Telecom Reseller / Technology Reseller News

Greg Zweig, Director of Solutions Marketing at Ribbon thinks that platforms such as Microsoft Teams might be to real time communications what Outlook is to email. In this podcast we learn how Ribbon’s Session Border Controllers (SBCs) takes the Microsoft Teams experience to a higher level that enables users to meet their remote communication needs. We learn about Direct Routing and Teams how that contrasts with a phone line or a SIP trunk. Zweig makes the case that Ribbon SBC’s have major advantages over other SBC packages available in the market. Ribbon Communications, with corporate DNA extending back to the dawn of telecommunications, is a longtime partner of Microsoft. Zweig explains that Ribbon’s heritage and unique set of partnerships has put it is a unique place to make the most of the digital transformation of communications, with a particular appeal to the C-suite in the IT departments of many enterprises.

Visit www.rbbn.com

In a crises, households and businesses tighten belts and cut costs. But as conditions ease, old habits reassert themselves as the gradual ramp of costs goes ignored. In a company, especially in a potentially high growth sector such as cloud communications, focus on revenue growth can obscure slowly building cost issues. In this podcast, Bob Norberg, Chief Marketing & Product Officer at Cloud Age Solutions makes the case that Continuous Telecom Audits are better than “pain of 'Event Driven' Telecom Audits” and that continuous renders long term sustained achievements. Norberg points out that overweight costs can kill profits and diminish the value of otherwise notable sales achievements. In the long term, Norberg repeats a proverb he has heard a CFO offer: "He with the lowest cost wins.” When the storm, crises or simple price compression arrive, firms with lowers costs will simply burn their valuable cash more slowly and have a better chance of surviving and thriving over the longer term. We learn about a SaaS platform called gpxcloud. gpxcloud is for channel partners and consultants to offer their customers visibility into and ongoing management of their telecom services. Norberg presents a strategy to get major savings sooner which he thinks will encourage companies to make cost monitoring a continuous culture.

Visit www.cloudagesolutions.com or send an email to [email protected] to learn more about the gpxcloud offering.

Just two years ago TelcoBridges featured a workforce working from traditional workspaces in a general conventional office setting. Since joining the TelecoBridges team, however, Alan Percy has witnessed a major shift to remote working. When the crises hit, according to Percy, the company was well prepared internally to ride out the new stay at home economy and to help their customers too. In this podcast, Percy looks at current move to remote and how sustainable or lasting these changes are. Percy updates us on TelcoBridges developments and how the rest of eventful 2020 may roll out. “It’ll profoundly change the work environment,” predicts Percy.

We also learn about TelcoBridges YouTube channel TelcoBridges - YouTube

Visit www.telcobridges.com

Mobile Worker Focus Group and UX Study

In early March, Metaswitch conducted a study to better understand product utilization and find out what the customer “really wants”. In this podcast, Chris Carabello, Senior Director - Product Marketing reports the findings. Unsurprisingly, among other things, a more integrated experience and more flexibility, such as multiple identities were among things customers are hoping for. We learn how Metaswitch scored high or above several alternative approaches in several blind tests. “It’s even more critical now,” says Carabello that remote workers get the apps that they need and can actually utilize. We learn that users prefer a more unified and integrated experience verses a “mishmash” of ad hoc, ill-fitting apps and features.

Visit www.metaswitch.com

Toby Parrish, Chief Operating Officer of Televerde describes it as “…humanity at the forefront of business”. The company that specializes in giving people who are incarcerated a second chance by establishing contact centers for major brands, inside prison walls, knew that they would have to pivot, plan and train, in order to survive the coming storm. Weeks before shutdown and lockdown orders went into effect, Televerde began to build a companywide plan to enable itself, its employees, its workforce and its customers to stay in business. According to Parrish, a number of their clients found themselves as critical parts of supply and services resources the public was turning to. This podcast describes how one company got prepared by making team members involved and informed. We learn how people stepped up, and how fear can be fought with information and participation. We also learn how the technologies being deployed will revolutionize business and daily life, in addition to redefining the contact center.

Visit www.televerde.com

“it is a new way to look at NEC, says Mike Mitsch, Sales Director of UNIVERGE BLUE Cloud Strategy in North America. In this podcast, Mitsch takes us deep into NEC’s Univerge Blue vision, which includes a transformation from NEC as an “OEM” to an “as a service” model. Mitsch discusses the NEC Intermedia announcement. The idea is offer NEC quality and dependability, in the cloud, and with the cloud model many end users and their channel partners prefer. Mitsch describes NEC’s platform strategy as the new normal, and carefully distinguishes NEC’s approach and other company’s in its peer group. A big part of that story, according to Mitsch is control, specifically contractual control between the vendor and the end user, with NEC as a partner and not as uninvited guest.

