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The Tough 20 Tooway™ Broadband Challenge: Connecting the toughest UK locations to high-speed broadband
Satellite broadband provider Skylogic today announced plans to install its Tooway™ new-generation broadband service in 20 of the toughest locations across the UK as part of its “Tough 20 Tooway Broadband Challenge”.
The company, a subsidiary of Eutelsat, Europe’s leading satellite operator, is inviting local authorities to suggest the toughest locations for connecting high-speed broadband services. It will install the Tooway™ 10mbps satellite broadband service in the 20 locations and provide a free service to the local community for 2012. The first locations will be announced in the coming weeks.
Steve Petrie, Skylogic’s Director for Tooway™ in the UK and Northern Europe said: “With over 40% of people in UK rural areas still not receiving broadband speeds greater than 2Mbps, it’s no surprise that many people still think that broadband is just not possible in Not Spots and Slow Spots. This may have been true in the past, but no longer. Tooway™ can deliver high speed broadband to everyone, everywhere and we intend to prove with the “Tough 20 Tooway Broadband Challenge” that there need be no exclusions to broadband access.”
Tooway™ provides users with an always-on service delivering speeds of up to 10Mbps downstream and 4Mbps upstream, with no need for a telephone line. Customer equipment comprises a small satellite dish (77 cm) and a sleek modem, which is connected to a PC or Mac via an Ethernet connection. Tooway™ can also be used for Voice over IP telephony and IPTV. Direct-to-Home reception of television channels from adjacent broadcast satellites is also possible with a dual-feed (Ku-Ka) LNB.
The new-generation service is delivered via Eutelsat’s innovative KA-SAT satellite, which has ushered in a new era of competitively priced, satellite-delivered IP services for homes and small businesses across Europe and the Mediterranean Basin. The satellite forms the cornerstone of a satellite infrastructure, which includes eight main satellite gateways across Europe connected to the Internet by a fibre backbone ring.
BSkyB launches personalised self-service to customers using SpeechStorm applications
SpeechStorm®, a leader in software for automating customer service over the phone, is pleased to announce that British Sky Broadcasting Group plc (BSkyB) has deployed its advanced customer care applications to deliver highly personalised self-service to its 10.5 million Sky customers. As the UK’s leading satellite broadcasting, broadband and telephony services company, Sky deals with over 52 million calls a year. Using SpeechStorm applications, Sky can now provide a fully tailored experience for customers wishing to pay their bill or sign up for new services over the phone.
SpeechStorm provides a range of phone self-service applications that manage everyday customer interactions in a highly efficient and personalised manner using a combination of speech and touch-tone interactions. In addition to delivering efficient and friendly customer care, SpeechStorm’s intuitive Business User Interface enables rapid deployment of new services and instant changes to prompts and menus, enabling greater flexibility and reducing maintenance costs.
“Self-service for Sky is about much more than just automating calls. We want to deliver a customer service experience that customers will be happy to come back to use again and again.” said Andrew Stevenson-Thorpe, Head of Channel: e-Experience, BSkyB. “Rapid deployment of the solution and the ability for Sky to manage and change the applications on an on-going basis was a key requirement from the outset, we also wanted the confidence that our key performance indicators would be met. I am glad to say that SpeechStorm has met and exceeded our expectations on all fronts”
Oliver Lennon, CEO, SpeechStorm, commented “At the outset of the project Sky set a number of challenges for the team and the software including rapid deployment and high completion rates, as well as delivering an exceptional caller experience. Using SpeechStorm applications enabled Sky to deploy the new services within 4 months and with 70% less effort than using a traditional development approach”.
SpeechStorm will be working with Sky over the coming months to further enhance the customer self-service experience.
Adax Announces Carrier-Grade Platforms Ready for Highly Demanding Telecoms Applications
Adax, an industry leader in high-performance packet-processing, security and network infrastructure, now offers a range of integrated platforms that are truly ‘Application Ready’ allowing customers to concentrate on their core business; application development. Those applications are the value-add which enables those customers to differentiate themselves from the competition and enable them to deliver complete solutions that reduce both CAPEX and OPEX with a fast time to market. Example applications for these systems include Internet Offload Gateways, LTE-EPC nodes such as SGW, PGW, MME, PCRF and more.
There was a time when a product differentiated itself at the hardware level and cost, integration and performance prompted people to take ‘Best of Breed’ COTS components and build their own systems. Today differentiation comes primarily from the application and customers want to concentrate on their core application development without having to worry about how to implement a Highly Available, Scalable, High Performance solution.
The range of cost-effective 2, 6 and 12 slot Application Ready Platforms delivers the industry’s lowest cost per slot. By uniquely compressing the dual switch and shelf managers into a small combined module the 6 slot chassis offers 6 payload slots rather than the traditional 4. This means 50% more revenue generating slots than other comparable platforms. With a smaller footprint than comparable systems they are also greener, more energy efficient,
The Adax Application Ready Platform integrates the industry leading Ethernet switch technology from ZNYX that goes far beyond simple Ethernet switch management. Using familiar, industry-standard Linux interfaces the field proven OpenArchitect® provides Linux-enabled flexibility in management protocols, configuration, load balancing and high-availability features. Continuous “five nines” operation is an absolute requirement in most networks and instead of convergence in seconds or minutes as is typical for STP/RSTP failover schemes, OpenArchitect/HA can fail-over in milliseconds, often faster than the dual-SONET standard of 50 milliseconds.
“Adax has a long history anticipating and responding to new market requirements,” said Drew Sproul, Director, Marketing, Adax Inc. “Application Ready Platforms is another example of Adax assisting our customers in meeting their technical and business goals in the most efficient and economical way. We have seen how supplying pre-integrated platforms get things done faster and better. We are very pleased to offer this service to the general market.”
ZNYX, ZNYX Networks, and OpenArchitect are trademarks or registered trademarks of ZNYX Networks, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.