Boxx Communications Ltd

Simplifying telecommunications for businesses large and small!

Connectivity

New Year’s plans

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New Year’s plansHere at Boxx we like to stay transparent and keep you up to date with the latest news both in and out the office…

That’s why we want to share our plans for 2018 with you – a bit late we know, but what better time than the present to ready you for the year ahead, hey?!

Our first objective is to prepare everyone for the future disconnection of traditional ISDN (and PSTN) phone lines, by bringing our future-proof telecoms solutions to you.

These are a variety of IP (internet protocol) telephony products which use the internet to host calls, as opposed to a traditional landline. These include SIP Trunking, On-premise VoIP and Hosted VoIP.

If you’re worried about losing your number during the change, there’s no need – in fact one number can be attributed to multiple handsets. Handsets can include your mobile: with our Horizon voice app which pairs your landline with your mobile, making sure no call is missed when you’re out the office.

As well as the added flexibility, VoIP will save you money on calls while presenting the opportunity to add call-management features such as; an auto-attendant, music-on-hold, or a tailored voice-over.

Secondly, as we look to improve our call-management features, we’re introducing our very own, professional, voice-over and music-on-hold. To see the full potential of this service – check out our specially dedicated blog so that you know exactly what you’re getting!

As we look to improve your phone services it’s only right that we improve internet connectivity too!
That’s why we’re proud to be offer 1Gbps (1000Mbps) up and down in certain locations across the UK. This is ideal for businesses with extensive phone systems or just a high internet usage.

If 1Gb sounds a bit excessive but you like the idea – don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! We have a vast range of FTTP, FTTC and EFM connections ranging from 10 Mb to 1000Mb upload and download speeds. We have no doubt that we have the perfect solution for your business!

Finally, following our office move we’re determined to maximise the potential of our new work environment by migrating towards a hot desk layout and totally flexible working plan. The first step has been the employment of Microsoft Office 365 alongside our pre-existing VoIP system which allows us to bounce calls round the office at the push of a button. The benefits – a more collaborative workforce!

If this sounds like something that you’d like to implement within your business then please, feel free to get in touch and we’ll help you on the way.

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“The Internet is down!”

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The words that no business wants to hear but likely will because at some point your internet WILL go down!

The fact is – your broadband can be affected by a number of factors, most of which your provider is unlikely to tell you…

Luckily, we will! And believe me we’ve heard it all…

…..The cleaner pulling out the microfilter whilst hoovering (YES that did happen to one of our customers – luckily we managed to work it out!)…..

…..A faulty router…..

…..A Big network outage due to bad weather…..

…..Builders behaving badly & cutting through the line…..

And everything in between!

The key point here is;

The risks are out of your supplier’s control and you are left picking up the pieces, the lost time, the revenue and maybe customer satisfaction.

They’re also exactly the same no matter who your supplier is.

So we want to open your eyes to the potential threats and help you protect yourself (as well as your business) from these ‘worst case’ scenarios.

You have to have a contingency plan in place because unfortunately, if your business relies on a single internet connection, at some point you will experience a problem.

And why is that?

Well, we’re sorry to say this but broadband as you know it was not intended to be available 100% of the time. The rate at which we have increased our needs for internet is way ahead of the curve of availability, resilience and speed.

But why have we chosen now to talk about this you may wonder…..?

The answer:

Many of our customers rely on the internet for key business tools i.e. POS, taking payments, CCTV, order processing or even providing customer WiFi – the list goes on!

So when it goes down, we feel the pain and frustration with you.

How can you protect yourself and your business….?

Firstly, you need to think about your internet connection in terms of layers. There are very few businesses who can justify the risk of only one source of connectivity. For those who can’t, regardless of how your current internet connection looks, there are back-up layers available to prevent the worst!

If you are operating from an ADSL or FTTC broadband connection, you may want to look at 1 or both of these 4G backup options:

(i) A 4G dongle simply plugs into any PC and will get you back online ASAP: Perfect to see you through a short term issue, when time is of the essence.

(ii) The more superior routers on the market now offer a 4G fallback feature. This requires no set up in the event of downtime – the equipment would simply switch to 4G mode as required.

If you have Direct Internet Access (such as a lease line) your bandwidth is uncontended which means the connection is dedicated to you only (i.e. there’s no sharing with other people) so the risks of connectivity issues are lower.

However, the chances are you chose this type of connection because fast and reliable internet is imperative to your business and the risk to your business, in the event of downtime, is greater.
Therefore it is still wise to have backup.

