Nxcoms celebrates our 5th birthday this month. Thank you to all our customers who have supported us over the years, and to our suppliers who have made it possible.
We look forward to working with everyone for many more years to come!
Nxcoms is pleased to announce that we will be exhibiting at the Merseyside Business Expo 2022 on the 30th June
The Merseyside Business Expo is the region’s most celebrated event in the business calendar. Held annually at the Liverpool Exhibition Centre, this is the target exhibition for business owners, professionals, startups and marketeers, keen to connect with other businesses and decision-makers. With over 1,800 visitors attending year after year, this opportunity to showcase your business in a relaxed, fun environment, shouldn’t be missed!
At the expo, we will be showing businesses how they can take advantage of full fibre connectivity, using the LCR Connect network
Come & see us by registering for your FREE delegate pass at https://shoutexpo.com/merseyside
Nxcoms is an approved partner of LCR Connect. That means we can offer you exclusive access to Liverpool City Region’s new 212km digital highway.
Spanning the six local authorities of Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helen’s and Wirral, this new digital infrastructure is a local network. It’s 50% publicly-owned and built for local businesses.
Choice: we’re an open access network, meaning you can access a range of business connectivity – from broadband to leased lines – allowing you to access and enhance IT and cloud services.
Uptime: because we’re a new network, we can switch you over, hassle free, with no downtime.
Speed: while some providers take months to install, we can have your business up and running on the network in days.
Bespoke: if one of the standard offerings doesn’t give you what you need, we can work with LCR Connect, with ‘commercial flexibility’ to work around your needs.
Personal: we’re in your region, so we know your patch (because it’s our patch too). We’re not your typical faceless, big corporation.
As the UK looks to a copper switch off, and with more and more services becoming internet and cloud-based, the infrastructure that lies at the heart of business communications is being transformed.
Delivering Gigabit-capable speeds is becoming the norm, with ultrafast connectivity becomes a utility. The digital networks are enabling businesses of all sizes, allowing them to collaborate, support service and underpin the way we work and buy goods in the future.
LCR Connect is half-owned by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, in partnership with North West-based ITS Technology Group, who will lead the project, working alongside construction partner NGE, who are managing the build and roll-out of the network.
Experts estimate that with 100% full-fibre coverage across the City Region, building on this network, the economic boost could be worth up to £1bn, creating thousands of local job and training opportunities.
Contact us on 0151 665 0880 or visit https://lcrconnect.online
Whether it be electric, gas, council tax, national insurance or fuel… unfortunately in 2022 they all seem inevitable and unavoidable.
In the telecoms sector, we are no different, each telecoms supplier purchases services from a wholesale supplier such as BT Wholesale. They in turn are charged by Openreach for supplying the telephone infrastructure in the UK.
You may have heard from your home telephone and internet provider that they are raising prices, and passing the full cost of increases onto their customers. Certainly the likes of BT Retail, Virgin Media and TalkTalk were very quick to pass on all increases to customers a few months ago.
Here at Nxcoms, we have also been subjected to wholesale price increases, but for the most part we have absorbed these and not increased the prices to our end users.
Unfortunately, we have now been notified of a further price increase to PSTN Analogue line rental. However as the vast majority of our clients are using VoIP services this doesn’t have too much affect on their phones.
Where it DOES affect is when you have a broadband line. The majority of broadband lines require a PSTN analogue line to run on, so if you have a copper-based broadband service there will be a line rental charge to pay on top of the broadband service charge. If you have an internet connection of 80Mbs or less then its likely you are running on a broadband line that requires a copper-based telephone line to run on.
We have always supplied the PSTN analogue line rental charges at cost-price to our end users. Most of them dont actually use it to make calls, but it has to be there for the broadband service to sit on. For the past five years we’ve mainly absorbed any price increases and not passed this onto our clients. However, with the latest increase we are no longer able to do that without making a loss.
Well, if you have a PSTN analogue line you will see a small increase in the monthly price of £2. This is to cover the cost of the increases passed down from Openreach who supply them. Unfortunately there is no way around it and in order to still supply the lines at cost price, we have to make the change. This will take effect from 1st June, so your June bills onwards will show the increase. Please note this only applies to the analogue line rental, and all other charges remain the same as before.
As you may have heard from us previously, full fibre optic connections are being rolled out across the UK and wherever it becomes available we are advising our clients to upgrade. Not only can full fibre into your premises give you speeds of up to 1000Mbs, its much more reliable as well! There is no copper telephone line involved and therefore no PSTN analogue line rental charge, so overall you are likely to save money! We constantly monitor all our customer’s connections to see if they can be upgraded and when this is possible we will advise directly.
We are here to help, and if you are unsure on how the line rental price increase may affect you, then please get in touch with us straightaway, just call 0161 711 1100 or email info@nxcoms.co.uk
Businesses will have to switch to the new IP system before 2025. However, we recommend doing it sooner rather than later. In some areas in the UK, the PSTN system is already being switched off, and copper lines will no longer be sold after 2023. To ensure a seamless transition businesses should switch as soon as possible.
The first thing you should know is that different options are available to you depending on your needs and budget. Some of the options available are: SIP trunking systems, hosted phone systems and on-premise phone systems.
If you’re worried about the cost of changing your phone system now, you don’t need to be. You can switch your existing ISDN lines to our SIP trunking today and actually start saving money!
