ZIM  was fonded five years ago supplying travel data eSIMs to consumers before moving into B2B connectivity for corporates and SMEs. It is now targeting international students, remote workers, long-term visitors and organisations needing flexible or secondary mobile lines for staff.

ZIM has been able to enter the MVNO market with minimal upfront investment using eSIM Go’s system. This gives i  gaining immediate access to UK numbering, voice and SMS, low-cost data tariffs, month-to-month terms and full domestic coverage. Activation is instant via eSIM.

Mitch Fordham, Chief Commercial Officer at eSIM Go, said the move highlights how the company is helping new entrants enter the market quickly. “As entry barriers come down, the UK MVNO market is hotting up, creating a new wave of disruption, and that’s great news for consumers.”

ZIM Connections COO Giulia Acchioni Mena said the long-standing partnership made eSIM Go the obvious choice for its domestic UK launch.

“We’ve worked with eSIM Go for five years on international travel data eSIM solutions, so they were the natural partner for our UK Monthly eSIM Plans,. Customers come to ZIM for seamless, transparent connectivity when travelling, and this new service is the ideal way to support those on frequent or extended stays in the UK.”

]]> https://mobilenewscwp.co.uk/news/article/zim-connections-becomes-an-instant-mvno-using-esim-go-platform/feed/ 0 https://mobilenewscwp.co.uk/news/article/elite-group-promotes-man-joined-graduate-trainee-chief-executive-officer/ https://mobilenewscwp.co.uk/news/article/elite-group-promotes-man-joined-graduate-trainee-chief-executive-officer/#respond Mon, 30 Jan 2023 17:30:38 +0000 https://mncwp.tailrd.cloud/elite-group-promotes-man-joined-graduate-trainee-chief-executive-officer/ Adam Turton moves into Rob Sims’ hot seat 

Adam Turton moves into Rob Sims’ hot seat 

Lancashire, ICT managed services provider Elite Group has been promoted to chief executive officer Adam Turton who joined the company 20 years ago as a  graduate trainee.  He moves to the top job from his position as a chief revenue officer and takes over from Rob Sims who becomes a board advisor.

Turton started his business career at Elite and progressed in roles within all departments.He has experience with organic growth strategies and has been involved in more than 15 mergers and acquisitions. These include a mix of share and asset purchases. He has held a number of senior management, Board and C Level positions. Turton will now plan the long-term strategic direction for the company with a priority on customer experience, product market fit and growth.

“I’m humbled and privileged for the opportunity to lead this business and team of people and the growth of the business, I have ambitious growth plans and am really excited about the future”, he said.

Elite Group founder and chairman Matt Newing said:
said: “Adam’s appointment is something we’ve been working towards for some time and forms part of an agreed succession plan with outgoing CEO, Rob Sims. With close to 20 years of experience in the sector working exclusively for Elite Group and associated group companies), Adam’s appointment is the culmination of all his hard work and dedication to the company. The appointment reflects positively on Elite as an employer that nurtures talent and rewards loyalty, commitment and hard work.”

Rob Sims commented: “I’m delighted to be handing over responsibilities to Adam. He has the leadership qualities and key attributes required to be a successful CEO and is the perfect person to lead Elite Group”.

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The Telford-based business has been in operation since 2017 and had about 20,000 clients up until the previous year. Telserve Group’s senior leadership team including MD Stuart Box will remain with the business.

plan.com’s operations will stay based in Douglas, Isle of Man, and the company intends to introduce its headquarters there in early 2023.

Dan Craddock, CEO and co-founder of plan.com said: “Telserve has been a trusted, plan.com partner for over six years and our newly enlarged business presents significant benefits and opportunities for our partners, customers, and employees. We’re looking forward to working with Stuart and the team on this exciting chapter in our partnership.”

Telserve, Managing Director, Stuart Box added: “plan.com has an exceptional reputation as a market leader and innovator. We’re excited to work with them to strengthen the business’ already enviable offering and to playing a key part in the exciting expansion plans of our combined team.”

Scottish independent broadband provider GoFibre will work with the UK Department of Digital, Culture and Sport (DCMS) and Durham County Council bringing full fibre broadband services to homes and businesses across Scotland and the North of England, made possible by £6.6m of DCMS investment.

