Apple iPhone 9 REVEALED: The three iPhone X-style phones that will launch in September

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Apple is gearing up to release THREE new iPhones later this autumn to fight off competition from the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S9 and the Google Pixel 2.

These phones will all have a similar design to the iPhone X - which launched last year - but will come in different sizes and, crucially with different kinds of screen technology.

But none of them will have a home button - meaning that if you want to use an iPhone from now on, you're going to have to rely on FaceID.

The three different sizes that the new iPhone will come in are 5.8-inches, 6.1-inches and 6.5-inches.

The smallest handset is likely to become the base model and will have an LCD screen (rather than the OLED panel currently in the iPhone X) and could be branded the iPhone 9.

The next one up will possibly be called the iPhone XI and will be the natural upgrade from the current iPhone X.

Meanwhile, the 6.5-inch version is rumoured to be called the iPhone X Plus and will be the biggest smartphone Apple has ever made. We're not sure what the cost of this phone will be (the iPhone X's cheapest model is £999) but it's not going to be cheap.

The above renders were shared on Twitter by concept designer Ben Geskin who created them based on earlier leaked photographs of the front panels of the new phones.

One of the biggest upsets for Apple owners in 2018 could be the switch from the Lightning charger to a USB-C port.

According to a post on Japanese tech site Macotakara , the new iPhones will come with an 18W USB Type-C to Lightning dongle in the box - which will make it even more frustrating if you've got a lot of Lightning-based Apple accessories.

As well as trio of new iPhones, noted Apple analyst Ming Chi Kuo expects the company to dish out a new Apple Watch, a new MacBook Air and a new iPad Pro model with the same all-screen design as the iPhone X with no home button.

If Apple sticks to its standard release schedule, we will likely see the new gadgets unveiled in the first or second week of September and have them on UK shelves before the end of October.

Contact us direct to discuss your business mobile options or call us on 01452 238866.

Please click here for more information: https://www.gogloscomms.co.uk/business-mobiles/

ISDN is coming to the end of the line, what should your business do?

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ISDN’s days are numbered, with BT having announced that from 2020, ISDN networks will not be purchasable, following plans to pull the plug on ISDN and PSTN circuits all together in 2025. Whilst this date may seem a long way off, forward-thinking businesses need to prioritise their migration to SIP and VoIP Hosted technology to ensure they don’t get left behind.

Why is BT pulling the plug?


Technology has become faster, smarter and more agile since the initial days of ISDN and PSTN circuits. For this reason, a lot of businesses will have already swapped out their ISDN telephony for the latest and greatest technology on the market. From BT’s perspective, maintaining multiple legacy networks is burning a large hole in their pocket, so converging all of their services to one network opposed to several is much more cost effective.

What’s the replacement?


Enter SIP trunking and VoIP… SIP trunking provides businesses with the ability to streamline their communication costs and resources. The ultimate benefit of SIP trunking removing the need physical phone lines, reducing costs and restrictions around call capacity and location.

What’s more, with the phone lines being virtual, users are able to benefit from greater flexibility of where and when they work, as the ability to make and take calls wherever they have an internet connection, opposed to legacy phone systems which rely on the presence of a physical ISDN line.

Not to mention a vast array of operational benefits:

Users are able to keep the same number, no matter where they are
Ensures business continuity and maximised uptime and better to deal with emergencies
Saves on call costs, call forwarding and connectivity costs
No need for costly ISDN maintenance
Offers a single connection for high quality voice and data services


What should your business do?


Although 2025 may seem a long way from now, 2020 will be fast approaching. So if your current ISDN/PSTN telephony contract is due for renewal within the next few years, now is the time to start exploring the benefits of VoIP and SIP technologies.

With the right technology, you can future proof your company while also improving processes, performance and satisfaction. Go Gloucestershire Communications are experts in SIP trunking and VoIP, helping businesses across the UK to transform the way they communicate both internally and externally; enabling them to maximise their business efficiency, unlock cost savings, and improve the client experience.

Please contact us direct on 01452 238866 or email michael.stanley@gogloscomms.co,uk to see how a new hosted solution can help your business save and grow.

Alternatively please complete your details on our contact form below and we will contact you.

5 advantages of sim only contracts for business

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Sim only contracts have become one of the most popular options in the business mobile industry. More and more businesses are choosing to forget about lengthy two-year contracts in favour of a simple sim card.

While sim only deals are usually associated with personal contracts, they can also be a fantastic option for business users. They offer many advantages, from a cheaper price point to more freedom – here are five reasons why sim only could be just right for your business.

1. It’s cheaper
Sim only deals tend to be much cheaper than an ordinary contract, since these usually include the cost of renting a handset in the price. Some plans start as low as £8 per month – so if you already own a suitable smartphone, you could be making huge savings by choosing a sim only contract.

2. More freedom
Afraid of commitment? This is the perfect option for you: because you don’t have to pay for the cost a handset, most sim only contracts are shorter than those which include a smartphone. 

3. Shop around
Another advantage of having a shorter contract is that it allows you to shop around for deals. If your needs change and your current 30-day contract no longer works for you (do you need more data than you thought? Did you use up all your minutes in the first week?), you can simply change it and insert the new sim card into your phone.

