Comms Dealer

Virgin Media Business has been awarded preferred supplier status in all ten categories of the Government's new Network Service Framework (NSF).

The framework is now operational and is estimated to attract more than £500 million of public sector ICT spend by the end of this year.

Released by the Crown Commercial Service (CCS), the NSF is the main procurement communications framework for public sector organisations in the UK.

The framework will help healthcare providers, emergency services, local councils and other public sector organisations realise greater flexibility and value when they're looking to procure a full range of communications services including mobile, VoIP, video conferencing and local area networks.

By securing a place in every category, Virgin Media Business cements its status as a leading supplier to the public sector and enables it to fulfil cross IT service requirements. To gain acceptance on each of the lots, suppliers were asked to pass a series of technical and commercial hurdles.

Peter Kelly, Managing Director, Virgin Media Business, said: "Virgin Media Business has a long track record of working in partnership with the public sector. It's essential these organisations have the tools and solutions they need to securely communicate, share information and collaborate with each other. We are delighted to be recognised by Crown Commercial Services as a preferred partner with outstanding products and services."

Virgin Media Business has nearly 20 years experience servicing public sector organisations including more than 250 NHS organisations, 60% of the UK's police force and half the UK's fire and ambulance services. It works with over 3,000 schools and universities to enable more innovative learning and local councils to improve connectivity in communities.

Customer contact technology specialist Sabio has appointed Ben Le Feuvre as Head of its Network Services business.

He joins from Capita IT Enterprise Services and in his new role will be responsible for developing Sabio's expanding network services portfolio.

The proposition leads on SIP Trunking and Inbound 08/03 solutions but also encompasses data connectivity and interactive text as well as traditional ISDN services managed through the company's customer billing portal.

"We're committed to developing our Network Services proposition at Sabio, so bringing in Ben Le Feuvre, with his expertise in developing and growing UK voice and data services operations, is a great move for Sabio," commented Sebastian Henkes, Sabio's Managing Director.

"A key driver behind organisations selecting Sabio is our ability to back all our solutions with a services wrap, significantly reducing complexity for our customers. Sabio Network Services is an important part of that offering, and we look forward to expanding this part of our business under Ben's direction."

Le Feuvre added: "Sabio Network Services complements the company's broader customer contact technology portfolio. I'm looking forward to helping develop the Network Services proposition and making it a compelling choice for organisations wanting to streamline their solutions and services supply chain.

"In addition to helping organisations optimise their core telephony spend, Sabio Network Services can add value by easing the transition to more resilient and flexible next generation services. Taking full ownership of the whole telephony estate is an extremely powerful proposition, especially with Sabio's single point of support model."

Le Feuvre brings over 25 years senior carrier and channel expertise to Sabio, and joins the company after five years heading up Capita IT Enterprise Services' Voice Network Services business.

He served as channel director at Gamma Telecom from 2007 to 2010, and before that helped Telstra establish its wholesale, service provider and dealer channels in the UK.

Earlier in his career Le Feuvre worked with other major carrier and communications organisations including Siemens, WorldCom and Tiscali.

Business leaders wanting to take their first tentative steps towards the cloud while retaining a hardware presence on-site are prime targets for resellers of ShoreTel Connect, a new solution launched to the UK market that offers a single platform with three deployment options and a common user interface.

The vendor has mid-market firms in its sights and according to a senior industry analyst the launch enables UK resellers to more easily approach businesses with an all-embracing UC&C solution that allows customers to readily migrate to the cloud in their own time or continue with a CPE-only solution.

In detail, ShoreTel Connect Onsite is an end-to-end UC solution that customers own, maintain and control; ShoreTel Connect Cloud is a fully hosted and managed end-to-end UCaaS solution; while  ShoreTel Connect Hybrid enables Onsite customers to have applications delivered via the cloud. Hybrid apps such as ShoreTel Fax and ShoreTel Scribe (voicemail transcription) are also available.

Rich Costello, Senior Research Analyst at IDC, noted: "The new common platform enables ShoreTel to offer customers what they want - a choice of premises, hosted or hybrid solutions with a consistent user experience across a common software stream.

"The common platform also makes UC&C easier for its channel partners to deploy and support as well as for customers to migrate from one model to another as needed. With its fully integrated solution, ShoreTel eliminates the need for customers and partners to piece together complex solutions from multiple parties."

