CCOOMMMMSS N NEEWWSS
BYTES...
M247
M247 has launched a new cloud
infrastructure, designed to accelerate
customer business growth. 247Cloud
has been built to support its customers’
digital transformation initiatives and
fast-growing data and computing
needs.
KCF
Knight Corporate Finance has advised
the shareholders of Portal Voice and
Data on its sale to Wavenet. John
Corney, Managing Director of Portal
said, “We chose Knight because they
had expert knowledge of our sector,
strong buyer relationships, attracting
multiple offers for our business.”
MASERGY
Masergy has been named a Visionary
in Gartner’s 2020 Magic Quadrant
for Network Services report. This is
the fourth year in a row Masergy is
positioned in the Visionaries quadrant.
The report evaluated 15 vendors based
on completeness of vision and ability
to execute.
BT SWITCHES OFF KILOSTREAM AND
FEATURENET
BT WHOLESALE HAS warned
customers that organisations
using the Kilostream and
Featurenet private circuits will
need to prepare for a switchoff
at the end of March. They
have told customers they need
to replace these services,
many of which are used for
telephony products, with IP
services.
The switch-off has come,
according to BTW, as the
traditional networks are no
longer cost effi cient to run
and network suppliers
no longer produce the
replacement equipment.
Public sector
organisations are thought
to make up at least a
third of the remaining
customers using the
services of which
comprise about 9,000
circuits for analogue and
Kilostream and 60,000
lines for Featurenet.
Clive Quantrill
(pictured), BT’s
enterprise migrations
Gamma posts strong 2019 fi gures
GAMMA HAS PUBLISHED its results for the year
ended 31 December 2019 in what has been a
great year for the growth of the company. The
indirect side of the business has seen gross profi t
increase from £97.5m in 2018 to £119.1m in 2019
(+22%).
The number of Horizon (Cloud PBX) users
increased from 435,000 to 522,000 (+20%). The
main growth area was in the SME segment.
The number of installed SIP Trunks increased
from 856,000 at 31 December 2018 to 1,016,000 at
31 December 2019 (+19%).
Gamma’s UCaaS offering, Collaborate, is
an upgrade to Horizon which was launched in
March 2019, already has over 9,000 users. The
business is offering free licences for 4 months
to help those businesses through this tricky
period due to the Coronavirus outbreak. Comms
Business understands that the business has seen
unprecedented demand for the service.
Andrew Taylor (pictured), Chief Executive
Offi cer, commented, “Despite an increasingly
director, said: “Technology has
shifted away from traditional
telephone and data networking
services delivered over copper
networks, in favour of faster,
more reliable fi bre networks
and digital IP services.
“Whilst the majority of our
public sector customers have
already migrated across to
these new services in advance
of our legacy products being
switched off, a signifi cant
number have yet to take any
action.”
competitive market, our product performance
was positive, and during the period we continued
to strengthen our market capabilities, through
the development and launch of new products
and services. Through the acquisition of both
Telsis and Exactive, we are executing against our
UCaaS strategy, while ensuring that we continue
to strengthen both our direct and indirect channel
propositions.”
TOLLRING AND
METIER FAST-TRACK
DEVELOPMENT TO
COMBAT COVID-19
IN RESPONSE TO the public
health emergency and
requests for help from GP
surgeries, Metier and Tollring
have fast-tracked an update
to their intelligent
middleware software
CallConnect GP (formerly
Patient Connect) that
provides a link between the
clinical system and existing
telephone system. The
upgrade will enable GPs to
better manage the
requirement set by NHS
England to interrogate
callers and identify callers
with possible Coronavirus
symptoms.
With the new update,
when a patient calls their
surgery a safety alert ‘pop
up’ displays the latest NHS
advice and guidance for
receptionists. If the
receptionist determines the
caller meets the case
defi nition for COVID-19
infection, they will be
advised NOT to come to the
surgery, pharmacy or
hospital but to go online to
111.nhs.uk, and the system
will tag the patient’s
telephone numbers with an
alert. If the patient
subsequently rings again to
try to get an appointment,
the receptionist is notifi ed
immediately of a risk. This
system also alerts the
receptionist if a phone
number matches members
from the same household,
who would also be deemed
as contacts at risk.
All delivered and managed by our Uboss platform
Tony Martino, MD of Tollring
6 | Comms Business Magazine | April 2020 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
/111.nhs.uk
/www.commsbusiness.co.uk
/