Comms Dealer

Rural ultrafast broadband provider Gigaclear is carrying out a pilot project using Affinity Water's redundant pipes in an area of Hertfordshire between the villages of Furneux Pelham and Little Hormead.

Gigaclear is investigating the feasibility of using disused water mains to house the cables needed to deliver its fibre-to-the-premises broadband services into or within rural environments.

The project aims to establish the overall feasibility of the concept and its scalability, as well as testing the technical aspects of how to install the fibres through the pipes.

Chris Harrison, Gigaclear's Head of Design, stated: "On paper, the concept of using existing infrastructure to deliver the latest technology direct to homes makes perfect sense. This feasibility study will help us understand if we can turn a great idea into reality.

"If it's successful, it will bring significant benefits to our customers. Because Gigaclear is building completely new broadband networks, putting our fibres through the disused pipes would mean we don't have to dig new trenches to lay cables - minimising the disruption to the rural communities in which we work. 

It would also speed up our build programme, particularly in areas where we would otherwise need to dig in or beside roads as the permitting and traffic management planning process to enable this can be mean lengthy delays in the implementation of the network.

"As an innovative company, it seems only right that we should consider innovative ways of delivering our technologically advanced product and this has the potential to do just that."

If the final outcome of the trial proves successful it could mark the start of similar partnerships with other suppliers throughout the country.

The global Call Control (PBX/IP PBX) extensions and licenses market (excluding Micro PBX products) in the calendar year (CY) Q2 2016 continued to follow the expected downward trend and fell by 2% year-on-year, reports MZA.

The greatest declines were seen in the SME market (solutions ?100 extensions/licenses) as it fell by 3% year-on-year, compared to a 2% decline in enterprise (solutions >100 extensions/licenses).

MZA's analysis suggests that globally small businesses employing ten people or fewer are moving away from CPE systems and towards multi-tenant hosted services* at a faster rate and this was emphasised this quarter with the largest declines seen in solutions ?10 extensions/licenses, as it fell by 7% year-on-year.

Contrastingly in enterprise, growth was seen in solutions >1000 extensions/licenses, up 6% year-on-year, partially driven by virtualised platform sales to large enterprises that have multiple sites. For these types of businesses, single system solutions held in data centres* are projected to increase, according to MZA's recent forecast publication, and replace the combination of CPE Call Control (PBX/IP PBX) deployments multi-site enterprises previously deployed. Such enterprises are seeking to benefit from the technological advancements of virtualisation such as simpler centralised management and a single common platform.

*Note: All extensions/licenses deployed on premise or within a public or private multi-instance or single instance environment are counted within MZA's Call Control (PBX/IP PBX) analysis, multi-tenant services are excluded. An additional service on Hosted/Cloud Business Telephony will be published later this month and provides insight on trends for deployment models for single-instance and multi-instance call control solutions together with multi-tenant services.

Despite the proliferation of pure mobile and multi-tenant cloud services, it is important to stress that any directly related significant declines observed due to these technologies have been generally restricted to certain mature developed markets where these services have been launched and promoted by network operators.

Although harder to quantify, MZA's analysis suggests that continued economic and political problems have played a greater part in the falls in the global Call Control (PBX/IP PBX) market in recent years, with business investment in the regional markets of Latin America and Eastern Europe hit the hardest.

Business confidence in emerging markets picked up a little in Q2 2016. Anxieties about a short-term downfall in China's growth have diminished and the related rise in commodity prices in Q2 2016 has taken some of the worry off commodity-producing economies, particularly in MEA. In developed markets, however, business confidence fell again in Q2 2016 and the UK's EU referendum was an important influence, even before the vote itself. Business confidence in the UK in Q2 2016 was at its lowest levels in over four years, and the uncertainty appears to have affected the rest of Western Europe as well.

The pick-up in business confidence in emerging markets, however, has not been matched by an improvement in capital expenditure and in every region there are far more firms scaling back capital investment rather than increasing it. For many vendors recurring revenue is more commonplace even for on premise deployments and essential in order to arrest continued CAPEX revenue declines. As a consequence of global Call Control (PBX/IP PBX) market value declines, as projected in MZA's recent forecast analysis, further consolidation in the Call Control (PBX/IP PBX) market can be expected in the coming years.

In recent quarters, business investment has been hampered further by price rises due to exchange rate fluctuations, and largely any significant growth in the leading global manufacturers' shipments witnessed in Q2 2016 was constrained to vendor's home markets.
Sequentially, the market rose by 9% quarter-over-quarter, although this should be of little consolation to manufacturers hoping for a recovery to the higher historical volumes of the past. Seasonality tends to mean stronger volumes in the second quarter of the year compared to the first quarter. In the case of Q2 2016, volumes were set against significantly low quarterly volumes in Q1 2016**.