The project will cover towns, villages and hamlets across the region, including premises near to Barnard Castle and Bishop Auckland, subject to further survey completion.

More than 70 per cent of the UK can get gigabit connections, such as complete fibre, but these are primarily in urban regions, so the government is spending £5 billion to connect remote areas that could otherwise miss out.

The government says the projects intends to provide next-generation gigabit broadband to areas and businesses that currently have slow connections and would otherwise have been left behind in broadband companies’ roll-out plans. The government also claims that Gigabit-capable networks are lightning-fast and fit for the future, allowing communities to upload and download data with none of the disruptions associated with ageing copper networks.

Customers of the new service can expect to pay from £36 per month for a 100Mbps package on a 24-month term with an included wireless router, which rises to £69 per month for their top 1000Mbps plan. The latter also comes with a bonus Wi-Fi extender (this can optionally be taken on other plans for just £5 per month extra).

Chris Jagusz, Chairman of GoFibre, said: “Closing the digital divide and helping local communities to thrive by providing previously unimaginable levels of capability through high-quality broadband services is at the heart of everything we do.

“Through our latest appointment, we will work as a trusted partner, equipping Teesdale with world-class connectivity built for the future.”

GoFibre recently also secured a £164 million investment earlier this year from Gresham House’s British Sustainable Infrastructure Fund, to build their Fibre-to-the-Premises network across 500,000 premises in North England and Scottish Borders over the next three years.

Vodafone has partnered with Cisco to launch a new broadband and WiFi solution that is powered by Cisco Meraki.

The solution which is called ‘Complete Connectivity’ and is designed for small and medium sized businesses (10 to 250 employees) starts from £70 per month.

It has been designed to provide simple-to-manage, enterprise grade hardware and software to SMEs.

It comes with advanced malware protection, intrusion prevention and content filtering as standard and also features a built-in mobile backup system that kicks in if WiFi connectivity is lost.

The advanced security features comes as The Federation of Small Business estimates that 10,000 hacking attempts are made each day on small businesses and their users.

It is available from £70 per month on a three-year term and provides customers access to Vodafone’s superfast fibre broadband, in-built mobile backup.

There is also Cisco Meraki’s latest security solutions, its intuitive cloud-first platform, plus updates from world leading security researchers to ensure optimal protection.

Vodafone UK head of small business Andrew Stevens says that the new solution “enables business customers to easily run a reliable, secure, future-proof, and truly scalable broadband and WiFi service”.

BT Group has announced that TDC Group CEO Allison Kirkby will be joining the BT Board as a non-executive director.

Kirkby is currently the CEO of TDC Group, the largest telecoms company in Denmark and has also held positions as president of Swedish operator, Tele2 AB and has also held roles at 21st Century Fox, Virgin Media, Guinness.

BT will be the second non-executive director role Kirkby currently holds, after high-street bakery chain Greggs and the appointment will be made as of March 15.

BT chairman Jan du Plessis, said: “Allison brings to the BT Board valuable and recent experience in the international telecommunications sector.

“This, combined with her strong experience in driving performance, improving customer service and delivering shareholder value, makes her an excellent addition to the Board.”

Allison Kirkby added: “I’m extremely proud to be joining the BT Board.

“This is an exciting time for the sector and BT is at the forefront of driving change in the industry for the benefit of its customers both domestically and internationally.”

CityFibre has begun work on a £30 million full fibre network expansion in Huddersfield.

The expansion is set to connect homes and businesses to the full fibre network currently in place capable of up to 1,000Mbps.

The new project is in partnership with Vodafone and the first connected homes can expect to receive gigafast broadband from the operator this summer.

Work is expected to be complete by 2021, seven years after CityFibre originally brought fibre connectivity to 176 public sector sites and businesses in the town.

Councillor Peter McBride at Kirklees Council, added: “We welcome this investment in the District, which will bring first-class digital infrastructure to Huddersfield residents and future proof its digital connectivity.

The Council continues to work closely with the private sector to facilitate investment in high-speed connectivity across the district.  Digital infrastructure is vital – it is part of our economic strategy to ensure we remain a resilient, future-proofed district that is fully able to take advantage of technology.”

