Comms Dealer

NG Bailey's IT Services division has completed an IT infrastructure overhaul at the 11,000 capacity SSE Arena, Belfast, bringing the project home on budget and in time for the venue's sell-out relaunch in autumn 2015.
 
The £1.2m contract awarded to NG Bailey by the Odyssey Trust, required the development of a solution architecture together with the installation of 120km of Commscope Systimax CAT-6a structured cabling and a network of HP switches linked to a blown fibre ring enabling 10Gbp/s connectivity to edge devices and connecting numerous communications cabinets around the arena.

The physical network infrastructure supports an Aruba high density Wi-Fi solution which targets zones with directional antennas from the gantries above the crowd. In a UK first, the Wi-Fi solution enables visitors to order merchandise, food and drinks directly from their seats via the SSE Arena's mobile app.
 
Also installed is a state of the art IP-CCTV system, comprising over 70 high performance IP cameras from Axis, together with a new payment acceptance terminal and till infrastructure, a new IP telephony solution and an arena-wide network of digital signs to display booking information, crowd control messages and showcase forthcoming events.
 
All of the arena's new assets are IP-converged, giving network administrators a new level of systems coordination via a single platform. Many of the systems also support cloud-based remote systems management.
 

Today's budget included a number of announcements that will be welcomed by the UK tech sector, according to Julian David, techUK CEO.
 
He said: "The Chancellor's commitment to adopt all recommendations made by Professor Sir Charles Bean is positive recognition of the importance of the digital industry to the UK economy.

"Investment of £10m in a new hub for data science will help the public and private sector make better use of data, which has the potential to reduce cost and improve public services.
 
"5G represents the next stage of mobile development and will play a key role in future connectivity for people and businesses. The UK has the opportunity to be a world leader in the development of 5G, and the tech community will be keen to contribute to the National Infrastructure Commission's assessment of how this can be achieved.
 
"techUK members will be pleased to see the government's ambition for the UK to be at the forefront of the development of autonomous vehicles, alongside support for the sharing economy."

AlienVault has signed a global distribution agreement with Westcon-Comstor and will take part in Westcon-Comstor's Global Incubation Programme, which helps technology vendors develop global distribution relationships for their products and services.

Based on the agreement, Westcon-Comstor's global network of technology solution providers will now have access to AlienVault's Unified Security Management (USM) platform. The new agreement also enables these partners to more efficiently address worldwide security market opportunities and gives AlienVault access to a proven distribution channel.

"With this distribution agreement in place we can immediately and significantly expand our global reach," said Anthony D'Angelo, vice president of worldwide channel sales, AlienVault.

Onyx Group has appointed Andrew Bevan a Director of Client Solutions with a remit to oversee the design and implementation of new customer solutions and services.

He will also contribute to the development and introduction of new propositions.

Bevan said: "I am looking forward to applying both my industry and technical experience to help deliver the aggressive growth plans the company has in place. I can't wait to get started."

Onyx Group CEO Neil Stephenson added: "In Andrew, we have appointed someone with the technical capabilities and business acumen to exceed our customers' expectations. It is testimony to the progress being made at Onyx that we can recruit people with Andrew's pedigree and I am confident that he will have a big impact on our business."

Bevan's appointment is the latest move in Onyx Group's long-term plan to become a £100 million revenue IT support and services business within the next five years.

Fujitsu has appointed Andy Hooper as Distribution Sales Manager UK&I. He brings 20 years IT experience including a stint at Hammer where he was nominated for the Storage Awards Channel Excellence award three times, winning in 2011. As Business Development Manager he grew Hammer's external storage business by 1,400 per cent in two years. He went on to become Sales Manager and later General Manager of UK Sales.

Kevin Matthews, Head of Channel and Direct Services at Fujitsu UK&I, said: "Andy brings a proven track record in growing vendor franchises within the distribution segment. His first task will be to shape our distribution strategy as we move into our new financial year."

Hooper added: "I hope to use my 20 years of experience to bring fresh ideas and help develop a new and exciting strategy for the foreseeable future."

Gamma is promising further developments to its Horizon hosted telephony platform in the next year including Skype for Business integration, more CRM options, call recording and an upgrade to the latest version of Broadsoft's UC service.

"We have made it a priority to ensure Horizon integrates with customer businesses, especially those utilising Skype for Business," said Gamma Product Manager Alan Mackie.

The call centre version of Gamma's Horizon hosted platform launched last autumn has given Gamma resellers the chance to target larger organisations, according to Product Director Alan Mackie.

Speaking at Gamma's London partner roadshow event this month he said: "With the solution customer agents can log in and log out and select their call status and supervisors can monitor and determine agent status and barge into calls. We have created administrator functions for each site which is useful for larger deployments or multi-site organisations."

Gamma is set to rollout a new Ethernet metro network in London this June giving resellers the opportunity to sell converged Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) services to businesses in the capital from the summer.

This comes hot on the heels of last year's launch of Gamma's Converged Private Networks portfolio built around the company's MPLS core network, which empowers its Horizon and SIP Trunk hosted applications.

At Gamma's London partner roadshow event James Bushell, Head of Product Lines, said: "By becoming an Ethernet carrier we can now offer a robust high bandwidth service. London is just the start of a complete UK rollout which will give our partners much better prices to take to market."

Gamma also pledged connectivity with Virgin's data network by May and TalkTalk's by June/July.

Gamma has unveiled its new SIP Trunk Call Manager software solution which will give end user inbound customers the opportunity to manage their own numbers via an intuitive portal and app.

Available from May, the product is aimed at giving Gamma partners an edge when persuading customers to move to SIP trunks from ISDN, which will become obsolete by 2020.

Speaking at the Gamma partner roadshow VAR Head of Channel Matt Worboys said: "The SIP trunking market is continuing to grow at 25% per annum and the market is looking for more than just cost savings."

Gamma claims the new SIP Call Manager solution, which can be provisioned by a 'Point and Click' set up on the Gamma portal, will provide instant inbound call control and business agility by converging 01, 02, 03 and 08 number estates into a single management platform.

The company says it will also free up partner helpdesk resources and give partners improved margins via DDI rentals.

"SIP Trunk manager is a business continuity package that's easy to provision and gives our partners a margin rich up-sell opportunity. Any prospects partners had before that were cautious about SIP can be sold the business continuity advantages," added Worboys.

Gamma's just-launched MultiNet mobile business service will give its MVNO partners the edge when competing with the big four carriers, claims the company.

Using MultiNet, connections made on Gamma's new 4G service will now 'hop' seamlessly from one carrier network to the next strongest one, wherever there is a signal in the UK.

Announcing the 'bolt on' solution at the London leg of Gamma's 2016 partner roadshow Rob Davis, Head of Converged Products, told partners: "Better coverage is needed in 21% of the UK where there are partial 'not spots' which includes 10% of A roads and 16% of B roads.

"This can be sold to any customer seeking premium reliable coverage such as multi-site companies or those who live or work in rural areas."

Gamma also promised no more CDR delays for MVNO partners because all UK and roaming data will route through Gamma's mobile core which supports multiple networks.

A business grade voicemail has been added to the mobile service too, offering different greetings inside and outside office hours, different greetings for different calls and longer message storage.

Gamma CEO Bob Falconer said: "It is our strategy to stay ahead of the game with disruptive products and services and our new mobile offerings will enable our partners to compete successfully with the likes of Vodafone and O2."