Industry news

Industry news — 3 Comments
2
Mar 10

Ronanlyons.com takes Best in Blogging award at the Digital Media Awards.

Blueface were at the Digital Media Awards last Thursday and it was nice to see such an array of talent across all of the categories. We sponsored the Best in Blogging category where the competition was intense. Ronan Lyons was selected by the judges in the end as overall winner for his entry at ronanlyons.com. This is a collection of Ronan’s analyses on the economy and it is well worth a visit on a regular basis. It is fantastic to see such prodigious talent make their work available for general consumption. That is the great thing about blogging in one sense – it democratizes information and can make it so much more accessible than academic commentary. Its not always necessary to dumb down material to make it palatable, its just necessary to explain it well. I have to confess to being a big fan of independent economic thinking and informed analysis. Incidentally for those people interested in the genesis of our current global crisis, Joseph Stiglitz’ books ‘The Roaring Nineties, provides excellent background material. Nouriel Roubini’s website, rgemonitor.com is also full of useful and in some cases essential commentary and background material. Many informed analysts and economists had been predicting this global financial crisis for many years, and of course Ireland was severely affected by it for a variety of reasons. I read recently an article which described Credit Default Swaps as like taking out insurance on your neighbour’s house – you have an inherent interest in seeing it burned down! So Ronan Lyons’ blog is of particular interest at a time like this when many people are looking for answers and informed well reasoned commentary.

All of the other entries were highly rated too – the Gold Medal winner Brightspark contains a wealth of information and should be required reading for anyone involved in online marketing or marketing in general. This is a source of free advice and tips which is continuously updated with real life examples, so it is relevant, insightful and doesn’t cost anything!

Curious Wines is a wonderful blog full of information on wine from all over the world, with additional material on food and wine matching, recipes and all sorts of other treasures. The Story is at the same time heart-breaking and inspiring and I challenge anyone to remain unmoved – donate here

The Story – thestory.ie is another example of information and analysis brought to the public from an independent source. There’s nothing quite so powerful as information and having a source to arm oneself with background to many of the current affairs stories in Ireland is invaluable. The people should not be afraid of the state – the state should be afraid of the people!

mulley.net is the home of Damien Mulley whom I was looking out for on Thursday but unfortunately failed to meet up with. I’m a big fan of both the blog and the informative and irreverent views on current affairs.

The Grand Prix award was won by Kavaleer Productions for a beautiful animated feature and there was a special award for grannyogrimm which is up for an oscar for best animated short film.

Overall the breadth of talent on display was inspiring. It is reassuring to know that despite the current climate and the gloomy outlook, the future for this particular sector is bright.

Thanks to all at Ashville for superb organisation and to all the entrants for having the courage to stand up and be counted.

Feargal

Feargal-Brady

Emmet Ryan(left) pictured here beside Feargal Brady of Blueface, Emmet collected the award on behalf of www.ronanlyons.com

Industry news — 1 Comment
19
Feb 10

Effective communication evolved: An era of change for telecoms

There’s been lots of talk about VoIP recently and how it has come of age in many ways. The infrastructure required to support voice calls (i.e the broadband landscape) has changed considerably in Ireland over the past 5 years in particular. There is no question that we still have a long way to go and the questions over the sale or privatisation of public infrastructure won’t go away any time soon.

It’s not ideal that a piece of infrastructure which is vital to the economic success, and indeed the very viability, of the state is largely owned by external investors with no vested interest in Ireland Inc’s future. There are excellent arguments to be made around operating the fixed line network as a state owned monopoly, managed by a private company (who are appointed by tender process) and this infrastructure provided to private enterprise in an open access way. This is a system which could foster innovation and real competition in the marketplace rather than the me-too offerings and marketing-led competition which prevails today.

That being said, we’ve gotten to the point where external shocks to the traditional telecoms landscape are producing results which will have far-reaching consequences for telecommunications (which it is quaintly known as for now!). Google Voice is creating quite a stir in the US by taking control of communications away from the traditional operators. This is a similar method to that employed by Blueface in providing a communications service rather than a phone service. AT&T have recommended that the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) put the traditional PSTN out of it’s misery and move to an all-IP network. In some Northern European countries it will not be possible to buy an ISDN line by the end of 2010 – SIP trunks have become standard. And Verizon have just announced full support for Skype on their mobile service with unlimited data plans.

This maelstrom of activity is unprecedented in telecoms history. The entire value chain is moving inexorably away from call-based billing, and a future of free calls is looming very near indeed. So many people have questioned the value of the VoIP operator and whether companies like Blueface can prosper in a world where calls are free. In fact, Blueface have just launched the free calls for life promotion which sees customers paying €199 for a cordless phone and unlimited Irish landline calls for life. How is this sustainable? In Blueface we know where the industry is heading, and we understand exactly what is needed to survive and thrive in the 21st century.

