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New PoPs, new fiber buildouts, new vendor deployments, and some hybrid 5G: … [visit site to read more]
Mobile money growth continues across Africa. Two recent announcements, from IDT Corporation, a global fintech company, and from TerraPay, a leading global payments infrastructure company partnering with operator Safaricom, are the latest example of companies targeting consumers in Africa – and notably the remittance market.
IDT Corporation has announced the expansion of its BOSS Money app into Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The BOSS Money app now enables app users to send, receive, carry, and exchange money in multiple local currencies across Francophone Africa. The app also enables direct receipt of BOSS Money remittances within minutes from friends and family in the US.
IDT says the BOSS Money app aims to redefine the financial transaction landscape for individuals and small businesses in Francophone Africa, offering innovative solutions tailored to the unique needs and aspirations of the local communities.
Meanwhile, TerraPay and Safaricom plan to facilitate instant borderless payments. The partnership, through TerraPay’s group company Mobex (Kenya), a licensed money remittance provider, will enable more than 30 million M-Pesa mobile wallet holders in Kenya to send real-time payments through TerraPay’s interoperable network across all wallets in Bangladesh and Pakistan. Roll-out of the service in India and Nepal is expected in a few months.
Speaking about this new partnership, Ambar Sur, Founder and CEO, TerraPay says: « We believe this breakthrough collaboration with Safaricom will spur a world of new possibilities for mobile financial service operators to directly scale globally and provide customers with a choice to send payments in a secure, transparent and swift manner.”
He adds: “Our partnership with Safaricom will further boost our capabilities in providing an inclusive global financial ecosystem powered by our agile payments infrastructure and empower Safaricom customers with fast and affordable borderless payment options and access to TerraPay’s widespread partner network of more than 7.5 billion bank accounts and more than 2.1 billion mobile wallets. »
Four interesting infrastructure items of regional interest to keep up with: … [visit site to read more]
What do you get when you pair an edge data center platform with a cable operator’s depth? Well, we may find out before long as Vapor IO and Comcast are teaming up in two major metro areas to demonstrate the possibilities. … [visit site to read more]
Tonomus, the first subsidiary of Neom, a region in Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea coast described as ‘building a future fuelled by the power of cognitive technology’, has announced the opening of its first digital communications facility.
Tonomus says its mission is to transform the way we live through predictive, personalised and autonomous solutions enabled by unrivalled connectivity and next-generation technologies.
The TONOMUS.NEOM Telecommunications Centre contains a high-capacity, highly efficient data centre and associated infrastructure to enhance the availability, resilience and growth of 5G, satellite and fibre cable network connectivity, and enable the provision of secure private cloud services in the Neom region.
On-site offices and facilities within the centre will support day-to-day operations and collaboration with telecommunications industry partners.
The centre is described as a key upgrade to Neom’s existing ICT infrastructure that will, it is claimed, offer some of the highest and most reliable network speeds anywhere in the world.
Strategically located in Oxagon, a city that will be home to advanced and clean industries in Neom, it will provide consistent bandwidth for secure information sharing and fast decision-making, supporting the demands of construction across the Neom region, keeping a growing number of residents and businesses connected securely and without interruption, and driving down operating costs.
The centre will power a software-driven network and secure private cloud that is projected to service up to 60 locations, some 1,800 structures, approximately 300,000 construction staff needed at Neom by 2025 and 200 million IoT devices by 2030. It will also interface with key existing and future national and international digital networks and services to offer a seamless experience to end users.
The facility site spans an area of 18,000 square metres, with a two-floor office building hosting 150 personnel. It will also serve as a hub for ongoing collaboration with telecommunications solution providers and technology partners.
Of course, the eventual demand for these services depends on funding for Neom itself. The region, which, it is said, will be 33 times the size of New York City once the project is finalised, is still in the early stages of its development. News service Middle East Eye says there has also been controversy about forcible displacement of local people.
Some FTTH, managed services, and some data center M&A: … [visit site to read more]
Latin America and Caribbean-focused multilateral development bank IDB Invest says it has closed a standby letter of credit for about US$47.5 million to service provider Colombia Móvil (aka Tigo) to support the expansion and upgrade of telecommunications infrastructure in small municipalities in Colombia.
The project, says IDB, will provide mobile broadband to 915 rural areas that are currently without coverage, allowing them to enjoy the benefits of digital connectivity and helping to close the rural-urban access gap.
The project will help improve mobile services, specifically by aiding the transition from basic 3G to 4G LTE broadband in 340 municipalities. This will allow retail and corporate customers to benefit from high-speed data connectivity, in turn facilitating access to digital services, such as e-health, online education, telework and financial services.
IDB Invest says it is also providing advisory services to support the digitalisation of small, rural and agricultural businesses in Caquetá, in the Amazon region. This, says IDB Invest, will improve their productivity, their conservation efforts and the sustainable use of ecosystems.
Two local community groups that work in sustainable agricultural processes led by young farmers are already receiving training on how to use digital tools to improve their service offering.
