Tag: ISPAs

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Archived Business

What’s in an award? Timico is 3x finalist in ISPAs

Earlier this year I spent an appreciable chunk of my life filling out awards entries. Three of them were for the ISPAs. Google it. These awards entries have pretty strict entry criteria and very fixed number of words that you are allowed to use. Not nearly enough space to adequately cover how great you are at what you do.

However you have to put yourself in the position of the judges, whoever they are. They don’t want to have to plough through several editions of War and Peace (Tolstoy) when they are giving of their time free and gratis. So it takes ages to condense War and Peace into 500 words or whatever the number was (war was waged, someone won).

Anyway the upshot is that of the three categories entered by Timico we made it to the shortlist for all three: Managed Service Innovation, Customer Service and VoIP, as I recall. Yay.

This is great news because we are up against a lot of other great companies with great services (what a great novel War and Peace was). Great.

Companies enter these awards because if you win it means you have bragging rights and can show off to customers and prospects and hopefully turn the prospects into new customers. I think you know what I’m talking about. So I’m reasonably chuffed to make it to all three shortlists.

Details here. Wish us luck on the 11th July. If you’re going come and say hello.

Ciao.

Categories
broadband Business

B4RN is a hero at ISPAs 2012

B4RN broadband -Barry Forde and Chris Conder at ISPAs

B4RN Broadband is award winner

B4RN broadband has just been announced as winner of the Internet Hero at the Internet Service Providers Association annual Awards bash. They were pretty clear winners in the vote that involved all of the ISPA council (moi included).

I’m not going to dwell on the other candidates or on the Internet villain. It is quite fair that the attention is all focussed on B4RN. B4RN has featured on the blog before. It is literally a ground breaking project.

B4RN is aiming to light up 1,500 or so properties across the 8 parish areas in the Lancashire/Cumbria borders at a cost £1.86M. That’s roughly over £1,200 per home/business. They are doing it with a combination of hard cash raised from investors and potential customers and “effort”. The “effort” is payment in kind – much of the total cost of the project is down to civil engineering works – digging the trenches in which the fibre is laid.

The 1,500 properties will need over 256km of fibre – that’s roughly £1,200 per property connected and just over £7 per metre. A very significant chunk of the cost of the project is going to be paid for in kind so the overall cost per property/per metre will come down from this. B4RN has enough cash to initially light up the core of the network – that’s 40,000 km through 8 parishes.

If you take a look at the Openreach website you can see their regulated tariff. For laying fibre the costs range between £25 a metre and £140 a metre.  Believe me this is not a “have a go at BT” post. BT has to gear for scale and is not used to having to gear for low cost.

These numbers suggest there is a clear need for competition in the local loop/Openreach space. The Openreach position will be that the market isn’t big enough for two players.

The people that got B4RN going are real heroes. The biggest problem that the UK has is that there aren’t enough of these heroes to go around. It’s not just guts you need it’s know how and it’s not just know how locally on the ground. It’s know how right the way up through the ranks of the civil service and up to government ministerial level.

BT will be whispering in the minister’s ear “do you really want to take the risk with critical national infrastructure by letting just anyone get involved”. That’s what’s happened with the BDUK rollout of funding for rural NGA broadband – we are left with BT and possibly Fujitsu though only in a few regions (that’s my understanding anyway).

I don’t have the right answers here. Hopefully B4RN’s winning of the ISPA Internet Hero award will give someone food for thought.
imagePhoto – Barry Forde and Chris Conder of B4RN proudly show off their award.

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Business Regs surveillance & privacy

Internet Heroes (hooray) and Internet Villains (boo hiss) #deappg

In an unprecedented move the Internet Services Providers’ Association has opened the nomination process for Internet Hero and Villain to you, the general public.

The Hero and Villain are fun categories in the forthcoming ISPA Awards (London, 7th July) and last year were won by Tom Watson MP and Lord Mandelson for their respective roles during the passing of the Digital Economy Act. Last years’ was a pretty straightforward vote.

This year I think it is going to be different. I’m not so sure that there are potential candidates with the same outstanding qualities.  I could be wrong and would be glad to hear from blog readers who they think might put up as heroes and villains.