Much to gain

The extension in Huddersfield is part of the target set by CityFibre to bring full fibre infrastructure to five million homes and businesses in the UK by 2025.

CityFibre city development manager for Huddersfield Steve Moore said: “Through a thriving creative and digital culture, coupled with a world-renowned reputation for manufacturing and innovation, Huddersfield has so much to gain from fresh investment in its broadband infrastructure.

For instance, recent research estimates that over the next 15 years, the roll-out of full fibre could unlock £18m in business productivity and innovation, and £11m from new start-up activity.

“Digital investment has the ability to transform businesses and communities. In the year ahead, we want to work with as many organisations as possible to raise awareness of our plans for the town and ensure everyone understands the long-term importance of reliable, ultrafast speed and limitless capacity broadband.”

Greenmeadows Park in the village of Bamfurlong, Gloucestershire, is the worst street in the country for broadband speeds, according to a uSwitch report.

The street near Cheltenham achieved average download speeds of 0.14Mbps, says the report – nearly 1,900 times slower than the highest average speed recorded in Abdon Avenue, Birmingham, at 265.89Mbps.

According to uSwitch, consumers living in Greenmeadows Park need 102 hours to download a two-hour film in high definition and a minimum of 38 hours to download a 45-minute TV show of the same quality.

The findings are based on almost 280,000 ‘real world’ speed tests conducted by broadband users over the past 12 months. The research also found that over a quarter of the country receives speeds of less than 10Mbps, with one in eight using broadband with speeds under 5Mbps.

In addition, consumers in the south-west of the country are more likely to experience superfast broadband speeds, says the report

Five of the UK’s fastest broadband streets are in Devon, Dorset, Cornwall and Wiltshire, whereas nine of the slowest streets are found in Yorkshire, Teesside and Scotland.

uSwitch broadband expert Dani Warner said one of the reasons for the slow speeds is that people are often unaware superfast is available.

She added: “Over a third of the slowest steets have access to superfast speeds, so there is no need to be crawling along on unusable internet.

“The industry should be doing more to help consumers understand what sort of broadband they can get at home.”

DMSL has appointed former BT business channel manager Ruth Hickman as channel account manager for the northern region.

The post has been created for Hickman to come in and support resellers in the region and nationwide as well as recruiting managed services partners who are struggling to cope with the data demands of its customers.

Hickman has spent over 20 years at BT, eight of which were as channel manager for BT Business where she provided sales, marketing and operations support to sales teams.

The broadband distributor also made the appointment of Lawrence Mitchell to BT partner business development manager recently in another created role.

DSML channel account manager Ruth Hickman said: ““The demand for data on both fixed line and mobile services is growing at a phenomenal pace and that potential is certainly not confined to the south of Britain.

“The resurgence of business in the north is plain to see. It’s a vibrant and dynamic region and the potential in cities like Manchester Leeds, Liverpool and Newcastle in enormous.”

Ofcom has announced new rules aimed to improve broadband in Britain.

The guidelines, which were drafted on February 23 and reviewed by the European Commission for consultation, came into effect on April 1 with the aim of increasing investment in full-fibre broadband networks and improving the quality of Openreach’s service.

Ofcom has challenged BT to open its telegraph poles and underground tunnels to rival providers, allowing for its own full fibre networks to be assembled quicker.

Ofcom will also no longer regulate Openreach broadband product prices, with the incentive for operators to build fullfibre networks.

More affordable superfast broadband will be available as wholesale prices Openreach charges telecoms companies have been reduced.

uSwitch head of regulation Richard Neudegg said: “The decision to reduce wholesale price for entry-level fibre broadband is especially welcome, helping ensure cost is not a barrier to consumer uptake of superfast services.

“We cannot simply rely on a ‘build it and they will come’ mentality. Too many households are still lagging behind on poorly-suited services and risk being left behind.”

Ofcom has also proposed an Openreach ‘40/10’ Mbit/s package for a monthly cost of £12.06 and hope to roll this out by 2021.

There will also be tougher measures in place for Openreach to repair faults and for quicker installation of new broadband lines.