This is not the first time IDB Invest has put money into upgrading Colombian telecommunications. As we reported at the time, in January last year, IDB Invest offered financial support to Tigo for the deployment of telecommunications infrastructure in 177 localities that did not have access to mobile broadband.
IDB Invest says it is committed to promoting the economic development of its member countries in Latin America and the Caribbean through the private sector. It adds that it has a portfolio of US$16.33 billion in assets under management and 394 clients in 25 countries.
There was a bit of inorganic activity in the global Communication Platform as a Service space today. Belgium-based Proximus Group has agreed to acquire a majority stake in India-based Route Mobile, making its second significant investment in the space alongside US-based Telesign. Proximus plans to … [visit site to read more]
Since the early 2000s, Bicom Systems has helped businesses, enterprises and governments alike to bridge the gap in communications technology and keep up with technological trends.
One of our most popular products, PBXware, attests to that fact as it currently has well over 3 million extensions worldwide.
But why do so many people prefer PBXware over other solutions on the market? Well, there is a lot of merit to the product which is hard to summarize in a few words, so let us take it from the top, shall we?
The first major benefit to PBXware is its flexibility.
Many businesses want a long-term solution that will scale to fit their size and scope.
PBXware offers exactly that, eliminating the fuss of having to switch over to a different service and having to negotiate new contracts.
To that end, PBXware is offered in 4 different editions depending on the needs of your business: Business, Contact Center, Multi-Tenant, and SP.
The first option, as the name suggests, is tailor-made for businesses, offering easy stat tracking thanks to a detailed, yet deceptively simple to read and use, GUI.
It also comes with role overview and management and offers compatibility with all major VOIP phone brands.
On top of that, it serves as a Unified Communications Tool with features like meeting organization, screen sharing, and the like.
The second of the two options, the Contact Center edition, is the ideal choice for call and contact centers, giving you everything you would want in a neat little package with Automatic Call Distribution and Real-Time Agent Monitoring.
It even offers online self-care for your customers to help them customize their PBXware experience, a feature that every edition has apart from SP edition.
Our most popular edition, Multi-Tenant, is used to manage multiple customers (tenants) with a single instance of the software, making it ideal for Internet Telephony Service Providers (ITSPs) as it helps cut down on operating costs on top of keeping customer management simple and easy.
However, the Multi-Tenant edition isn’t without its own benefits either.
Being able to host an unlimited number of IP PBX Tenants, LCR, stat tracking, custom development solution options and more, alongside serving as a Unified Communications platform are what make this edition so appealing to our business partners.
SP edition is a bit of a special case.
It is not a standalone PBX system like the others are.
Instead, it was specifically designed for managing and accessing data from multiple PBXware systems in a centralized location, and, to simplify administration, making it easier to keep track of configurations and to edit specific settings.
What makes PBXware’s SP edition unique are some of its standout features like SSO functionality and its advanced search capabilities.
Depending on your preferences, you can either opt for the default Bicom Systems branded variant or the white label option where we tailor it to fit with your company’s name and color scheme, a particularly popular option for resellers.
When it comes to hosting your network and your data, Bicom Systems offers two server options.
You can either opt for cloud hosting on our own servers or on-site installation on your own company’s servers.
Both of these options come with different benefits and drawbacks, so, in the end, the choice between the two comes down to preference.
The cloud-hosted option relieves you of purchase and maintenance costs for the servers and the rest of the hardware, leaving those tasks to us.
It is definitely the more affordable and convenient option of the two, and thus, more popular among our business partners.
If, however, you prefer to have your data on-hand and like having your teams handle server maintenance and data management internally, then the on-premise solution is the better one for you.
Apart from having the data reside on your premises, you will be able to enjoy decreased server latency and more overall flexibility in developing safety measures and other plans revolving around the use of the product.
Whatever your choice ends up being, we are always ready to jump in to provide you with a pleasant and favorable experience.
If you have a preferred CRM platform and are worried about having to swap should you choose PBXware as your telephony platform, do not be. PBXware pairs itself well with a number of the most used CRMs on the market, integrating itself seamlessly into it.
When someone lists so many incredible features, one would often wonder how one platform could manage so much.
The answer is hidden in PBXware’s API which is used when your (external) systems need to fetch data or change a configuration in PBXware, allowing them to work in tandem with one another.
When users initially see pictures of PBXware’s features, they may think that our product is hard to manage and use due to the many features that it has.
However, that could not be further from the truth. The UI itself is deceptively simple and easy to read and navigate for new users and veterans alike.
Everything is plainly presented and easy to read so the learning curve tends to be rather short on average.
If, however, users still find it somewhat challenging to master and piece together, the “Embedded documentation” feature can help remind them of a specific element’s function with an example.
This is equally useful to new users who need to be brought up to speed at a relatively quick pace, or for more experienced users who just want to get a slight refresher course on a specific element’s use that they may have forgotten.
