Last month Focus acquired Pinnacle, a Bristol-based cloud communications and mobile specialist.

Datasharp’ was established in 1984 and is the oldest business acquired by Focus Group. Its base in Cornwall adds to the group’s presence in the Southwest and Exeter and Bristol bringing Focus Group mobile services to Datasharp clients.

Brian Lodge, Regional Director at Focus Group said: “Their longstanding presence in the industry and loyal customer base makes them an invaluable addition to our group. This acquisition presents exciting opportunities for us to expand our service offerings in the Southwest. .”

Jane Cockcroft, Managing Director at Datasharp commented: “This partnership brings together Datasharp’s expertise with Focus Group’s resources.”

Vodafone’s 3G switch-off starts next month following successful pilot trials across Plymouth and Basingstoke in February. 3G coverage will be phased out and replaced by improved 4G and 5G services. Vodafone’s 2G network, which covers over 99 per cent of the UK population, will remain for calls and texts.

The phased switch-off starts in Hull, Oxford and Greater London before progressing across the South. The remainder of the UK will follow later in the year

The end of the 3G network is part of Vodafone UK’s strategy to reach Net Zero in four years as 5G networks are said to be energy efficient. A terabyte of data sent over 5G uses just seven per cent of the energy as a 3G network says Vodafone

Vodafone has partnered with charities and other third parties, to support those needing extra support. Ofcom has set up a web site page explaining the 3G switch off.

This includes working with We Are Digital, a social impact organisation, manned by advisors who can help callers to set up a phone or tablet. The Digital Skills Helpline is free to call from any UK mobile or landline, and is open to everyone, whether or not they are Vodafone customers.

Vodafone’s Network Director Andrea Dona, said:

“3G use has already dropped significantly as most of Vodafone’s customers now use the 4G network. Less than four per cent of the data is used on our 3G network, in comparison to more than 30 per cent in 2016”.

“We’re also improving our 4G and 5G coverage. Now is the time to say goodbye to 3G and focus on the current benefits and future possibilities of our 4G and 5G networks.” 

Customers who want to know more about the Vodafone 3G switch-off programme at www.vodafone.co.uk/3G-switch-off or by visiting their local Vodafone store.  

Broadband provider Voneus has appointed former Virgin Media director Ed Dannan as its new chief financial officer.

The broadband provider, which focuses specifically on serving rural areas has appointed Dannan to help drive its gigabit rollout.

Dannan, who played a key role in the integration planning prior to the £31bn Virgin Media and O2 merger, boasts more than a decade in the telecoms sector.

Prior to this Dannan has held senior roles at T-Mobile and EE, where he was during the merger of the T-Mobile and Orange networks.

“Having previously supported the delivery of previous generations of digital infrastructure to the UK, I believe Voneus is in a perfect position to usher in a new era of rural connectivity,” said Dannan.

“Rural communities have been neglected for far too long by the traditional providers, and I’m delighted to be in a position to drive Voneus’ mission to change the status quo.”

IoT is a term that has been thrown about a lot in recent years. That’s with good reason, as that market is projected to surpass $1 trillion in revenues by 2024.

Supplementing this GlobalData forecast, IoT Analytics expects IoT connections to grow from 11.3 billion worldwide at the end of 2020 to 27 billion by 2025.

Figures like this back up the keen interest of Pangea’s Dan Cunliffe in this segment, breaking into the space when he co-founded the company in 2014 alongside Chris Romeika, with whom he previously worked at O2 in the wholesale division.

Speaking to Mobile News near Pangea’s Kingston office, Cunliffe said he and his colleague set up the company after spotting a space to help bring IoT to the channel more effectively.

“We noticed early there wasn’t really a player in the channel market bringing IoT to businesses effectively, so we created this goal of setting up as a channel-only business, but in the world of IoT.”

Partner services

Pangea specialises in delivering IoT solutions to its 350-plus partners, which include players in the retail, agriculture, education, transport and healthcare sectors, to name a few.

The company also works with operators, covering 960 networks across 185 countries, and aims to quickly connect businesses with IoT services.

Cunliffe said the journey into the world of IoT was a “no-brainer” due to the vast potential of the industry and the exciting future he perceives in what he terms “intelligent mobile”.

“We could see that the number of devices needing to be connected was just going to go one way,” he said. “We saw the growth in data devices and that we could bring intelligence to mobile; it’s about enabling more connectivity between devices.”

Cunliffe said Pangea is different to operators when it comes to delivering IoT, because the company isn’t using a standard SIM card and offers tariffs that can move automatically between operators.

“You don’t have control over how the data is passed [with operator SIM cards] and how the traffic is moved, and there’s no security in terms of private IP or flexible tariffs,” said Cunliffe. “We’ll give you tariffs that move automatically.”

The decision to focus on the B2B channel was due to Pangea’s knowledge of the market, and its contacts and customers within the industry, he said.

Cunliffe added that he, Romeika and sales director Bernie McPhillips, who works in Pangea’s Glasgow office, understand the industry and what partners want.