I can think of a judge or two that would fit into either camp and at least one MP. ACSLaw, who were an unsuccessful candidate last year could also easily fit in as a villain this year (though they are so last year!).  I’m looking for ideas. You can provide suggestions directly to ISPA via Twitter to @ISPAUK #ISPAs or email them at [email protected] or you can leave a comment on the blog.

The ISPA council will be voting on a shortlist of candidates for both awards before the night.

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Business Regs surveillance & privacy

Are you going to the #ISPAs? – I am

Short note to point out to those of you who may have missed it is that Timico is a finalist in two categories for the ISPAs (The Internet Service Providers’ Association Awards). We are in the Best Business Fixed ISP and Best Mobile Broadband categories. Sister company NewNet are also finalists in the Best Business Broadband and Best Dedicated Hosting categories. Nothing like a bit of friendly rivalry.

Our mobile broadband service is not simply a rebadge of one of the mobile operators. It’s a multi-tenant APN solution that allows small and medium sized businesses to have their own private mobile data  network hooked into their fixed MPLS network without the big up front costs that normally mean this is the domain of larger enterprises. No VPN overhead, no having to reconnect after going through mobile coverage blackspots. Very enterprising I think 🙂

There were 46 entrants out of the 200+ members of ISPA so to get two “finalist” badges is good going. If you are coming to the awards night at the Royal Lancaster Hotel on 7th July look me up and I will buy you a drink (limited places – get your booking in early :).

The ISPAs are genuinely independent awards – brown envelopes don’t work. They aren’t influenced by advertisers or sponsors and to be a finalist is a good independent endorsement of your service.

That’s it.

 

Categories
Business internet

ISPA Awards 2010 Winners

Here’s a list of winners from last night’s ISPAs. I have to declare some involvement in that I voted for both “successful” Hero and Villain and that NewNet, winner of the Best Dedicated Hosting category,  is a Timico Group business – well done lads. I’m proud of you 🙂

Best Shared Hosting winner is: Namesco

The judges were impressed with Namesco’s high level of customer satisfaction, with good use of security and technical support complemented by a clear pricing structure.

Best Dedicated Hosting winner is: NewNet

In an extremely competitive category, the judges decided that NewNet’s wide product range, provision of 24/7 technical support and a dedicated account manager set them apart from their competitors.

Continue reading “ISPA Awards 2010 Winners”
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Business internet piracy Regs

BT TalkTalk ISPAs Judicial Reviews and Feargal Sharkey

Much in the news yesterday was the request from BT and TalkTalk for a judicial review into the Digital Economy Act. Nobody I spoke to from the ISP industry had any further details of this other than to say that Sky and Virgin were notably absent from the story line.

This is likely to be because the latter two are far more closely aligned to the content provision industry with BT and TalkTalk being really just (or largely in the case of BT) connectivity providers.

People should not get too excited at the prospect of a Judicial Review. This is just a process of checking to see that the legal process was followed. Did it receive the required number of readings in Parliament? etc.etc

Continue reading “BT TalkTalk ISPAs Judicial Reviews and Feargal Sharkey”
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Business internet

ISPA Awards Internet Villain and Internet Hero Finalists Announced

ISPA, the Internet Service Providers’ Association, has announced the finalists for the 2010 Internet Hero and Internet Villain awards. Among the finalists are Lords Mandelson and Clement Jones, Tom Watson MP and the campaigning group 38 Degrees.

The highly-prized Internet Hero award is bestowed upon an organisation or individual who has made a significant

Continue reading “ISPA Awards Internet Villain and Internet Hero Finalists Announced”
Categories
Business internet

Timico is announced as finalist for best customer service award

I’m pleased to report that Timico has been selected as an ISPA Awards finalist in the Best Business Customer Service category.

When you consider that there are hundreds of B2B ISPS in the UK Ithink this is good going especially as this is our first attempt. There was also a record number of entries this year which makes it feel even better.

Levels of service are what differentiates ISPs in this game so this is an important category to do well in. This will hopefully send out a strong message to potential new customers – we want your business 🙂 .

If you see me at the awards evening on the 9th July come up and say hello.