Cloud Net Blog

Business Phone Systems No drama

When the BBC decided they wanted to interview Breathing Space's General Manager Glennys Davies they followed their procedures and carried out a sound check and recorded some highlights to trail the interview.

Then the big day arrived and the phone on Glenny's desk rang at 7.48. She listened to broadcast down the line for 2 minutes before the interviewer, Phil Upton, cut to her as part of the series the West Midlands fights back. Glennys explained how Breathing Space had created 70 new jobs in the last year and how the charity worked. Phil then cut on another line to one of the people Breathing Space had helped and Glennys was free to enjoy a cup of tea and relax.

Nobody thought of this as in any way remarkable. However for a second let us look at what happened. Glennys picked up the phone, her voice was translated from analogue sound waves into digital packets by her IP phone which was connected to the internet via an Ethernet cable. The packets moved through various layers of protocols within the phone and then out into the wider internet. The packets progressed by hoping from station to station until they arrived at the Cloud Net Cloud based switchboard which sent them on their way to the old fashioned telephone network where they were translated back to analogue before being passed down the line to the interviewer and then they were picked up by the BBC broadcast equipment and broadcast. This all happened without any drama or fuss. No noise, lack of quality or echo was heard by anyone - this was just business as usual. The interview was recorded by the BBC and made available on their iplayer and it can now be heard anywhere in the world by anyone. One phone call reached the world and no one noticed the amazing technology that made it happen.

Glennys was using the Business Phone from Cloud Net that saved Breathing Space 40% of their previous costs, had no capital cost and gave far more features. This is the way of the world - amazing technology becomes simple, common place and unremarked on and I guess we wouldn't want it any other way.

 

 

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Monitoring the telecoms sector

Monitoring The Telecoms Sector

The Stock Exchange maintains 2 sector indices for telecoms

1) The FTSE 350 - Fixed Line Telecomms Index
(Yes the stock exchange can't spell telecoms)

The index has a basket of 4 shares, which consists of Carphone Warehouse, Cable and Wireless, BT Group and Colt.

So how has it performed.?
Today the index is at about 1,700. In March 2007 it was hovering around 4,000, in 2008 about 2,800 , 2009 about 1400. So if you had invested 1,000 pounds in the sector in March 2007 it would now be worth about £425

The biggest player is of course BT so if you had made the same investment of £1000 in 2007 in BT how would you have performed? - and the answer is you would have £380 pounds left.

Over the last 3 years this has been the 4th worst sector after industrial metals, real estate and banks.

2) The FTSE 350 Mobile Telecommunications Index

This basket is even smaller consisting of Vodafone and Inmarsat.
Today the index is hovering around 3,270 with a value of about the same in 2007. So your £1,000 pounds would have stayed the same. It would have peaked in value in November 2007 at about £1320 and bottomed in October 2008 at about £740.

This performance places it as the 13th best out of 38 sector indices.

You may imagine that these baskets are pretty unique in consisting of such small numbers of companies but a brief examination shows that most baskets consist of a very small number of companies - in fact the automobiles and parts sector consists of 1 company - GKN. The largest baskets consist of financial companies and the largest basket of all is the equity investment instruments. (The best performing index over 3 and 5 years was oil equipment.)

This all shows that we have a mobile industry that is dominated by foreign brands with 02 being owned by Telefonica from Spain, Orange by France Telecom and T Mobile by Deutsche Telekom AG.

The fixed line industry by contrast continues to remain in UK hands and whilst it continues to be near the top of badly performing sectors league is pretty protected from takeover - no one would want it. However it's woes are nowhere near over as the sector which is the best performing sector in the world - VoIP- continues to attack and gain market share. The VoIP sector unfortunately for UK plc is dominated by the American consumer brands Vonage and Skype. VoIP for business as yet remains in UK hands with companies like Cloud Net making great strides to keep UK business supplied by UK business.