ShoreTel Connect introduces new features such as personalised call handling and call routing for both office and mobile devices; collaboration tools including IM, audio and web conferencing, point-to-point video and desktop sharing; feature integration and collaboration apps for smartphone, tablet and wearable devices; integration with CRM systems; and apps like voicemail to text, emergency notification, integrated call recording and enhanced paging.

ShoreTel's President and CEO Don Joos said: "ShoreTel Connect helps customers determine how and when to move communications to the cloud by offering hybrid options along the way, no matter how many sites or employees.

"Whether customers prefer to subscribe to a managed cloud service, invest in an on-site system or deploy a combination of the two, there is a single UC solution that delivers the same user experience and capabilities to the entire team." 

The new ShoreTel Connect client is consistent across the deployment types. With one click, users can escalate a conversation from an IM to a call, to an online meeting, and then to a web desktop share and video.

The browser-based app also facilitates collaboration among internal teams and enables external users to engage and collaborate without the need for plug-ins, multiple application windows, passwords or complex set-up.

As part of the ShoreTel Connect roll-out the vendor also introduced a contact centre solution scalable to 1,000 users for ShoreTel Connect Cloud and ShoreTel Connect Onsite.

ShoreTel Connect Contact Center introduces multiple interaction channels including inbound and outbound voice (with the ability to incorporate campaign dialling and automated call backs from queue), web chat, web call back requests and email routing.

"The new browser-based interface, called ShoreTel Connect Agent Interaction Center, combines easy management of multiple contact channels, deep contextual transaction information, agent and service KPI information, supervisor/agent interactions, web chat, and agent controls within a single pane," said Eugenia Corrales, Senior VP of Product.

The solution provides support for up to 1,000 concurrent agent logins for both cloud and onsite deployments, offers real-time and historical reporting including statistics of call centre activity, detailed agent activity and call-by-call details on outbound calls.

Also on offer are enhanced customer self-service capabilities with customisable interactive voice response (IVR) scripting; as well as deep integrations to workforce optimisation and CRM solutions including support for real-time adherence.

"Our ShoreTel Connect common platform enables the delivery of a feature-rich cloud contact centre solution to meet the needs of today's multi-channel, multi-site organisations," added Corrales.

Fibre optic network provider SiFi Networks has strengthened its executive management team with the appointment of David Thomas as Head of Network Operations.

He will be responsible for the managing to day to day operations of the organisation's technical infrastructure and the integration of multiple ISPs seeking to deliver value-added services to customers.

With over 33 years experience in the telecommunications sector Thomas was previously a senior executive at BT and managed the company's UK Central Operations Unit which monitors the whole BT voice and data network.

Thomas has also been responsible for service development, engineering and customer operations at Carrier1, which operated Europe's largest telecoms and IP backbone serving over 13 countries with customers such as Telewest and AOL.

While acting as Consultant Managing Director for London's Go Networks he built the voice and data carrier from scratch helping the company reach an annual turnover exceeding $24 million in short timescales.

Ben Bawtree-Jobson, CEO of SiFi Networks, said: "We are thrilled to welcome David who will become an important part of the SiFi Networks team.

His expertise and experience in this sector will enable us to further enhance the operational management of our FiberCity model."

Nimans is holding four-day technical accreditation and one-day top-up courses for Panasonic's NS700 comms system during September at venues in the north and south of the country.

Nimans' Head of System Sales John McKindland said: "We've run similar courses before which were full to capacity and demonstrate resellers' thirst for knowledge about the NS700."

The NS700 'smart hybrid' solution is suited to small and medium sized offices and call centre environments.

Installation and configuration, new hardware, high density card wiring, programming and IP cell stations are covered in the training.

O2 has extended its fleet management product portfolio with the launch of plug-and-play telematics for the vehicle rental and leasing markets.

The move follows a link-up with Geotab - a specialist in GPS fleet management and vehicle tracking solutions - and brings together Telefónica's experience in telematics (having installed over 100,000 telematics units worldwide) and Geotab's technology and motor manufacturer database. 

The two additions to Telefónica's portfolio - called O2 Track and Go and O2 Smart Tracking - provide real-time data on a range of metrics, and both products plug into a vehicle's OBD-II port and can be moved between cars.

The solutions give fleet managers deeper insights into their rental or lease fleets and help companies reduce operational costs while enabling real-time remote vehicle diagnostics and driver behaviour monitoring.

Two levels of vehicle tracking allow rental and leasing company fleet managers to choose the level of data they wish to see to control their fleets.