Our recommended backup options include;

A broadband Line such as our low-cost standard broadband is the perfect backup option. With pricing from just £14.99 per month, it’s a small price to pay for peace of mind. Our customer Nexus Fusion did just this to support the lease line they already had from another supplier.

To give your contingency plans even greater strength, we have some service add-ons which support all types of connections.

1.Router Care – This service will provide you with a FREE, next day delivery, replacement router in the event of a router fault or failure. Currently priced at £3.50 p/month for an ADSL connection or £5.50 p/month for a fibre connection.

2.Complete Care – This offers all of the benefits of our Router Care package, plus Special Faults Investigator Engineering included, faster response times from BT Openreach with Care Level 3 and Sonar – our 24/7 router monitoring service – for additional peace of mind.

If you want to protect yourself (and your business) we’re here to help. Our team are on hand to discuss any of the options in more detail and help establish the most appropriate according to your needs. Just get in touch and we’ll be happy to talk you through it.

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Herd about MK: Boxx’s story

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Herd about MK: Boxx's storyWith Christmas on the horizon and New Year just beyond; the end of arguably the most exciting year in Milton Keynes’ history fast approaches.

A wealth of events contributed to making the City’s 50th its finest with, perhaps the most poignant being, Herd about MK. A charity with events spanning the course of the year – the project had three aims: bring the community closer together, celebrate MK’s 50th birthday and; most importantly, raise money for 3 incredibly worthy charities. Willen Hospice, MK Dons SET and the MK community foundation.

The project exceeded all expectations – becoming synonymous throughout town, and even made it onto the BBC News. But, just in case you haven’t ‘Herd about MK’ here’s our summary of the event of the year…

After hearing about the opportunity to sponsor one of 50 life size cows, symbolic of MK, we knew that we had to get on board! In addition to the unique nature of this opportunity the chance to raise so much money for charity and attend a magnitude of incredible events was simply unmissable.

Becoming aware of the ‘Herd’ relatively late: we were a little rushed for time in getting our cow looking udderly fabulous. Fortunately, thanks to the help of co-sponsors Cygnus and Format Graphics, we were all set for the big reveal.

Naming, on the other hand, proved a little more difficult! After much mooing and erring we finally settled upon Moopheus – the much wiser and older sister of Morpheus (Just joking).

Moopheus’ first public appearance came in March, when the Herd were unveiled by sponsors to a gathering crowd at Middleton Hall. The reaction was definitely one to remember as the moovelous cows were exposed. Following the extensive photo and video shoots, from both sponsors and shoppers, the herd stayed put for the weekend and provided visitors with a new source of excitement during their shopping trips.

Following their stay in the CMK shopping centre, a select 27 members of the herd were transported to Stadium MK, home of the MK Dons, to cheer the side on in their final home game of the season.
The Stadium wasn’t just the venue for the penultimate Dons outing but also as the finish line for the 2017 Milton Keynes Marathon. Naturally, the heard stayed put to cheer the runners home as well as support friends and family as they eagerly awaited the arrival of their runners.

While the Herd were out raising money so were 50 skydivers, jumping from 13,000 ft, to raise money for Willen Hospice; they raised an incredible £19,000 between them!

Following a quieter couple of months Moopheus made an appearance at the Garden Show held at Woburn Abbey in late June, providing visitors with Wi-Fi connection throughout their visit to the prestigious venue and popular event.

The herd continued to create a buzz about MK throughout the summer – this time participating in a city-wide game of hide and seek, designed especially to keep the kids on school holidays thoroughly entertained. Despite her busy schedule Moopheus was still able to join us for our family fun day at the Navigation Inn, once again keeping the kids entertained, alongside the Instavan Photobooth.

An exclusive race day between the sponsors at Daytona was next in the diary. In late September each sponsor entered a team of four drivers who competed against one another throughout the day. After a valiant effort from Boxx we finished in 11th place. Despite the disappointing finish it was an awesome day and it’s fair to say that everyone involved thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

After months of incredible events the grand finale felt as though it came all too soon. A huge Gala dinner, at the Arena MK, hosted all the sponsors and herd alike. In addition to the fantastic 3 course meal, 50 strong herd and live music entertainment – there was a charity auction which, despite some interesting pieces, helped to raise a significant amount of money for the chosen charities.
All who attended had a fantastic time, some a little too fantastic, making the event a truly great way for ‘Herd about MK’ to bow out.