For the first half of the year, global volumes are down 4% year-on-year, closely in line with MZA's forecast analysis published this August.

**Note: Q1 2016 volumes were the lowest global volumes since Q2 2009

In EMEA, Call Control (PBX/IP PBX) market volumes fell by 7% year-on-year. The increasing political and economic uncertainties in Western Europe helped to drive the regional volume levels downwards once more with extensions/licenses falling by 5% year-on-year. Middle East and Africa, notably affected by recent declines in oil tax revenue in the Gulf region and falls in tourism in North Africa, saw volumes fall by double-digits. The Eastern European market fell again against extremely low historical volume levels in Q2 2015. The Russian market continued to drive the decline, as it fell by 20% year-on-year, with international vendors witnessing greater declines in the country, as the Russian government continued to push the platforms of local vendors.

Following a slow start to the year, strong sales in solutions >100 extensions/licenses for market leader Cisco and top three vendor Mitel in the United States helped to see the North American market grow by 4% year-on-year. Within the enterprise market in the United States, growth in the established virtualised platform market helped to drive overall market growth in the quarter. Asia Pacific enjoyed a third successive quarter of year-on-year growth, driven by NEC and Huawei who enjoyed double-digit growth in the region. Price fluctuations, inflationary pressures and high interest rates continued to impact the Latin American market, as it fell by 23% year-on-year.

Competitive Landscape - Q2 2016
With Q2 2016 marking of the end of Cisco's fiscal year Cisco's collaboration revenue grew by 6% year-on-year, when adjusted for the sale of its SP Video CPE business last year. In terms of Call Control licenses, Cisco witnessed a strong uplift in the United States as it retained its 12% share and the first position it held in Q2 2015.

Against Q2 2015, NEC again witnessed strong double-digit growth in its home market of Japan, as it gained a percentage point in global market share to supplant Avaya to take second position and an 11% market share.
Home sales in home markets was an especially significant factor in the performances of the leading vendors, with Avaya dropping a position with a reduced 10% share, down one percentage point. Despite a better performance against the market internationally than both Cisco and NEC, Avaya's overall volumes fell in the United States. Meanwhile, Huawei overhauled Mitel and Panasonic, largely through increased sales of its eSpace platform in China.

Mitel had a good quarter in its core markets outperforming the market and retaining fifth positon, notably its volumes in North America and Western Europe grew as a consequence.

Panasonic remains a true global player with one of the most extensive distribution networks globally and witnessed decent growth in Q2 2016 in a number of emerging markets in MEA and Asia Pacific. Panasonic repeated its Q2 2015 share of 8%, despite falling to sixth position. Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, Unify, Microsoft and Samsung completed the global top ten.
In solutions ?100 extensions/licenses (excluding Micro PBX products), NEC overhauled Q2 2015 market leader, Panasonic, to take first position although both vendors collected 15% market shares. Avaya, Mitel and Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise remain in third, fourth and fifth positions respectively.

Cisco comfortably led the >100 extensions/licenses market in Q1 2016, with a market share of 20%. Huawei supplanted Avaya for second position as it took a 14% share up two percentage points.

World IP Extensions/Licenses Market
IP extensions/licenses grew by 4% year-on-year with TDM extensions falling by 8%. Global IP penetration (% of IP extensions to the desktop out of total extensions) rose to 53% in Q2 2016 from 50% in Q2 2015, aided by strong growth in North America and Asia Pacific. IP penetration fell against Q2 2015 in MEA leaving the region with the lowest IP penetration rate globally at 35%.

Cisco continued to lead the global IP licenses market with a 20% share, with Avaya in second position on 14%. Mitel retained third position ahead of Huawei and Microsoft.

Note: This analysis refers to user license/extension volume performance, due to the fact that this is the key performance indicator provided by all contributing parties, with no vendor providing sector specific analysis of revenue performance.

Managed services provider CSG has teamed-up with cloud and networking provider Exponential-e, giving its customers access to a range of cloud-based IT services.

Jason Clark, MD at CSG, said: "This partnership takes us to another level, enabling us to offer a tried and tested suite of cloud services to our customer base and giving them the opportunity to accelerate the digitalisation of their business."

Michala Hart, head of channel strategy for Exponential-e, added: "By changing the way cloud services are accessed over the corporate network, we ensure that data is never sent over the public Internet and can side-step the issues that come with traditional cloud models.

