NEWS
Cornwall wins £132m project
AN AMBITIOUS £132m proj- ect launched by BT and Cornwall Council and supported by European funding is aiming to make Cornwall one of the best connected locations in the world. According to the coalition this
project will benefit tens of thou- sands of local businesses, create 4,000 new local jobs and protect a further 2,000. At the core of this develop- ment is the creation of a high speed network that will be open to all communications providers on a wholesale basis. The aim is to give between 80-90% of local busi- nesses and homes access to super fast fibre broadband by 2014. Fibre to the premise (FTTP) technology will feature heavily with the expectation being that half of local businesses and homes will have access to broadband speeds of up to 100Mbps. BT is providing £78.5m and
there will be ERDF Convergence investment of up to £53.5m. Alec Robertson, Leader of Cornwall Council, commented: “The introduction of next genera- tion super fast broadband has the potential to transform the local economy over the next 20 years. “The high speeds on offer will
attract new business investment into Cornwall, creating thousands of new job opportunities.” Ian Livingston, Chief Executive
of BT, said: “This project will make the county one of the best connect- ed areas in the world and provide a major boost to its prosperity.
Ian Livingston
“The final third of the UK is undoubtedly challenging to reach with fibre but this project shows that it is possible. Our door remains open to others who are keen to work with us to bring fibre broadband to their areas.” According to BT the proj- ect will see a range of different broadband technologies deployed. Fibre broadband will be the most prevalent and will give between 80- 90% of local businesses and homes access to super fast speeds. The expectation is that approxi- mately half of local businesses and homes will also be able to enjoy fibre to the premise technology making Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly one of the best connected areas in the world. Businesses and homes outside
the fibre footprint will also receive faster speeds through a mix of alternative technologies such as advanced copper, wireless and sat- ellite broadband. The roll out will run until 2014 with the first customers being con- nected early next year.
Aastra in SIP launch
AASTRA has launched version 9.0 of its BusinessPhone call control manager, now supporting SIP while boosting in-house mobility. A new SIP extension board means that existing and new BusinessPhone customers can adopt Aastra’s range of SIP desktop and cordless terminals. Thomas Stephan, Head of
Product Line Management for Small and Medium Enterprise systems at Aastra, commented:
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“Mobility is important for small and medium businesses because their staff need to be productive and responsive at all times. “Release 9.0 enhances and builds
on the strength of BusinessPhone’s well featured mobility offering which includes Mobile Extension and Aastra Mobile Client, our fixed mobile convergence solution.” Other improvements include
new Aastra 7433i and 7434ip ter- minals on BusinessPhone.
www.comms-dealer.com
Panasonic combats threat of phreaking
PANASONIC Systems Network Europe has entered into a technical and commercial relationship with the Callista Group, developer of the Control Phreak voice switch security application. Dial-through fraud, also known as phone phreaking, is often linked to organised crime and the number of attacks is growing. Once targeted and attacked,
owners of compromised voice switches can be left facing large phone bills run up by phreakers. Many owners of compromised
voice systems have been forced to seek compensation from resellers, integrators, manufacturers and even service providers, according to Roger Ansin, who is the Chairman of Callista Group. He noted: “Telephone systems
are just as vulnerable to hacker attacks as PCs. While most compa- nies go to great lengths to protect their LANs and PCs from these attacks with firewalls and anti-virus systems, they leave their phone sys- tems completely unprotected.” Phreakers usually strike after hours, at the weekend or on pub- lic holidays when attacks are least likely to be detected. Control Phreak prevents such calls being made through a sys- tem that enables end users to cali-
Roger Ansin (left) with Steve Gerrard
brate the usage rules governing their call traffic. Steve Gerrard, UK Marketing Manager at Panasonic, commented: “It’s not enough to know that an attack has happened and a crime committed. By that time it’s too late and the damage has been done. “Panasonic’s NCP and TDE communications solutions and our TVM messaging appliances feature a challenge and response security mechanism, however incorporat- ing Control Phreak means that users won’t have to manually moni- tor retrospective alerts. They won’t have to monitor anything.” Interfacing with and integrated
into the Panasonic TDE and NCP voice switch platforms, Control Phreak runs in real time stopping illegal call traffic instantly.
Ansin explains: “Users decide
how liberal or restrictive the flow of call traffic will be through their phone system. They constantly remain in control of the rules gov- erning this flow so that the legiti- mate phone traffic of their business is never compromised.” According to Gerrard, toll
fraud and phreaking is a ‘real and present danger’ that thrives on a lack of understanding within the market. “Panasonic is taking a posi- tive stance against this type of crime and further securing our intelligent voice solutions,” he stated. “We have been pioneering this anti-phreaking solution with Callista in other parts of the world, now we are in a position to offer this secure communications solu- tion to UK customers.”
Magnetic North attracts former Redstone guru in sales advance
MAGNETIC North has app- ointed Andrew Jones as UK Sales Director. He joins from Redstone Managed Solutions and is tasked with speeding up the momen- tum of gathering sales across the Magnetic North portfolio. According to the firm’s MD,
Nick Gash, the SaaS offering is of particular interest to custom- ers, with 80% of them opting for cloud-based solutions.
This uptick signals a shift away
from Magnetic North’s roots. “We are well known in the contact cen- tre, voice recording and hosted applications market, but during 2010 have rolled out a range of
Andrew Jones
cloud PBX and network services,” commented Gash. “With cloud solutions growing in popularity minute by minute, our plans for growth and expansion are aggressive. Bringing on board Andy Jones to drive and accelerate our growth plan was a perfect fit.”
Making you an offer you can’t refuse 20 COMMS DEALER NOVEMBER 2010
The new appointment coin- cides with the release of Magnetic North’s latest version of predictive dialler, Maximise 3.
This includes multi-lingual
robotic agent technology, fully blended inbound outbound pre- dictive campaigns, outbound SMS and email campaign integration. Prior to the roll out of Maximise
3, Magnetic North added Mobile Screening and realtime Mobile Handset status checks for outbound predictive dialling campaigns, plus network PCI compliance.
Got a news story? email:
sgilroy@bpl-business.com
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