Despite the end of the year’s big project – neither the memories nor achievements will be forgotten, as the cows now reside with the businesses who sponsored them. Moopheus is free to graze and be seen outside our offices, so feel free to pop down and say hello to her anytime!

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Improving connectivity in the capital and beyond

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Improving connectivity in the capital and beyondWith strong broadband connections and Wi-Fi connectivity now seen as critical to business success, it is heartening to see concerted efforts being made to level the digital playing field in the capital and beyond.

In London, Mayor Sadiq Khan has unveiled plans to boost the capital’s digital connectivity through a new Not-Spot Team which has been set up to identify areas suffering from particularly poor connectivity, and then work with local authorities and providers to come up with and implement solutions.

Councils will also be invited to a summit at City Hall to explain how best to apply for money from the government’s Digital Infrastructure Fund, which will also give them an opportunity to discuss and share new ideas and best practices on achieving good borough-wide connectivity.

Transport for London is also getting on board, looking at ways it can bring mobile connectivity to London Underground lines, so that passengers on the Tube have continuous mobile phone coverage and internet access as they travel underneath the city.

Mr Khan said: “London is now a leading global tech hub, with thriving start-ups alongside major companies like Facebook, Amazon and Google. But our digital connectivity needs to be improved – internet connectivity is now a key public utility, and it is no surprise that some businesses see poor connectivity as a barrier to growth.”

Insisting that everyone living and working in London needs to be able to access a fast and reliable internet connection if the city is to remain competitive in the global economy, he added: “That means working to boost connectivity across London, tackling not-spots, delivering connectivity in the London Underground and working with local authorities to provide digital infrastructure fitting of a global tech hub.”

David Leam, Infrastructure Director at London First, added that the city should make the most of existing infrastructure, such as the London Underground network, while insisting that planners in the city must get behind this effort, or risk strangling the city’s digital ambitions in red tape.
The moves in London come as a new survey found that more than half of rail passengers would rather go online via mobile broadband instead of a public Wi-Fi network.

The research by Cobham Wireless found that 51 per cent favour connecting to the internet via their mobile provider, with just 36 per cent preferring to use a public Wi-Fi network.
The biggest issue was security concerns, cited by 63 per cent of passengers as a worry, although 41 per cent were also unhappy at having to share personal information in order to connect to train Wi-Fi. How-ever they accessed the internet, the survey found that commuters are often frustrated by both mobile broadband and Wi-Fi services while travelling.

Just one in three passengers said mobile signal was good enough to connect them to the internet, while almost a quarter described their mobile phone coverage as poor.
Similarly, only 13 per cent rated the quality of train Wi-Fi services, while 22 per cent said Wi-Fi is not available at all on their train route.

As a result, 52 per cent of passengers felt they were unable to perform some work-related tasks while commuting, such as checking emails and accessing files remotely.

Ingo Flömer, Director of Product Management at Cobham Wireless, said: “In these hyper-connected times, the majority of commuters expect to be able to connect to the internet on trains via their mobile service provider. Unfortunately, because of a lack of mobile phone coverage, passengers find it difficult to work during their business commute, [and are often] unable to browse the internet, send emails, or even make phone calls.”

He added that more investment in mobile phone coverage would “go a long way to improving passengers’ train journey experience and ensure they stay connected to work during their busy commute”.
If you’re excited by these plans to improve connectivity for commuters and want to hear more of our updates, sign up to our Mailing List below.

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Hack-a-thon: You spoke, we listened

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Hack-a-thon: You spoke, we listenedFeedback is really important to us, which is why we’re such big fans of Trustpilot. Whilst our Trustpilot score (currently 9.4/10) is outstanding, there is always room for improvement…

We decided to dig deep and look at the root cause of our complaints, which highlighted that customers were unhappy about costs that result from faults to either their line or equipment.

Our charges for a BT Openreach call-out are £145 + VAT per line and that can soon mount up! Whilst our charges have always been clearly explained in our T&C’s, no one is ever happy with that news. We wanted to do something to alleviate this, and to educate our customers in terms of their financial responsibility when things go wrong.

Our team like a challenge – so we decided to put it to them in what we dubbed our product ‘hack-a-thon’. We chose a handful of staff members, from various departments, with different levels of experience in order to give a real ‘back-to-the-floor’ viewpoint.

We tasked them with the following:

To create one or multiple products that would directly resolve the issue identified and improve the value of the service we offer to our customers.

They had to think with an ‘end-to-end’ viewpoint covering the whole process – from product conception to costs of delivery & sales, marketing, training, launch & beyond.