"By adopting this approach, our network and services ensure that organisations are able to use the power of the cloud to build an IT estate with the flexibility, scalability and dynamic agility needed to compete in fast-moving globalised markets."

Channel Telecom MD Clifford Norton has credited the efforts of staff and partners for the company's listing in this year's Sunday Times Tech Track 100 league table, a ranking of Britain's 100 private tech companies with the fastest growing sales over the past three years.

This is Channel Telecom's second inclusion, following last year's outing with 78th place having generated a 50.50% sales increase over the measured period.

During the past 12 months the company has almost doubled staff numbers, generated £10m-plus turnover, welcomed over 150 new channel partners, introduced new services, improved business processes and restructured its customer support operations.

MD Clifford Norton enthused: "This year has been incredible. We have welcomed so many new faces, staff and partners, and this success is combined effort by all of them."

"The bar was exceptionally high this year and we are working in an incredibly competitive market, which makes this achievement that little bit sweeter."

The Tech Track 100 ranking adds another gong to Channel Telecom's trophy cabinet which also houses this year's Comms Dealer Sales Awards 'Marketing Team of the Year' accolade.

"This is just the start," stated Norton. "We expect the next 12 months to be our most successful yet.  We don't just want to feature in 2017, we want to climb that leader board year on year."

Australia-based independent ISP Exetel has reached around the globe to seal a launch deal with wholesale network provider Virtual1 and other industry players in a bid to enter the UK market with its VoIP and data solutions for SMEs.

Exetel's international expansion follows a period of growth in its domestic market based on what it calls a 'straightforward approach' to business customers.

The family owned company, now rated as Australia's biggest independent ISP, provides a range of data solutions with flexible contracts and what its CEO Richard Purdy claims is an industry changing level of agility, speed, and affordability.

"Exetel's entry into the UK will see the lowering of the costs of data services for businesses, changing the shape of the industry," he stated.

"The UK market is undergoing a seismic shift as more than 3.2 million ISDN lines will have to transition to VoIP in the next 10 years following the decision by BT to phase out ISDN services.

"With many of our existing clients having a presence in both markets, this expansion is a logical step for us.

"Virtual1 is very much aligned to our straightforward approach. The growth of the SME market and the proliferation of cloud services demand an ever-increasing need for affordable data packages, and this is precisely where Exetel's offering sits."

"We see a considerable gap in the market where small businesses are not supported, and we have the know-how and the flexibility to fill this. We aim to replicate the success that we have achieved in Australia in the UK market."

Simon Durrant, Business Development Director, Virtual1, added said: "Exetel's commitment to the SME market through low cost high speed voice and data solutions will help enable us to bring our businesses closer together."

CityFibre's national footprint has spread into Cambridge, Portsmouth and Southampton following the acquisition of Redcentric's duct and fibre networks (at least 137km), taking its presence to 40 cities. This latest development in CityFibre's strategy to acquire non-incumbent owned fibre infrastructure assets also brings incremental coverage to a number of existing city footprints including Nottingham, Derby and Northampton.
 
As part of the £5m network acquisition CityFibre has secured £4.5m in long-term dark fibre leasing commitments from Redcentric which has become a new customer. CityFibre's new network will continue to serve 188 Redcentric customer connections.

Redcentric has also entered into a framework agreement with CityFibre for the use of CityFibre's infrastructure across the pure fibre provider's national footprint in future.

The newly acquired networks, such as the 44km footprint throughout Cambridge, are all routed to address local areas of identified high demand for high bandwidth services.

In Cambridge the network reaches many of the city's key science, business and research parks. Once made widely available the networks are expected to benefit the wider local communities.
 
Fraser Fisher, Chief Executive Officer of Redcentric, said: "This disposal is in line with our strategy of control over our customer affecting core assets while not tying up capital where ownership is unnecessary.

"We will continue to service customers in Cambridge and Portsmouth exactly as before, and expect to generate additional revenues and network efficiencies over time as a result of our developing relationship with CityFibre."
 
Greg Mesch, Chief Executive Officer of CityFibre, added: "Once again we've shown that under utilised legacy fibre assets can find a new home in which to flourish within CityFibre's wholesale shared infrastructure model."

CityFibre's influence in the public sector will be more strongly felt following the appointment of Martin Kemp as Head of Public Sector engagement.

For the past three years he operated as BT Client Partner within the public sector running a key partnership contract, a role that followed a stint as BT Group's Business Development Director supporting the BDUK rollouts in 12 UK regions.

Prior to that he spent 10 years in carrier sales within BT Wholesale working with some of BT's largest customers.

