant position on the worldwide Internet traffic market'.

"Deutsche Telekom is surprised by the initiation of further investigations by the Commission into the global market for Internet traffic, since previous allegations have all turned out to be unfounded. Similar investigations carried out by national regulatory bodies, who have also dealt with the issue in great detail, have also been abandoned," the firm said.

Distributors Arrow and Avnet Technology Solutions have both been selected as IBM Global Training Providers.

This means that they can offer training programmes to build competency and knowledge around the entire IBM portfolio to reseller partners, as well as end users.

The Avnet centres supporting this global training role will commence in two phases, starting with: Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the UK and Ireland,

In the next 12 months, Arrow ECS Education will implement its IBM Global Training program in up to 130 countries, it says. It is anticipated that it will be available in 10 countries to start, and will be offered in more than 50 additional countries by the end of 2013, and to the remaining countries by summer 2014, Arrow says.

Laurent Sadoun, president of Arrow ECS in EMEA and head of Arrow's worldwide services for the ECS segment, said: "We will now support IBM's new partner-led model through training solutions and a global team of training experts to help increase IBM education and adoption of the IBM software and systems portfolio in the global marketplace.

"It will also deliver to our partners visibility on their customer projects, bringing many cross-selling and upselling opportunities."

The worldwide business analytics software market is expected to grow at a 9.7% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2017, according to a new forecast from IDC.

Demand for business analytics solutions will continue to be driven by the promise of better and faster decision-making and competitive advantage that results from the ability to analyze and act upon information in a timely manner, claims the firm.

"There is growing quantifiable evidence that data-driven decision making enabled by business analytics solutions provides a competitive difference," said Dan Vesset, Program Vice President, Business Analytics at IDC. "This, along with broad interest in big data, has pushed the technology to the top of many executive agendas and ushered it into the mainstream market."

In 2012, the worldwide business analytics software market grew 8.7% year over year with revenues reaching $34.9 billion. This was significantly lower than the 15% year-over-year growth experienced in 2011, and is attributable to the macroeconomic issues plaguing the global economy and the weak performance of European markets.

Despite the slower growth, the business analytics software market outperformed the overall software market, which grew 3.6% year over year in 2012.

On a regional basis, the emerging regions of Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) and Latin America that showed the best performance in 2012, with 13.4% year-over-year growth each. The recovering U.S. economy helped North America to keep pace with the emerging regions in 2012 with a 12.1% growth rate. Latin America is forecast to have the highest growth rate through 2017 - a 12.4% CAGR - followed by North America with 10.9% and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) with 10.5%.

Of the three primary segments of the business analytics software market, the data warehousing platform software segment experienced the fastest growth in 2012, growing 10.8% over the previous year. The business intelligence and analytic tools segment and the performance management and analytic applications segment each grew 7.7% year over year in 2012. In this diverse and highly competitive market, the six largest vendors - Oracle, SAP, IBM, Microsoft, SAS, Teradata - accounted for 64% of worldwide revenues in 2012.

A new DECT telephone from Gigaset and stocked by Nimans is said to be the latest weapon in the battle against nuisance calling.

The Gigaset C620A incorporates a dedicated nuisance call blocking key and Nimans says the handset represents a 'powerful addition' to a reseller's sales armoury, opening up sales opportunities in workplace and home office environments.

Over 1.5 billion nuisance calls are made to the British public every year, with over 70% of phone owners indicating they have been targeted by a scam during the last twelve months.

The C620A has a 26 hour talk time and 530 hours in standby. It benefits from a 55 minute built-in answer machine and is available in single, twin, triple and handset only variants.

Nimans' Purchasing Director, Andy Winfield, says the device is another significant step forward in the battle to overcome nuisance calling - combining a 15 number 'blacklist' with a 1.8" colour display and 250 name phonebook capacity.

"Until recently call blocking was not an inbuilt function of DECT telephones but this latest development from Gigaset provides resellers with a new weapon to clinch more business," he said.