Our first ‘hack-a-thon’ group comprised of Emily (Sales), Leah (Customer Service), Akeem (Tech Support) & James (Marketing). We locked them in a room (ok we didn’t actually lock them in!) for 2.5 hours where they discussed, debated, planned and postulated product ideas & names until they agreed, resulting in two product offerings.

Our second group included Salma (Provisioning), Jamie (Tech Support Supervisor), Saiesh (Credit Control) & Emma (Customer Account Manager) and were given the same amount of time together and had a really productive session. They came up with a third suggestion, as well as pricing and draft terms for the previous group’s ideas.

This is the first time we’ve done something like this. Normally new products & services are driven from the top down, but it was great to see the team so passionate and being as though they have the closest contact with our customers, the resulting new products really have been designed to meet their exact needs.

So, what did the team come up with during their collaborative thinking sessions?.. Well here goes;

  • No engineer call-out charges in the event of a fault
  • Care Level 2 included
  • Cost £1.49 per line

  • Replacement router sent next day service in the event of a router fault
  • Cost £3.50 per ADSL connection or £5.50 per FTTC connection

  • All the benefits of Router Care, plus
  • Special Faults Investigator Engineering included
  • Care Level 3 included for the PSTN line the broadband is supplied on
  • Sonar 24/7 monitoring
  • Cost £10 per connection

We’re thrilled with what our team have come up with and hope you are too. In fact we’re so hyped about Line Care in particular, that we’re offering one month FREE to all customers in November. If anyone wants to opt out after that just let us know, but we think you’ll love it as much as we do!

As for Router Care or Complete Care, that’s a choice up to you. If you’re interested get in touch and we’ll happily talk you through it and/or get it set up for you.

And we’ll definitely be doing a hack-a-thon again in the future!!

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Homeworking

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HomeworkingProhibitively slow broadband speeds and poor mobile coverage are hampering the work from home revolution, with up to four million people affected across the UK.

New research, from price comparison and switching service uSwitch, found that 25% of employees have experienced such severe issues with their telecoms services in the past 12 months that they’ve been prevented from working from home.

When the survey results were extrapolated to the estimated number of people working from home, across the UK population, it meant almost 4m people were unable to work from home because of inadequate service.
Increasingly flexible work environments offered by businesses have seen 43% of UK employees work from home at least once in the past year, rising to 55% among 18-34 year olds.

Yet almost 6 out of 10 have fallen foul of sluggish internet speeds and patchy call quality in the same time period. The problems have been so severe for just under half (46%) of those with issues that they believe they are no longer able to work from home.

The need for dependable broadband and mobile services has seen workers spend a combined £190m over the last year on alternative measures to ensure consistent access to internet and phone services, including accessing Wi-Fi internet at local cafes and buying a signal booster to amplify their broadband signal. Some have even switched to a new provider in an attempt to get an improved service.

The most common complaint amongst home working internet customers was having broadband speeds simply too slow for them to work effectively (32%), while one in five (18%) have suffered from an intermittent connection. A third of mobile users (32%) complained that their reception was patchy, while one in ten (11%) couldn’t get any reception at all in their home.

Home workers are most likely to use their broadband connection to email colleagues or clients (76%), research and browse the internet (69%), share files via the cloud (39%) and stay in touch via Skype (34%), according to the survey.

For those that have experienced issues, even these most basic tasks have been affected by a sub-standard internet service. Nearly a third (30%) were unable to send a large file to their clients or colleagues and almost one in ten (9%) have been on a conference call that cut out.

Frustratingly, a quarter (25%) have had to work late to make up for the lost time and one in five (20%) have lost a work opportunity or some business due to the shoddy service. A further one in five (20%) have been stopped from working from home completely by their employer because of ongoing issues.

Ewan Taylor-Gibson, broadband expert at uSwitch.com, said:

Flexible working is more popular than ever. It’s a fact that employees who can influence their work environment have better overall job satisfaction and improved wellbeing. But before committing to remote working, employees should make sure their home office is ready for use.

Our tips for getting your home ready:

1) Check whether your connection the most reliable available – For example is fibre available in your area? This will give you faster speeds and reduce the risk of services cutting out.

2) Fine-tune your work environment by making sure your router is away from devices that could interfere with the signal – like your TV.

3) Be aware that working during peak traffic times, such as the evening, could have a notable impact on your internet speeds.

4) If plagued by patchy mobile signal at home, look into whether an alternative mobile provider could offer better reception in your area. The Ofcom coverage maps will help you!

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