SIP trunking is a type of VoIP technology. It offers lower costs and line rental fees, and you will be able to keep all your existing numbers. We can set up SIP trunk lines for you in a matter of minutes. It offers more reliability than the ISDN system and can be up to 75% cheaper!
Remember that there are also government schemes and grants in place for businesses that are making the switch from the old PSTN system.
VoIP phone systems are faster, more reliable, and cheaper than the previous technology. They also offer extensive features.
When you opt for an on-premise phone system, many extra features are available to you at no additional cost. These features include music-on-hold, voicemail-to-email, built-in multi-language IVR, call logging interface, call recording reports, conference rooms, voicemail controls, desktop integration and call forwarding.
A hosted phone system has advantages in its flexibility, allowing employees to seamlessly work from home, office or location of their choosing.
If you’re looking to integrate mobiles, this can be easily done. Nxcoms have business plans available with flexible contract terms.
VoIP systems offer unparalleled flexibility. You can scale quickly and easily. You can keep or change your existing numbers. You can raise or reduce the number of calls you can make. Everything is adaptable to suit your business so that you only pay for what you need when you need it.
In the coming months and years, changes are happening in the world of telecoms to replace telephone lines as we know and love them.
This doesn’t mean we’re saying ‘see you later’ to your landline, but it does mean that traditional copper- based phone lines and broadband services are slowly being phased out, with a target for the full switch-off and replacement by 2025. In their place will be brand new fibre-optic cables, and although the target for the switch and replacement is a few years away, the changes are actually happening right now as you read this article.
For the sake of your business, it’s important you know what the changes are, and how they might affect your operations.
You might not be aware of it – and you might not even care, to be honest – but up until now, your business has very likely used some kind of copper telephone line service (ISDN or Analogue PSTN) to make and receive calls. You’ve also likely relied on a copper-based broadband service to keep your operations alive and kicking online via ADSL or FTTC (often known as fibre broadband or superfast broadband).
The problem is, the use of copper is not the most reliable way to transmit data. The longer the cable, the worse the signal, for a start. In addition, if the copper comes into contact with heat or damp (welcome to the unpredictable great British weather),the more it suffers the risk of damage.
Makes a little more sense why you’ve likely spent times in the office swearing at the inexplicability of your slow-moving internet now, doesn’t it?
Back in 2015, Openreach (in conjunction with those lovely folk at Ofcom) drew up a roadmap to transform this copper-based communication infrastructure and replace it with ultra-reliable and ultra- fast fibre-optic cable. Good news indeed, because if there is anything you want and need your internet to be, it’s fast and reliable.
In line with switching to fibre, many businesses have already started making some changes.
If that’s you – brilliant. If it’s not you – read on.
Those who have been aware of the changes (every organisation should have an IT geek on the team) have begun their adaptation by moving their phone lines and internet access to new lP (Internet Protocol) based services. Voice over IP (VoIP) telephone systems are now becoming the standard way to communicate. Changing to a VoIP system will, as standard, increase the capability for your staff to work remotely and make and receive calls just as if they were in the office. Great news if there’s another lockdown (every cloud…).
If you make one call to better your business today, let it be to a provider who can set you up and start you off with VoIP. This is especially the case if you know that your phone line is more than 10 years old, just for info!
Recently, Ofcom announced that 13.5 million homes and business premises (which has been the same thing for many of us since 2020) are now enabled for full fibre-optic broadband. But how do you know you’re ready to make this change right now? Most likely it will be because you have download speeds of 80Mbs or less. If you’re not sure this is the case, think about how long ago it was that you swore at your laptop.
The speed of download on offer with full fibre-optic cable can be up to 1Gbs – more than 10 times that of the old copper-based broadband services. More speed – more efficiency in your business.
Come away from the copper, people – and remember that it’s not just about your phones and computers. This stuff affects things like your card processing terminals, too. Why run the risk of losing out on somebody trying to pay you?
At nxcoms, we’re known for our approachability, and so we’ll often joke about the issues faced by businesses when it comes to their communications, but we’re professionals, too, so it’s only right that we give you the information you need. In this instance, if you’re sitting there and thinking you’ll make any required changes at some point in 2025 when you absolutely need to, please do think seriously about the reliability of additional services you may have, such a BT Redcare line for an alarm system or fire panel, or an emergency phone line that you may have installed somewhere such as in a lift.
An emergency really isn’t the time when you want to be finding out that your most fundamental of communication systems is not just ineffective, but a potential hazard, too.
Much as we’d love to tell to sit back and relax whilst this all happens around you, that wouldn’t be the great advice we’ve come to be known for. If you haven’t already done so, put a plan in place to upgrade your phone system to VoIP. Worried about a disruption in service and the likelihood of losing your landline number in the process? Don’t be.
Good suppliers have been sorting this out for businesses for months and even years, now. Both service and existing numbers can be seamlessly transferred over for you.
The to do list doesn’t stop there. Next, check with your provider what kind of broadband line you currently have and ask whether an analogue PSTN line is required to run the service.
If this is the case, then it’s time to start thinking about a move to a full fibre-optic solution.
There’s a reason we wrote this article for you. Pick up the phone (if it works) and give us a call on 0161 711 1100 or email fibre@nxcoms.co.uk