"The opportunity that CityFibre's existing fibre footprint and network build approach present to the public sector are significant," he said. "Being part of bringing that opportunity to life and seeing towns and cities across the UK reap the benefits made my decision to join CityFibre very easy.

"I am already busy raising awareness within the Public Sector of what CityFibre can do for them in the short and long term. We have a number of different Gigabit City development approaches that are relevant to the sector and I want to help leaders in this area work out exactly which is right for them and help them to make change happen."

Also joining CityFibre is Paul Tanner the new Head of Pre-sales. He moved from Virgin Media Business where he was Pre-sales Manager for Business Network Services, a national role leading a team of Cisco LAN consultants specialising in collaboration, data centre and routing/switching.

Prior to this role Tanner was Pre-sales Manager for Business Markets where he supported the Enterprise vertical for London and South East covering WAN products and services.

Before joining Virgin he worked in a Project Engineering role for Telewest, was a Planning Manager for General Cable Group and undertook various roles at Mercury Communications and BT.

Tanner said: "I was attracted to CityFibre by its fresh approach to the market opportunities, its can-do attitude, flexible and intelligent network, ability to meet partners' needs and the buzz I got from meeting the passionate team."

A new organisation set up by Knight Corporate Finance offers SMEs advice and guidance on how to maximise their claims for R&D tax relief while meeting HMRC's expectations.

Called Knight R&D, the advisory service is led by R&D Incentives Specialist Rupert Mayo who heads up a multi-disciplinary team that provides industry, technical, tax and accounting expertise across all aspects of the R&D Incentive claim process

Mayo boasts 15 years experience, initially as an industry scientist followed by a nine-plus year stint at one of the Big 4 accounting firms.

To underscore his firm grip on HMRC's expectations he has never had a claim reduced or disallowed.

Knight R&D is holding a workshop to determine whether attendees have a claim to make, and if so estimate their potential entitlement.

Knight R&D also offers a free one hour health check for companies already claiming to determine whether the claim covers everything a claimant may be entitled to, and estimate any potential increases in claims either as amendments to existing claims or to be introduced into future claims.

"An estimated 80% of UK businesses I have met with have not been receiving their full entitlement of R&D tax credits," stated Mayo.

"Companies rarely understand how broad the qualifying criteria are, and frequently have more qualifying costs than they realise.

"Misconceptions associated with the R&D definition often lead to under claims, and misunderstandings relating to the qualifying cost categories can lead to errors in deriving the qualifying cost amounts.

"Furthermore, SME businesses are often ignored by larger professional services companies. At Knight R&D, we are able to identify the qualifying areas of activity and expense and unlock the full level of R&D credits."

Paul Billingham, Director at Knight CF, added: "The opportunity to partner with Rupert will allow us to provide a new opportunity to support clients' growth.

"The goal of Knight R&D is to help even the smallest start-ups across industries get the tax incentives and credits they deserve so their business can thrive."

Northampton is set to become the UK's next Gigabit City as CityFibre makes its 45km pure fibre network available to Northampton's business community via a partnership with local comms provider dbfb.

dbfb will offer gigabit speed Internet services to Northampton businesses up to 100 times faster than the UK's average.

dbfb have pledged an initial donation of £5,000 to the Cynthia Spencer Hospice for the first 50 connections, and will then donate £50 per business connecting to the new network thereafter.

Northampton County Council has already set targets to make superfast broadband available countywide by the end of 2017 in order to stimulate growth in the region.

Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, said: "The council has shown its commitment to improving digital infrastructure and we hope that our investment will help Northampton reach its targets even faster.

"Pure fibre networks like these will one day be commonplace but until then, Northampton and its businesses will be able to enjoy a digital head start on the competition."

Brian Kingston, co-founder and Chairman of dbfb, said: "It is not every day you have the chance to introduce a product that will transform the way a business can operate - but this is one of those days! Gig Up Northampton!"

Metronet (UK) has agreed a partnership with wholesale voice and data communications provider Entanet for its wireless connectivity services.

Metronet (UK)'s wholesale wireless platform provides partners with an alternative to fibre in the ground. The platform offers reduced lead times, quicker revenue and no excess construction charges.

According to Entanet's Sales Director, Stephen Barclay, said: "In today's business market, customers place enormous importance on the availability of their connectivity. This is especially true where they're implementing a solution to new offices, or significantly upgrading their service to accommodate growing bandwidth requirements.

"In these instances, timing is everything, and the impact of delays and excess construction charges can seriously damage their project. Through our partnership with Metronet (UK), channel partners can deliver a cost-effective working solution to a customer fast, whether it be as a primary or interim connection."