So, the use of the product is easy and intuitive, but what about the installation process? Well, that is relatively easy too as everything is done by the Setup Wizard.
All you need is a single mouse click and your PBXware extension will start installing and be ready for use in no time at all.
One of the key aspects of any modern business is security, whether it is safeguarding their data from unforeseen circumstances like natural disasters or power outages, or keeping service uninterrupted as bad actors can strike at any time.
Thankfully, we have you covered in several different ways, the two main ones being sipPROT and SERVERware.
SIP attacks are becoming more and more common in our modern world, particularly DDOS-ing, so it is important to have a system in place to protect your infrastructure from getting affected by it.
Our own defense system, sipPROT, helps safeguard your VoIP network against these types of attacks, preventing issues like losing call quality, general service interruptions or having the whole network go offline.
And, to top it all off, it is super easy to install through a simple toggle option from the Setup Wizard if you have opted to add sipPROT to your package.
Another product that will greatly improve your network uptime and helps protect data is SERVERware.
It offers numerous network safety features like multiple VPSes, geo-redundancy, backup hosts and hotsparing.
It easily integrates itself with PBXware and allows for added data tracking and VPS management.
SERVERware comes in 3 different editions: the standalone, the mirror, and the cluster, each bringing their own set of benefits to cater to all sorts of business needs, so the choice ultimately comes down to your preferences.
If, however, you are more used to entrusting your data to another popular provider like AWS, Google Drive, Dropbox or an FTP server, do not worry because PBXware has you covered there too.
PBXware integrates with the storage provider of your choice, allowing you to store valuable data from your system, be it voice call recordings, SMS or fax messages and similar.
It also has the ability to play the archived call recordings (which are located in the cloud).
For all of our US partners, rest assured that PBXware is fully STIR/SHAKEN compliant.
This is done via our custom in-house Caller ID authentication solution which allows our users to avoid fees for an extra STIR/SHAKEN extension and having to deal with third-party providers which could pose a network security risk.
We make sure to provide optimal service for our business partners and to make our present and future collaborations as smooth and as simple as possible.
Do note, however, that you will still need to get an SS certificate as we are not licensed to provide those of our own accord.
Regardless of which PBXware edition you choose, you will always be able to maintain quick and efficient communication within your business through a few different means.
Bicom Systems’ PBXware is compatible with most popular IP phone brands and integrates itself with them quite well.
This leads to benefits like hot desking, BLF and automated provisioning, making the workplace more efficient and easier to manage, eliminating some of the busywork needed.
This feature is particularly useful for multi-shift offices, remote work, and places like hospitals and similar.
With PBXware, you are able to send both SMS and MMS messages to anyone within your organization for a quick and easy transfer of information without being in near proximity to that person.
PBXWare even offers the option of bulk SMS messaging which lets you send out important information to large groups of people on the network all at once, removing the need for individual calls in such cases.
As previously stated, our Unified Communications apps, gloCOM and gloCOM GO, seamlessly integrate into PBXware and allow for an even easier way to communicate and collaborate between all your employees.
It makes chatting easy and makes remote work even easier by giving users access to anyone in the workplace over their mobile phones, even external participants, and adding a file transfer option.
gloCOM has a filtered view option of employees based on department and lets you set up meetings with ease, video conferencing as well as screen sharing.
And yes, as long as you have a stable internet connection, you can join these meetings from your phone too!
PBXware serves as an excellent telephony platform and a perfect foundation which expands its functionality when all of our other products are added onto it.
All put together, this forms a truly ideal and unified solution that covers almost every possible communications need a business could have.
All of these features are well and good, but what about installation and setup, or support in case something goes wrong? Do you have to handle all of this yourself?
Absolutely not.
As hiccups in the system or random malfunctions with a piece of hardware are bound to happen at some point, we have made sure to set our support team up so that you can get help 24/7, regardless of timezone.
Feel free to contact us if you have further questions or if something still needs clarification.
Our support team would love to talk to you about your business and your needs.
And, as previously mentioned, our teams will handle installation and setup by default with respect to any special guidelines required by your business, if there are any.
Of course, all of these claims may feel empty without something to back it up. Thankfully, we have plenty of satisfied customers and long lasting partners under our belt.
Some of the more notable ones being Dell, KFC, and even NASA.
All of them have been great business partners and have had nothing but positive experiences using PBXware to improve their business communication and management capabilities.
As you can see, PBXware has a lot to offer. It is flexible and can scale with your business needs, easily integrating with your existing systems.
PBXware is tailor made to your specifications, easy to use, and comes with built-in service and data protection if you opt for some of our other products.
This gives you maximum server uptime and security, regardless of your circumstances.
Our solutions are guaranteed to improve communication levels within your workforce and help ease some of the more mundane busywork.
If you are interested in trying PBXware before buying or have any other questions that may not have been answered in this article, feel free to contact us or request a demo of the product.
We are always ready to showcase the best that our products have to offer and hope that you see the potential that we do.
Until then.