Seventy-plus industry players descended on the Mill Ride golf course in Ascot to take part in the 18th Sennheiser Challenge Trophy golf day, raising £16,500 for The Caron Keating Foundation and £3,000 for the Diabetes UK charity.

The day teed off with a nine-hole Texas Scramble followed by an 18-hole individual stableford competition won by Bihesh Patel of Pinnerton Video Systems.

Caron's mother Gloria Hunniford attended the evening charity dinner and thanked guests for their support.
 
Steve Dalton, Director of Marketing for Sennheiser UK, said: "Everyone had a terrific time and we were able to raise a great deal of money for a very worthy cause."  

Image Pictured: Steve Bailey, Head Of Corporate Sales for Sennheiser UK Telecoms, and Richard Carter, Group Sales and Business Development Director at Nimans.

The 848 Group has formed a new partnership with BT Business Partner Sales, operating as an Agent selling BT's Retail products and services.

Martin Clarke, BT General Manager, said: "As a channel we have a three year plan to grow our partner base. The 848 Group is moving rapidly into Unified Communications and telephony and wish to enhance their position in this area. The company is aligned to our strategy."

Kerry Burn, 848 Group CEO, added: "We cover all areas of IT, from on-premise work to public cloud, smart devices to back-end infrastructure and everything in between. A partnership with BT Business Partner Sales seemed a natural fit."

The use of graphene in telecommunications could accelerate Internet speeds by up to a hundred times, according to new research by scientists at the University of Bath. In a paper published in Physical Review Letters, researchers from the Centre for Graphene Science at the Universities of Bath and Exeter have demonstrated for the first time short optical response rates using graphene, which could pave the way for a revolution in telecommunications.

Every day large amounts of information is transmitted and processed through optoelectronic devices such as optical fibres, photodetectors and lasers.

Signals are sent by photons at infrared wavelengths and processed using optical switches, which convert signals into a series of light pulses.

Ordinarily optical switches respond at a rate of a few picoseconds, around a trillionth of a second. Through this study physicists have observed the response rate of an optical switch using 'few layer graphene' to be around one hundred femtoseconds, nearly a hundred times quicker than current materials.

Graphene is just one atom thick, but remarkably strong. Scientists have suggested that it would take an elephant, balanced on a pencil to break through a single sheet. Already dubbed a miracle material due to its strength, lightness, flexibility, conductivity and low cost, it could now enter the market to dramatically improve telecommunications, claims the university.

Lead researcher Dr Enrico Da Como said: "We've seen an ultrafast optical response rate using 'few-layer graphene', which has exciting applications for the development of high speed optoelectronic components based on graphene.

"This fast response is in the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum, where many applications in telecommunications, security and also medicine are currently developing and affecting our society."

Co-Director of the Centre for Graphene Science at Bath, Professor Simon Bending, added: "The more we find out about graphene the more remarkable its properties seem to be. This research shows that it also has unique optical properties which could find important new applications."

In the long term this research could also lead to the development of quantum cascade lasers based on graphene. Quantum cascade lasers are semiconductor lasers used in pollution monitoring, security and spectroscopy. Few-layer graphene could emerge as a unique platform for this application.

A series of portable pocket projectors are proving popular at Nimans, according to Head of Dealer Sales Tom Maxwell.

The distributor stocks four Philips PicoPix models including a new WiFi version designed for presentations and videos from computers, tablets, smartphones and memory sticks. The company also supplies a range of associated cables for easy connection such as to iPhones, iPads and games consoles.

"Years ago projectors were confined to training rooms and boardrooms, often ceiling mounted," said Maxwell. "But now the latest devices have opened up the market as they are truly portable and pocket sized.

"Many dealers are enjoying success with these innovative products as they are suited to break-out sessions and meetings. Some models have a built in speaker and remote control as well as rechargeable batteries for up to two hours playback."