Driving opportunities 

Cunliffe said that IoT has the ability to drive opportunities relating to connectivity and analytics that can change how people use data.

Key to this is being able to offer services across different propositions that meet a range of data requirements.

“We can give our partners the option to trade from 1MB through to terabytes,” said Cunliffe. “If you don’t have that, it’s pointless.” If you can’t offer something in every sector to meet multiple data needs, then “you’re partnering with the wrong people”, he said.

Pangea’s goal, said Cunliffe, is to allow customers to flexibly move price plans as their data needs change through its self-optimising Instanet tariff.

“We’ve developed a way to avoid asking the question around how much data our customers need,” he said. “We’ve done this by developing these tiers that move up and down automatically, so we created a product called Instanet, which is basically instant connect. It creates flexible, self-optimising tariffs for our customers.”

Exciting times

The fact that people are more reliant than ever on connectivity and technology is exactly why IoT is exciting, said Cunliffe.

“The world is relentlessly wanting ‘always on’,” he said. “Whether this is in an office or public sector environment, such as monitoring machines or temperatures in a van, we need to be always on too, so that we can optimise our supply chain or the way we do things.

He added that the basic concept of IoT is simple, involving the use of devices to give us better information. “To get this information, we need to connect these devices securely and smartly so we can get the most out of them,” he said.

And though the ability of IoT to provide greater intelligence to connected products has led to fears being voiced that some jobs could become redundant, Cunliffe argues that IoT actually opens a pathway to creating more jobs.

“IoT doesn’t make people redundant,” he said. “It creates other jobs because you need those people to do the analysing of data or installation.

“The machines are there to analyse and provide feedback, and this intelligent connectivity is invaluable.”

Connecting students

Giving examples of some of Pangea’s work, Cunliffe refers to a test case during the pandemic, in which the company was tasked by a partner to keep students connected safely while working remotely. Pangea was able to support more than 102,000 students.

“We combined our 4G routers, multi-network SIM cards and mobile content filtering to create a solution for our partner that would get students connected wherever they were, with AI monitoring websites accessed and blocking web-based threats.”

Talking of the pandemic, Cunliffe and Pangea have also noted just how important IoT and data have been during this period, with data usage at the company up 500 per cent in 2020.

This period has served to accelerate change and build a greater understanding of IoT, said Cunliffe.

“We’ve had every one of our customers experiencing their strongest performance in intelligent mobile and IoT because of the pandemic.”

He pointed out that the pandemic has meant people have had to change behaviour, leading to a need for always-on connectivity in more and more places.

5G as a driver

In terms of 5G, Cunliffe is excited about the role that the technology is set to play in driving IoT connection growth in the coming years. “I’m asked quite often by my partners why 5G is important for IoT,” he said. “There are three things about 5G that people need to embrace – speed, latency and coverage.

“The stuff we have today isn’t true 5G, but true 5G is all three of those things.

“If you can start to have faster speeds, with lower latency per square kilometre, this is the utopia for IoT and could help to enable smart cities.”

Education around IoT

Cunliffe acknowledged, however, that there was a need to educate people on IoT to help them understand its importance.

“There’s an education challenge in every market, no matter what it is, especially if you’re trying to be at the forefront – as we are with IoT,” he said. “To combat the challenge, we’ve worked hard with our partners. For example, we’ll say to them, if you’re selling a tablet, let’s look at the compliance product; or with dash cams, let’s look at the multi-network SIM cards.

“It’s all about trying to align customers with something they’re used to. This is the quickest way to create confidence.” Meanwhile, Cunliffe dismissed the notion that IoT can’t be lucrative because of low margins, revealing that Pangea was able to make £30,000 in revenue from a deal that represented just three connections.

“I think people believe that IoT and intelligence mobile is a high-volume, low-revenue game, which it is absolutely not.”

Looking to the future, Cunliffe is confident that Pangea has something for everyone and can serve customers effectively whether their data needs are small or large.

He added that the IoT market in both the UK and elsewhere holds big promise for the future. “I think the UK market is buoyant,” he said.

“There’s a lot of resellers in the UK, and these people are doing it because they’re making money and like to trade.

“As for other territories, there are pockets worth exploring such as Ireland, France and Italy, where there are opportunities. Quite often we want to look at places with higher populations, so the US is a good one.”

Huawei has confirmed that its latest wearables, the Watch GT 3 and Watch Fit Mini are now available to buy from the Huawei store.

The Watch GT 3 is available from £229.99 and comes in two sizes, 46mm and 42mm and features accurate health and fitness monitoring.

Huawei claims that the Watch GT 3 has battery life for up to 14-days, while the watch is available in black, brown, titanium steel, night black, white or light gold.

The Watch Fit Mini meanwhile costs £89.99 and delivers health monitoring and fitness features.

It weighs just 20g and the light gold square watch case is matched with the classic watch strap that comes in white, brown or purple.

Network service provider Freshwave has appointed former EE-man Tom Bennett as its new chief technology officer.

Bennett joins Freshwave after spending 10 years at the operator, where he was most recently its director of partnerships and innovations.