Visit https://www.necam.com/

Carl Watene, CIO for Spiisee, and Dano Ybarra, Spiisee Board member discuss the Spiisee technology with Don Witt of The Channel Daily News, a TR publication. This is a product that transforms distribution technology to the 21st century and the cloud by providing:

EverCore HUB is designed to manage all elements of the supply and sales channels

EverLync HUB is a self-service portal to enter and manage products, services, and marketing

EverSync HUB offers the very best end-user experience to easily quote multiple products & services

Dano Ybarra

Carl Watene

Everest Suite is an all-in-one Enhanced-B2B eCommerce marketplace that delivers a frictionless end-to-end enterprise partner management solution.

Everest Suite's 3 HUB's, has everything a company needs to manage a partner ecosystem!

The Everest Suite is designed for manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors to scale and maintain their online products and services catalogue.

Optimize your operations with automation between back-office applications and your e-commerce marketplace, creating a fast and frictionless B2B sales experience!

For more information, go to: https://www.spiisee.com/

Jimmy Jones, Telecoms Cybersecurity Expert at Positive Technologies, discusses the security issues of 5G with Don Witt form The Channel Daily News, a TR publication. Jimmy’s first comment summarizes the advancements of 5G being a transition from human to human communication to primarily a machine to machine era.

With that, there has been an abundance of new signaling protocols like HTTP2 and JSON to support the evolving technology.  APIs have enhanced extensions to support the IoT devisces which need to be secured. While accelerating the 5G transition, it is also increaseing the security risk. Bridging or gatewaying to other networks becomes more complex to maintain low security  risk.

Jimmy Jones

Listen in as Jimmy discusses the extensive research Positive Technologies has done and find out what the analysis into 5G vulnerabilities has revealed.

Positive Technologies is a global cybersecurity company. Its flagship Telecom Cybersecurity Suite enables network operators to drive business performance while protecting their subscribers and services. By providing greater visibility into infrastructure vulnerabilities and securing customer services, Positive Technologies helps to strengthen loyalty, drive revenue with value-added security offerings, and protect emerging telecom technologies such as 5G and the IoT.

PT Telecom Attack Discovery (PT TAD) next generation signaling firewall empowers mobile network carriers to secure networks that use Signaling System 7 and Diameter protocols, protect subscribers and safeguard assets from hacker attacks. Criminals in the wild are already performing denial of service, intercepting calls and text messages, tracking subscriber locations, committing fraud, and stealing cellular operator data. PT TAD enables carriers to earn customer trust and guarantee compliance with GDPR, GSMA, and other recommendations for Diameter and SS7 protection.

For more information, go to: https://positive-tech.com/

“The sky is the limit,” says Jason Martin, CEO of Iotum, a CCA member that focuses on offering easy to deploy video conferencing solutions. Martin recalls that over time, video conferencing has traveled from the fringes of the communications industry, once a somewhat ignored novelty, to become, in this crisis, a new normal for global business. “Its time has come,” says Martin.  This leaves channel and cloud communications companies with some critical choices: cede the field of Zoom and Teams, which carries with it the possibilities of a long term commoditization of all of the channel’s services, or offer an alternative that is attractive to the enterprise and a model that offers a future for the channel. In this podcast, Martin discusses CallBridge, a white label virtual offering, that leverages WebRTC to enable seamless browser to browser meetings while it’s white label positioning allows the channel to offer their own branded alternative to Zoom and Teams. Martin points out special features to CallBridge and notes that the brand offers such powerful features such as AI, personalization and live streaming. Martin believes that this will allow channel partners to offer a story that takes conferencing to a higher level, not only enabling company meetings, but empowering companies to stream to customers, prospects or the public at large.

Martin discusses the company’s strong commitment to the Cloud Communication Alliance and extends a special offer for CCA member companies.

Visit https://www.iotum.com/callbridge/

Veena Vadgama, VP Marketing at Telestax and Rick Brashear, VP Carrier Sales with AveriStar, speak to Don Witt of the Channel Daily News about their partnering and the launch of the program. While the technology has been around with smart phones, when implemented with the laptop and desktop, a new approach is available for reaching and supporting a business’s customers and users.

Veena Vadgama

With the “Shelter in place” orders around the country and world, it restricts the ability to communicate with the customers. The easily installed SMS feature allows laptop or desktop devices for Cisco Collaboration user’s personnel to provide more timely responses directly to their customers via the customer’s phone.  This is a huge enhancement for companies to improve their customer communication capability.

Listen in as Veena and Rick describe how the popular Cisco Teams and UC-One packages offer many features, but do not support Texting out of the box.  The TeleStax solution is a big plus for the enterprise unified effort.

Founded in 2007 by two former BroadSoft employees, AveriStar is comprised of highly experienced engineers certified on Oracle Session Border Controllers, BroadSoft BroadWorks, Cisco Networking, and a wide range of CPE vendors.

AveriStar engineering specializes in highly customized, niche engineering projects that have helped service providers and large enterprises integrate and consolidate acquired BroadSoft and M6 platforms, migrate to new hardware, and transition subscribers from legacy voice solutions to next generation Unified Communications. In addition, AveriStar provides contracted Tier 3 and Tier 4 monthly support to providers across North America, assisting with provisioning, CPE customization, upgrades and patching of all Unified Communications components.

For more information, go to:  https://averistar.com/ or https://www.telestax.com/