COVER STORY
Simwood - Thinking
Globally, Delivering Globally
Simwood continues to
break new ground.
We talk with
founder and CEO
Simon Woodhead
about the latest news,
as Simwood awaits
notice of acceptance
from the Federal
Communications
Commission (FCC),
to be approved to
provide International
telecommunications
services in the USA.
Additional USA
International Carrier
Licence
As the end element of
the overall application
process, the USA FCC
has made public Simwood’s
International Section 214
application. is means that
within a few weeks, Simwood
should o cially be approved to
provide wholesale international
telecommunications services to
and from the USA.
Simon Woodhead
commented: “We are already
well established as a certi ed
CLEC (Competitive Local
Exchange Carrier) providing
USA-local services (such as
US porting and numbering),
across many states from a
similar position in the foodchain
to that we occupy in the
UK. It requires a state-by-state
authorisation process which is
costly and time consuming and
one that Tom Hadden, Simwood
Inc.’s COO, is fully focused
on. But we are progressing well
geographically and I believe it
essential to have that control to
ensure our customers receive
the end-to-end Simwood service
delivery they expect.”
“Being authorised to operate
under Section 214 takes us
to another level and able to
punch well above our weight
as a wholesale carrier. at will
empower us to compete with
anyone in the States and will
be a major step forward in our
global capability!” added Simon
Woodhead. “I am determined
that with our agility, we will
continue to provide innovative
market-leading services. It is
very important to us that we are
not reselling anything and are
accountable for our customers’
experience - across all services
from network services through
to VoIP fraud control.”
“Simwood’s perspective
is changing. Our volume of
business in the USA has, in
18 months, grown to almost
balance that of the UK.
Moreover, our business service
delivery and capability has
expanded signi cantly. We have
the ability to deploy and scale
new PoPs extremely quickly,
almost anywhere worldwide,
enabling us now to be genuinely
thinking globally and delivering
globally.”
20 Years of Industry Firsts
Simwood have always wanted
to be at the forefront of new
thinking and new developments,
to shape the future rather just
than being an onlooker. To be
always one (or ve) steps ahead
of the competition when it
comes to the latest innovations.
“Our mission is to share
these advancements with you
as quickly as possible and we’ve
built our business around our
ability to do this. So whilst
‘me too’ may be busy talking
about their latest magic box,
their representatives probably
listened to us talk about how
we were building it ve years
ago,” said Simon
Woodhead.
Two new services
exemplify this
continued motivation
- Simwood’s SDWAN
and VoxAP,
their mobile VoIP
client.
Simwood’s
Software-Defined
WAN
Available locally
in the UK and
globally, Simwood
is pitching SDWAN
connectivity
di erently - to
deliver 100% SLA’ able
connectivity, guaranteeing
service quality and security, even
for customers not connected
directly to their network.
Non-conventional and
globally unique, the Simwood
SD-WAN intelligently identi es
and prioritises real-time network
tra c over the Simwood
Network and WAN links,
making adjustments to improve
voice and video quality. It
delivers a viable MPLS
alternative over commodity
connectivity and gives the
channel a great opportunity to
improve margins.
Whilst the service handles
last-mile failures (both blackouts
and brown-outs) without
blinking, the reliability of
service is reinforced through
‘seamless automatic failover’ at
the data-centre end. If there was
a failure in one of Simwood’s
data-centres, a dynamic routing
protocol would instantly re-route
the customer’s tra c. is
24 | Comms Business Magazine | May 2019 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
/www.commsbusiness.co.uk