It will be interesting to see over the next few years just how this battle develops. I for one won't be betting on traditional land line businesses.

VAT Good For Cloud Net VoIP

The government is forcing almost all businesses to submit VAT returns online from April 2010.

I have just been through the process for another company and it is not user friendly. HMRC sends you a confusing 6 page pullout guide in purple, back and green. You then navigate to the forms to register online and away you go. It is a six stage process.

First of all you have to accept their terms and conditions. I don't understand this - you have to do something - then they force you to sign up to accept. It's like going to jail and signing up for the jail terms and conditions. There is no alternative and therefore no point. The terms and conditions state that they can change them at any time any way - so again what's the point.

Now you enter a form with details about you and then create a password which has to be of a format between 8 and 12 characters, contain at least one number and one letter and not contain the word password. Oh and it must be memorable - yeah right!

Now we're on to the entry of the 5 key pieces of information. VAT registration number, postcode of business, date of registration for VAT, final month of last VAT return and figure 5 on last VAT return. All of these pieces of information can be interpreted in different ways for example - I submitted my last VAT return 6 days ago did that count ? - No I needed the one from last October it turned out. So you fill in the form and submit it. It tells you that you are wrong - but not why you are wrong. Helpfully, it lets you try as often as you have the patience to try and eventually you may succeed. It took me 6 failed attempts.

Now I'm waiting for a PIN through the post so that I can change the registration details.

All of this is great for Cloud Net VoIP for two reasons:

1) If you are intelligent enough to navigate the system then you are easily intelligent enough to know that the advantages of Cloud Net VoIP in terms of flexibility, power and cost are massive.

2) Effectively businesses are now forced to have broadband. If you've got broadband and you're paying for it any way - surely you want to use it to host the most powerful VoIP system on the planet Cloud Net Connect with no capital costs.

BT provoke anger through off-peak call plan changes

Millions of customers have been affected by BT's off peak time changes provoking anger from people who signed up to BT's "Free Evening and Weekends" price plan and customers who signed up to just the " Free Weekends" plan. This affects more than 4.7million customers who signed up to this plan.

On the new plan customers making calls of 15 minute in duration daily between 6pm-7pm could see their monthly bill increase by over £20 per month. Starting from April the calls will be charged at 5.9p per min instead of usually being free of charge.

The new changes are viewed by customers as another "money making scheme" by BT signalling that they are struggling against VoIP competitors who are expanding rapidly. Customers will be more likely to make calls between 6pm-7pm than 6am-7am meaning more money gained through call charges at no extra cost to them.

The BBC recently questioned BT for the one show. They asked BT about how many people make calls at 6pm compared to 6am? They refused to comment saying it was commercially sensitive information.

Despite making these changes to customers calling plans, without the customers permission, BT are well within their rights to change call plans and pricing. Part of their terms and conditions are that BT is required to notify customers one month in advance of changes that are a disadvantage to them.

Further anger was voiced by customers about the way BT announced these changes to customers. BT sent a letter to each customer highlighting good news and then including the changes in the smaller print towards the end under the heading "some changes to your BT service".

However if customers are not happy with the changes and they can show they are significantly disadvantaged by the change then BT will allow them to terminate their contract even if they months left to run.

To terminate your contract with BT call them on their customer services number on 0800 800 150

VoIP phone systems provide great return on investment for businesses

This provides a great backdrop for VoIP providers. They have been able to out price traditional phone systems by offering cheaper calls, low set up fee's, low monthly fees and free calls within the network. 

Small businesses are looking for technology that can pay for itself and provide a quick return on investment (ROI). Many of them also believe that set-up costs of new technology is where the problem lies, but as a company Cloud Net offers free hardware and the benefits of this is dramatically increases the ROI.

Traditional phone companies can charge thousands of pounds for a new switchboard (PBX) which takes up space, is energy inefficient, has a limited range of features and is obsolescent. A hosted VoIP solution on the other hand occupies no space, is energy efficient, has a great range of features and is always bang up to date and if it's from Cloud Net has no capital cost.