O2 Track and Go gives fleet managers the ability to get real-time vehicle location, trip visualisation, unlimited geofencing, alerts and reports track the location of the vehicle, both historically and in real-time, as well as get live updates in case of an engine fault or if the vehicle has been involved in an accident.

O2 Smart Tracking provides all the capability provided in O2 Track and Go as well as allowing fleet managers to instantly see other information such as the driving style of the driver, seat belt engagement, vehicle diagnostics and car mileage.

They can also track the vehicle's fuel and oil levels, tyre condition and battery status.

"Telematics is now a must-have for all organisations looking for the most accurate data about their business vehicles," stated David Taylor, MD of Machine to Machine for O2 in the UK. "O2 track and Go and O2 Smart Tracking will help fleet decision makers achieve significant operating efficiencies." 

Geotab CEO Neil Cawse added: "Rental and leasing companies need reliable and secure fleet management solutions that are easy to install, manage and switch out as their fleet changes."

DrayTek has augmented its managed wireless solution set launched earlier this year with the launch of the Vigor AP-910C Access Point for ceilings or walls.

The AP-910C supports business class features including 802.11ac WLAN, WPS Wi-Fi Protected Setup for data protection, WMM for intelligent wireless traffic prioritisation and PoE (Power over Ethernet) as standard.

It also boasts a 'smoke alarm' type style allowing discreet, unobstructed installation negating both potential damage to the unit and accidental hazards in situ. ??The AP-910C supports simultaneous operation of the common 2.4Ghz band and the new 5Ghz band. Supporting both bands, devices can use either and with each having its own bandwidth, overall wireless capacity is also increased.

The AP-910C also features multiple levels of wireless security. Encryption using WEP, WPA, WPA2 (802.11i) is available and you can also use the access control list (ACL) to specify the hardware addresses of clients which are permitted to connect. Any unauthorised hardware is refused access. 

The AP-910C can operate in standalone autonomous mode or can form part of a centrally managed wireless installation by adding a compatible DrayTek Wireless Controller.

Intercity Technology is celebrating its third decade in business since it was founded by Alan Jackson in Birmingham in 1985.

The company has an expanded geographical footprint across the UK and into Europe and its acquisition of Gage Networks in April this year extended its reach into the US and Asia.

The firm was first known as Intercity Mobile but in 2010 a rebrand saw the name change to Intercity Telecom. The company is now known as Intercity Technology and a major milestone was sealing the first Vodafone partnership agreement in the UK.

It also claims to be the first UK company to be granted a licence for cellular services in the Netherlands and is accredited with the Institute of Customer Service ServiceMark.

CEO Andrew Jackson (pictured) commented: "We are thankful for the great relationships that we have formed with our customers and partners over the last 30 years.

"We have an amazing team, many of whom are still with us since the business launched.
"These relationships and achievements have shaped our history and will guide our future innovation.

"With 2015 being the fastest growing year in our history we all look forward to what the next 30 years will bring with great optimism."

VoIP distributor ProVu has announced the availability of Panasonic's new KX-TGP600 SIP Cordless Phone System which builds on the previous TGP500 model, adding the ability to link up to eight simultaneous calls and up to eight handsets.

According to Panasonic UK's Communications Group Manager Bob Mercer the latest version will prompt wavering resellers to leap into the rapidly expanding DECT market.

"For the first time a desktop handset option can be added to the solution allowing for greater flexibility," he said. "A new repeater model is also available to allow coverage in more remote locations."

ProVu's Sales Director Ian Godfrey added: "With its increased capacity the TGP600 is a far more powerful solution for the business user.

"It has great auto provisioning capabilities, which allows resellers and service providers to order through ProVu and have the item shipped direct to the end user and work out-of-the-box."

The KX-TGP600 system has a two year standard warranty and comes complete with a base station and one KX-TPA60 cordless handset with charger.

The important role of marketing in the success of a company's growth strategy has been underlined by the appointment of Rob Townsend by Nimans as Group Chief Marketing Officer with a remit to spearhead all marketing activities.

"This is the first time marketing has been represented on the board and reflects the high importance we place on this area of the business," said Chairman Julian Niman.

"This is a significant appointment for us and marks our commitment to marketing and communications.

"Rob's arrival will help push us into the next successful chapter, accelerating growth and building closer working relationships with customers and suppliers."

Townsend's career spans 20 years-plus across a number of sectors and he has much B2B ICT experience.

Townsend commented: "I see this as an exceptional opportunity to help drive the business further forward. We are seeing impressive growth and I look forward to working with all the teams, suppliers and resellers."