His new role will see him overseeing 50 engineers and operations specialists that are responsible for delivering indoor and outdoor mobile connectivity in places including railway stations to stadiums.

During his tenue at EE/BT, Bennett played a key role in negotiations with the government and other MNOs for the Shared Rural Network.

Prior to joining EE, Bennett joined One2One (which then became T-Mobile) in 1996, while he has worked in senior leadership roles since 2005.

Commenting on his appointment, Bennett said: “The importance of connectivity has been ably demonstrated over the past couple of years and technology never stands still.

“Freshwave is known for its innovative approaches and I’m looking forward to rolling up my sleeves and getting involved in ground-breaking projects across everything from 4G and 5G mobile private networks to complex infrastructure projects.”

Freshwave CEO Simon Frumkin added: “Not only does he have the deep engineering and network architecture expertise the role requires, but he excels at creating collaborative partnerships.

“Freshwave delivers and manages some of the most challenging wireless environments in the UK and under Tom’s leadership I know we’re going to stay at the cutting edge of our industry.”

Freshwave has over 6,400 mast locations and supports over 200 outdoor networks and aims to make digital infrastructure simple.

A recent study carried out by Three has revealed that there’s nearly 600 million uncontacted phone numbers in the UK.

The operator also found that there’s over 400 million unused apps and 300 million unopened messages across 44.4 million smartphone users across the country.

Three commissioned the study of 2,000 UK adults, with the help of OnePoll to analyse unused information on smartphones in the UK.

A key contributor towards the high amount of unused data has been blamed on people failing to delete unused data when transferring content across from old phones when upgrading, with 41 per cent of people guilty of this, say Three.

It comes as smartphones have been labelled the most ‘cluttered’ devices that Brits use, with people aged 18 to 34 the most likely to be stressed by a cluttered smartphone.

Three UK director of marketing Aislinn O’Connor commented: “Smartphones play a huge part in how we manage our lives, from photos and music to contacts, emails and messages. However, as we continue to rely on our devices to help organise ourselves, and storage capacities continue to grow, they are becoming ever more cluttered.

“As many of us upgrade or buy new smartphones during the next few months, it’s the ideal time to optimise your device and feel more organised in life.”

Other findings from the study revealed that more than a third of Brits (37 per cent) have 10 or more unused apps, while it’s estimated that just over a million smartphone users nationally have more than 30 apps on their phones.

Billing and customer management platform Union Street is teaming up with forest specialist, ReforestACTION in a pledge to plant one tree a year for every partner it works with.

ReforestACTION has financed more than 12 million trees across 35 countries.

Union Street MD Vince Disneur (pictured) said: “So far, we have planted more than 2,000 trees around the world’s rainforests and this number will grow as our business does. In time, our plan is to plant even more trees here in the UK.”

Union Street was acquired last year by Daisy founder Matthew Riley and merged with channel software vendors Aurora and Shaftesbury Systems, also owned by Riley).

Union Street now serves a partner base of over 850 companies and, combined, its solutions are used to process circa £2bn of retail billing per annum.

Apple’s latest smartwatch series is available for pre-order today in the UK.

EE, Vodafone and O2 have all confirmed the Apple Watch Series 7 will be available for customers to buy from October 15.

Customers can pre-order the latest Apple Watch from today (October 8), with prices starting from £17.99 per month on O2.

O2 is offering plans up to 36 months for the wearables, with one of the best deals starting from £17.99 for the 41mm variant, with unlimited data and no upfront cost.

Meanwhile EE is offering the Apple Watch Series 7 from £28 per month, with six months free Apple Fitness+.

Vodafone’s plans start from £20 per month, with customers able to choose from its EVO plans.

Apple’s latest smartwatch features an 18-hour battery life, while charging is up to 33 per cent faster than previous generations.

The Watch is available in two different sizes, with a 41mm variant and a 45mm option.

It’s available in five colours, including midnight, starlight, green, blue and red.

TalkTalk has launched a new voucher scheme that provides jobseekers free access to broadband.

The partnership has been launched in collaboration with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), with the programme rolled out across the UK following a successful trial earlier in the pandemic.

This scheme is intended to tackle digital exclusion and remove employment barriers, according to TalkTalk.

Jobseekers are offered a no-contract voucher for six months for TalkTalk’s Fibre 35 broadband as part of the initiative.

Broadband allowance is uncapped, while users can opt to take out a contract at the end of the six months with TalkTalk, with no additional costs or sign-up fees included.

Trial

The scheme has rolled out across the UK, following an earlier trial in the North West, which saw people secure new employment as a direct result of the voucher scheme.

“We believe that reliable broadband is a right not a privilege,” said TalkTalk chief people and procurement officer Daniel Kasmir. “However, many people across the UK are struggling to access the internet, with the effects of the pandemic leading to the number of Universal Credit claimants doubling within a year.

“Working with the DWP to roll this scheme out nationally supports our mission to democratise the internet and bring affordable, high-quality connectivity to everyone, helping to erase the UK’s digital divide.”

TalkTalk’s Fibre 35 broadband provides maximum speeds of up to 40Mbps.