Changing to a VoIP phone system could be just the difference between keeping a business in the black rather than the red and the features just make the business more effective and efficient.

Make sure you're not caught this Valentines Day

Found better company this Valentines Day? Don't want to tell your wife or girlfriend/husband or boyfriend? Picture this, they call your work phone, you pick up, pretend you're really busy and you're in the clear. All this whilst you're in a hotel room drinking champagne and eating strawberries.

Using your Cloud Net phone you could take away your office number and pretend that you are working overtime, allowing you to make your great escape. The phone is registered to a certain location and can be simply unplugged from work and connected to another broadband at a different location. The phone keeps the same number and tricks callers into thinking you're at the same location.

You could even travel to abroad taking your phone with you and this would still have the same effect.

You don't even need to worry about the cost of calls to your new destination because even the call charges stay the same no matter where the phone is taken in the world. If it's got a UK number then calls to the UK, and from the UK, will be charged at the local rate.

*Please note Cloud Net discourages affairs/cheating on wives, girlfriends, husbands, boyfriends and any other sentient beings.

How is Vodafone Sure Signal Going To Sell?

You may have spotted a rash of new Vodafone posters across the UK. If you haven't this is what they look like ...

What has happened is that Vodafone has rebadged its Access Gatewayas Vodafone Sure Signal after it failed to sell first time around. The posters are selling a device that allows users to improve their signal by plugging a box into their broadband line.

The box called a Sure Signal costs £50 for price plans of £25 or above and £120 for price plans under or you can rent it for £5.00 a month. Users must have a broadband line of 1mbps or more. Four handsets can use it at the same time.

So the deal is that, should you so wish and you are a Vodafone subscriber, you can pay for the Sure Signal, pay for the connectivity via broadband, pay for the electricity to run it and then pay Vodafone all this because Vodafone don't want to invest any more to do what the network is supposed to do.

So the logic is questionable in the first place but I do wonder even more at the advertising campaign. Vodafone are using posters which show people hanging out of windows because the Vodafone signal is so weak. Inevitably because they don't have many posters in the countryside these posters are in towns, and guess what Vodafone have quite a good signal here. So they are advertising a product to the odd country bumpkin who may happen to drive his tractor past and think "Wow! I can pay Vodafone more money to get the signal I'm already paying for."

I understand the reality which is that Vodafone have spent a fortune developing this femtocell, which is what the Sure Start is, and because of that now some marketer has to force himself/herself to take away even more of Vodafone's money to sell the unsellable.

I don't think it has to be this way. If I were Vodafone I'd target my advertising at the areas where they already know the signal is weak and then let people have the boxes for as long as they have a contract with Vodafone - free. We know that on average it costs Vodafone about £350 for each new subscriber and the boxes can't cost that. So Vodafone get more subscribers who don't use Vodafone's band width and Vodafone sells phones to people who wouldn't buy them otherwise. Best of all Vodafone looks like a caring company, expands the number of users and makes more profit.

Oh isn't capitalism wonderful!

David Hill - Chairman of Cloud Net

Technology Is Better Than Travel

A Large amount of small businesses are turning their attention to technology rather than increasing the amount they spend on travel. Reports show people are more likely to set up a conference or increase the amount of telephone calls, than travel to see long distance or international partners with business trips. The trend started due to the economic downturn which more companies looked for ways which they could reduce costs.

25% of UK small businesses talk to international customers and colleagues every working day, and over 50% of workers from UK SME's believe that they or a co-worker have been on an unnecessary work trip abroad, according to a study from Redshift research. It makes sense to look for an alternative to travel and finding a cheap solution for international call costs.

The decrease in travel has been reflected in the uptake of VoIP phone solutions because they offer high quality feature rich system for a low monthly fee and cheap call costs. Just think of the amount your business could save by cutting out the high cost of international trips and replacing them with cheap phone calls.

