Cloud Net Blog

BT vs Virgin Media vs Cable and Wireless vs Talk Talk

The UK landline market place has changed more radically in the last 2 months than ever before. For once BT the largest player hasn't reported a major change, however the others of the big 4, Virgin Media, Cable and Wireless and Talk Talk have had major events.

In date order:

Virgin Media

NTL: Telewest as a brand was unceremoniously dumped by Virgin as they rebranded their business offering to Virgin Media Business on February the 11th. That rebranding exercise seems to consist of deleting all references to NTL Telewest on all documents on their web site and replacing them with Virgin Media Business.

Mark Heraghty, Managing Director of Virgin Media Business, said: "We have big ambitions for Virgin Media Business. Delivering fabulous fundamentals - great service, good quality and value for money - is at the heart of our strategy. Over the last three years we've invested heavily to put the building blocks in place, which means we're more than fit to wear the Virgin badge."

Cable and Wireless Worldwide

Then on March 26 Cable and Wireless split in two and Cable and Wireless Worldwide were born. It is to concentrate on The Worldwide business (formerly Europe, Asia & US) specialising in offering communications services IP, data, voice and hosting to large enterprise, reseller and carrier customers. It operates globally, with core markets in UK, Asia and EMEA, and provides connectivity in 153 countries.

Talk Talk

Then on March 29 Talk Talk was admitted to the UK stock market following the demerger with Car Phone Warehouse. Their business offering is still branded as Opal (watch this space). They say Opal has a 15 year history and is well established within the SME market, currently offering voice, data services, telephony systems and mobile services to business customers in the UK.

Opal has 3 distinct channels to market, Small Business (Connect channel) - managing businesses up to 50 employees / customers, Large business and public sector (Consult channel) - managing organisations over 50 employees and all the way up to the FTSE 100 and resellers and dealers (Partner channel) - from dealers up to Systems Integrators

Financials

So let us compare their financials (all figures in £ millions, except employee numbers)

	BT	Virgin Media	C W W	Talk Talk
Year end	Mar-09	Dec-09	Mar-09	Mar-10
Turnover (m £s approx)	£21,390	£3,804	£3,646	£1,385
Profit Before Tax	-£134	-£338	£233	£115
Market Capitalisation current	£9,675	£4,164	£2,414	£1,235
Employees	111,000	11,000	13,000	1,500
Debt	£12,365	£5,934	£832	£862

The market capitalisations (number of shares times share price) are interesting with the markets clearly taking into account differing factors.

VoIP

It is interesting that none seem to be placing a great deal of emphasis on the hosted VoiP revolution that is headed down the tracks toward them. It will be interesting to see just how they react to when they see companies like Cloud Net taking an ever increasing proportion of their business systems revenues.

Written by David Hill, Chairman of Cloud Net.

Avoid the National Rail Strike Chaos

Recent reports suggest that there was nearly a National Rail Strike just after the Easter Bank Holiday Weekend. This could have effectively caused major disruption to people returning to work and resulting in a poor business image and a loss of potential earnings.

Workers expecting important phone calls at work would be unable to receive them resulting in collapsed deals and potential customers choosing to use competitors. With a Cloud Net phone system, disruptions with your office communications will be a thing of the past. The free internet phone that we provide with our hosted business phone systems can easily be transferred from your work office to your home office. The beauty of being able to do this is that the telephone number is assigned to the phone and where ever the phone goes the number goes with it. Even if the number has an area code assigned to it you can move the phone to any broadband connection and be able to make and receive calls on it.

Even if you decide to leave your handset at work you can access your Cloud Net control panel to set up call diverts or follow me using any computer connected to the internet. This allows you to pick up your office calls on your mobile without having to go into work to change any settings.

Our business phone systems could solve many issues with travelling to work such as natural disasters or car problems etc. So make sure your company is prepared for any such issues.

Written by Kevin Box

Seven Things That People Get Wrong About Hosted VoIP Business Phone Systems

Hosted voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technologies for business phone systems cuts costs and improves productivity. It also provides useful features and capabilities that conventional phone technology can't offer. Yet there are still lots of misconceptions out there. Here are 7

1. The higher the fee the better the quality.

A common misconception about VoIP systems is that the more you pay the more you get. The reality is that the more you pay the more they get. Sales people who work largely on commission are driven towards systems that reward them more not those that deliver more to you, This is a real problem with Cloud Net Connect - sales people simply cannot achieve the levels of commission they want.

2 It's all complicated

Hosted VoIP systems don't need to be complicated - the ones from Cloud Net are plug and play.
We understand that you might want a bespoke system to integrate with your expensive IT systems that have been developed over decades and you may be prepared to pay thousands for it. But there are lots of people who simply want their phone system to be reliable, cheap (from £8.50 per phone per month all in) and make them look professional and Cloud Net makes it easily possible.

3 It's just like old fashioned systems but cheaper.

VoIP removes the restrictions imposed by old fashioned systems. When you bought a pbx you had say 12 extensions and 5 lines. That was great but if you wanted to make 4 outgoing calls and receive 3 incoming calls all together you couldn't. Customers got the engaged tone. Hosted VoIP simply doesn't have that restriction. If you buy 12 phones you can use 12 phones.

VoIP allows you to connect separate offices in a way that old fashioned systems simply couldn't. You can see at any time who is using the phone anywhere in the country. So for instance you might be in London and then see who is using the phones in Glasgow and what numbers they are using.