The idea of paying for calls may be dying rapidly but what people want now is a means of managing their communications in a more effective and time-efficient manner. In other words telecoms is becoming a service based business rather than a utility. So in fact we are moving from a commodotised industry with very little differentiation to a service based industry with distinct differentiation. Companies like Blueface are ideally positioned to benefit from this paradigm shift having embraced IP and web enablement many years ago.

So VoIP isn’t just about saving money – although its a very nice side benefit! Its about communicating more effectively and efficiently. We in Blueface hope that you enjoy and benefit from the services we provide, and look forward to providing you with many more over the coming years. The emperor may or may not have any clothes, but n0 one is really looking for the emperor any more!

Feargal

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23
Dec 09

Number Porting in 1 Day

Number Porting has always been a really tedious long drawn out task for us and our customers. Back in 2005  the lead-time was several weeks and it was really expensive. Since then, Blueface have continuously worked to reduce the costs and lead-time of number porting for our customers. Now it takes 2 weeks to port numbers.

Number Porting in 1 Day

However, plans are afoot for number porting to be completed in just 1 day. Mobile phone customers have for years been able to port numbers on the same day without the rigmarole associated with porting Geographic numbers so we look forward to being able to provide a more effective & efficient service. This is very welcome news for everyone who wants to keep their phone number when they change service provider. The Comreg  Geographic Number Porting Steering Group (GNPSG) is working with various operators including Blueface to have this in place next year.

We look forward to similar pro-active initiatives managed by Comreg and Supported by industry operators like Blueface.

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9
Dec 09

Changing the ‘face’ of business telephony in Ireland

During the final week of November we launched the newest area of our website, a dedicated Business section targeting Irish companies who are looking to upgrade their phone system to a more manageable, more efficient and most importantly better value service.

We spent a number of months developing a series of plans that we felt covered a range of business types from small office style businesses to SME’s and all the way up to multi-site retail outlets and call centres.

The Business plans are priced with the end-user in mind, the Business Basic package is a 2 channel package, included in this plan is unlimited Ireland & UK Landline calls* as well as 75 mobile minutes for only €49 a month. Next up is Business Plus for €69, Business Advantage for €99, Business Global €139, right up to Business Corporate which is a 32 channel package with unlimited Ireland & UK calls* and a massive 700 mobile minutes for only €219 a month.

We have only had our business call plans officially active for a few weeks now, but the interest has been remarkable. The demand for a reliable phone service which offers companies a greater level of freedom and significant cost savings is exceptional. We have spent no money on Marketing our products so far this quarter and yet, organically through coverage in the Sunday Business Post, Online via our partner sites and our excellent SEO performance has seen a huge increase in business enquiries. We stand by our belief that first and foremost we are a Communications company, if we’re not making it easier for businesses to stay in touch with their customers and suppliers then we’re not helping.

We can provide a number of features that enable Businesses to save money – ‘voicemail to email’ which saves time and money from having to access voicemail on their phones, ‘fax to email’ essentially ‘paperless’ faxing which again saves money and is better for the environment and more importantly, with exporting in mind, ‘International Geographic Numbers’. If your company would like to have a local number in London, New York or a number of international cities, we can provide you with a locally listed number for new potential customers to call, giving SME’s an early step up in International Business.

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12
Nov 09

Old telecoms model is over – Eammon Ryan

Siliconrepublic’s John Kennedy speaks with Minister Eammon Ryan about the Irish Telecoms industry.

30.10.2009
The old telecoms model in Ireland of short-term private-equity firms owning incumbent networks has failed and a new model that paves the way for competition must be embraced, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Eamon Ryan TD told this morning’s Dublin Web Summit.

Referring to the impending €130-million acquisition of Eircom by STT Communications, a subsidiary of Singapore Telecom, Ryan said the time for change is here.

“We have failed in Ireland – the short-term private-equity model in telecoms companies … it didn’t think long-term or big or investing in the state of networks we need.

“I hope that we may get some ownership that sees characteristics of networks have to be more open to work better.

“The old telecoms model of closed networks is gone – we need a different model and one that can deliver,” Ryan said.

Key tenets

In recent weeks, the Green Party made universal broadband provision by 2012 and 100Mbps broadband to every school in Ireland by the end of 2010 key tenets in the party’s agreement to stay in Government with Fianna Fail.

“We need to start in schools,” Ryan said. “We need to make sure every classroom has the ability to get under the hood of technology, tinker with it and that use energy less by using the internet more.”

By John Kennedy

Photo: Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Eamon Ryan.

Original article : SiliconRepublic