A useful feature of VoIP is the ability to host call conferencing which can handle as many people as required. This means regular meetings can take place between many people all over the world without the need to be there in person.

If your company does not travel long distances or make regular international phone calls VoIP can still reduce your monthly costs with low monthly fees and cheap calls compared to traditional phone systems. Some companies even offer free hardware so no capital costs are required either.

References
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/20/voip_small_biz/

Unified Communications From Cloud Net

Unified Communications delivers a combination of telephony and IT applications. It enables those who adopt the technology to meet the most compelling imperatives in business today.

These are:

• Doing things faster - Bill Gates talked about Business at the Speed of Thought - using the growing amount of data within organisations effectively and on time.

• Streamlining the move to a more mobile and remote workforce, and flatter organisational structures.

The two imperatives are inextricably linked - binding them is a set of technologies from Cloud Net that delivers truly unified communications.

Cloud Net's systems facilitate:

• Convergence between voice and data - the ability to run both voice communications and data links over one network, combining the two for new applications and cost savings in infrastructure.

• Convergence between fixed voice lines and mobile phones - an increasingly important trend that allows people to be reached by one number and own only one handset.

• Unified messaging - bringing together email, voicemail, instant messaging and fax in a single message inbox.

• Audio, video and web conferencing - the ability to set up one-to-one and one-to-many conferences easily and at low cost.

The Institute of Directors say:

"It is not an exaggeration to say that the use of unified communication technologies has the potential to dramatically transform the performance of many processes in both the private and public sectors.

The type of scenarios where it comes into its own include:

• Maximising personal productivity - receiving and working on a rich set of material any time, any place

• Deploying the right resources - finding people that are nearest or most able to carry out certain tasks

• Collaborating more effectively - finding co-workers and experts in real time"

Cloud Net is delivering the technologies that make Unified Communications a reality today, uniquely using guaranteed quality of service over the Internet.

Cloud based servers from Cloud Net have effectively stripped away all geographical restraints - calls and communications no longer respect space. A call or a message is as easily sent between rooms as across continents. Messages are retrieved anywhere. Mobiles are easily integrated into the systems at reasonable and capped prices.

What's more, Cloud Net has delivered all this at a dramatically reduced price point. Once all communications can be handled efficiently by servers in the Cloud the need for expensive PBXs is effectively destroyed.

Then because communications are carried almost all of the way using the Internet rather than traditional networks, call costs outside Cloud Net network are at a greatly reduced price.

And of course because everything is handled in the Cloud the need for local servers and PBXs is removed and energy requirements are greatly reduced. There is no single golden bullet - we need to work harder to find what ticks the boxes for clients and continually aim to refine our message, product and service.

The single most powerful marketing tool is to have a product that is so good that people will talk about it and it spreads by word of mouth eg Spotify, Ebay, Dyson

VoIP Goes Plug and Play

Have you ever gone through the daunting process of purchasing a new office telephone system? As we all know it used to be a complex process from looking at the price of handsets, call plans, feature sets, installation costs and installation time.
We've all read about the benefits of saving money by using hosted VoIP phone solutions but have you thought about the set-up and installation process?

Cloud Net have released a simple hosted VoIP office solution. The process begins with a call to the friendly office team which they will take your details and let you choose your own phone number or even port your existing number. They will then sort out what settings you would like on your phone system such as follow me, call diversion, call cascading etc. The hardware is free.
Soon afterwards you'll get the hardware in boxes. Simply plug the hardware in and it works. You are ready to receive and make calls using the hosted switch board. We've even made a video to show you how easy it is.

Now compare that to other set up processes where your company has to install an expensive PBX on site which takes time to be installed. Other hosted VoIP companies require you to install software and let you figure out your settings for yourself. Cloud Net try to make things as simple as possible for the end user.