4 You Can't Have Non Geographic Numbers

You can have 0800 numbers, 0845 numbers and any geographic numbers you like. Only BT stop you transferring your existing numbers to VoIP.

5 You Don't Need to Use VoIP

Sorry if you use a phone then you use the public phone network and the public phone Network is increasingly carried over a VoIP back bone. It won't be long now before all traffic goes through it.

6 Pbx's can be cheaper if you lease

An old fashioned pbx is just that - it is obsolescent now and will be obsolete soon. Hosted VoIP systems effectively give you a free virtual pbx which together with free phones is unbeatable. The virtual pbx is always up to date, requires no maintenance, never breaks down, costs nothing and has no capital costs. It also allows free calls to any one on the network.

7. Hosted VoIP is the universal solution.

There are a few situations where hosted VoIP just doesn't cut the mustard. Phones in lifts are a good example and Red Care phones another. You really don't want to be dependant on the local electricity supply when the lift fails. So old fashioned analogue phones are going to be around in specialist situations for a while yet.

 

See other comments to this article on Business Wings.

Orange UMA vs Vodafone Sure Signal vs Cloud Net Connect

Orange are now advertising their UMA service for business phone systems widely. The UMA initials stand for unlicenced mobile access

If you manage to log on to the Orange web site they helpfully tell you that -

What’s UMA and how can it help?

One in five UK mobile phone users has a problem with their signal at home. That’s why we’ve added UMA technology to our network. All you need is wireless broadband from any provider and one of our UMA-enabled phones.

 

How does UMA work?

The technology senses when you’re at home and connects to our network through your home Wifi, giving you the freedom to use your mobile to make calls, send messages or use data services as normal.

How do you set it up?

There’s a one-off ‘pairing’ of your UMA-enabled handset and home Wifi. After that, your handset automatically switches from the regular Orange network to your home Wifi network.

Does it cost anything extra?

You don’t need an additional bundle or special plan to take advantage of UMA. Your calls, messages and internet browsing come from your inclusive bundles and are charged at your standard rate, or deducted from your pay as you go balance.”

So that’s what Orange think  - a glance at the Blackberry forums on the web brings up comments like

“I use  VoIP a lot and hardly ever get cut off or suffer poor quality. But UMA is basically VoIP, and it's unusable. Does anyone know when Orange will be updating their service to actually work? “

Orange helpfully reinforce the point in their terms and conditions which read

"Boost mobile signal at home with UMA technology" is subject to the limitations of your Wi-Fi network. Performance may be affected by the construction of the building it is used in, local interference from other radio products, the number of devices connected to the network and the data activity on the network.

"Boost mobile signal at home with UMA technology" is further subject to the limitations of your broadband connection. Performance may be affected by your distance from the telephone exchange, the number of devices connected, and the quantity of data being transferred across the connection

 

Cloud Net has tried to implement similar business phone system solutions using WiFi with smart mobile phones using their networking capability. If you search the web you will find plenty of programs which claim to do just this, Fring being the most famous. We tried the solution and concluded that the reliance on a rock steady WiFi signal made it too unreliable to use and certainly we will not be offering this solution to our customers.

UMA stands comparison with Vodafones recently rehyped Sure Signal service which uses a femtocell to connect the mobile to broadband. This is a more elegant and well engineered solution. Try as I might I cannot find any criticism of this service on functionality grounds but there is a lot on economic grounds. People ask why they should pay for a functionality that they should have any way.

So the comparison is between the Vodafone solution that has a cost but works elegantly with all mobile phones and the Orange UMA which is free but requires a particular model of phone and a rock steady WiFi.

There is a third solution which is Cloud Net Connect using IP DECT phones. This allows you to wander around your workspace carrying your phone using a land line number and making crystal clear calls with all of the functionality of a Pbx including call recording, and IVR. If you implement the follow me functionality then when you are out and about you can still receive your landline calls and make mobile calls. The cost of calls when you are in the office is massively reduced because you are using Cloud Net VoIP and you look and sound more professional than relying on a mobile network.

 

At the end of the day the choice is all yours.

Will VoIP hurt Vodafone too much

Paul Hill reports every week for Money Week on the best shares to purchase. This week he chose Vodafone shares to recommend.

He says positives include

• Focus on cash generation, cost reduction and speed of execution.

• iPhone release and booming smart phone sales.

• Marriage of T-Mobile and Orange reducing choice and increasing profits

• Vodafone has the fastest 3G network

• Protection against a weak pound with 85% of revenues being derived outside the UK

He says problems include

• What to do with the 44% stake in SFR - the french mobile company (the remainder is owned by Vivendi) - although Vivendi would like to buy the stake

• The 45% stake in Verizon which also doesn't pay a dividend.

• Net debt to earnings (Ebitda) ratio at 2.2

• Possible regulator interference .

• Disruptive technologies such as VoIP

He pointed out that the shares offered a 5.3% dividend yield.

If you had invested with Vodafone in the last 5 years the share value will not have declined much but neither will it have increased significantly. If you had invested at the peak of the telecoms bubble in 2000 you would have seen your investment halved but in fairness other providers have done far worse.

We think that Vodafone is a great company and if it gets it's act together the value of all those networks and connectivity could be liberated. If it purely plays defensively then the disruptive technology, which Paul so rightly identifies, of VoIP will hurt it.

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.