4. Upgrade your phone
When you’re tied down to a two-year contract, you might end up missing out on the latest 9smartphone releases. To stay ahead of the game and make sure you’ve always got the latest and best phone in the industry, why not choose a sim only plan? You’ll be able to get the phone you want, when you want it, without having to pay off the rest of your contract.

5. Dual-sim power
Sim only contracts are also perfect for those with a dual-sim smartphone – these types of handsets are incredibly popular in the Chinese and American markets, but they tend to be less popular in the UK. Dual-sim handsets allow you to use two sim cards in the same phone, making them ideal for those who need one sim for their personal contract, and another one for work-related activities.

Are you thinking of getting a sim only contract? Give us a call on 01452 238866 to discuss your business requirements. You can also fill out our contact form and we will come back to you.

Carphone Warehouse gets s £400k fine after hack exposed 3 MILLION peoples data

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Carphone Warehouse has been handed one of the largest ever fines – a whopping £400,000 – from the UK’s data protection watchdog after exposing the details of millions of its customers.

An investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office found a “striking” number of “distinct and significant inadequacies” in the phone company’s security arrangements.

This allowed the miscreants behind a cyber attack that originated from an IP address in Vietnam in the summer of 2015 - and which went on for a whopping 15 days before being detected - to gain access to millions of individuals personal information.

Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said: “The deficiencies in Carphone Warehouse’s technical and organisational measures created real risks of such data breaches [and] played an essential causal role in this particular incident.”

Affected information included the names, dates of birth, addresses and phone numbers of more than 3 million customers; the staff records - including car registration numbers and work usernames - of 1,000 employees; and historic transaction details - like card numbers and expiry dates - for March 2010 to April 2011 for 18,231 payment cards.

The £400,000 fine matches the record fine doled out to TalkTalk in 2016, with the ICO saying that the “glaring shortcomings” in Carphone Warehouse’s systems should have been identified earlier.

“It is particularly concerning that a number of the inadequacies related to basic, commonplace measures needed for any such system,” commissioner Denham said in her report.

“These inadequacies appear to have persisted over a relatively long period of time, given how easily and quickly some of these glaring shortcoming should have been identified and remedied.”

The report (PDF) details the vulns exploited by the attacker, who made a scan of the system using penetration testing tool Nikto.

It identified a “considerably out-of-date” WordPress installation that was exposed to the internet and “suffered from multiple vulnerabilities” the ICO said.

Via the WordPress installation, the attacker/s entered the system and uploaded web shells that were intended to give themselves basic file management and database functionality.

The hacker then located credentials in - yep, you guess it - plaintext, which they used to search and access information in numerous databases, including those containing personal data.

The ICO said the apparent aim was to extract “as much information as possible”. For instance, the payment information was located and accessed, with “a very realistic possibility” that it was exported.

The attacker also prepared and extracted a large file or files from the network, the contents of which cannot be determined - but the firm has worked on the worst-case assumption that they contained personal data.

As part of its assessment, the ICO commissioned two reports, which concluded that the attacker “clearly had everything he needed to take hold of the system and extract a large amount of information quickly”.

Carphone Warehouse said in a statement that it accepts the decision and is “very sorry for any distress or inconvenience” caused.

“Since the attack in 2015 we have worked extensively with cyber security experts to improve and upgrade our security systems and processes,” it said. ®

If it can happen to a multi million pounds large corporate organisation then this can happen to any business, this is why we strongly advise customers to take advantage of our FREE telecoms and IT review, so that we can help ensure that your business is secure.

Please contact us direct on 01452 238866 or email us at michael.stanley@gogloscomms.co.uk so we can help you protect your business.

A Brief History Of VOIP

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So, What is VoIP?


VoIP is an acronym for Voice Over Internet Protocol – essentially phone over the internet.

To understand how VoIP works, it’s useful to compare it with conventional phone systems. With traditional phone systems, calls are place over a copper line using the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). This system uses ‘circuit switched telephony which works by setting up a dedicated channel (or circuit) between two endpoints for each call. Calls using PSTN are analogue.

VoIP sends your phone calls using packet-switched telephony. Using this system, the voice information travels to its destination in individual network packets across the Internet. Everything sent over the internet is digital, including your voice in a VoIP system. A direct line connection between endpoints is not required, which is why calling over long distances using VoIP is very cheap.

A Brief History


Internet telephony is not new, in fact is has been around since about 1995. However, only recently has it become ubiquitous, and reliable enough to be a compelling option for businesses. In its infancy, VoIP was a technology with call quality and reliability issues, but these days a well-planned and implemented VoIP system can provide call quality and reliability that rivals or exceeds mobile phone or landline calls.

A major development that began in 2004 was the introduction of mass-market VoIP services for businesses and consumers, using existing broadband Internet access. This allowed subscribers to place and receive telephone calls in much the same manner as they would via the public switched telephone network (PSTN).

Pros of VoIP


There are many benefits to VoIP phones over the traditional copper line phones. One clear advantage for businesses is that VoIP phone plans often include business level features that would otherwise cost a lot of money if implemented on a traditional phone system. Features such as auto attendant, voicemail, call routing and hunt groups are all done on a software level, usually in the cloud which drives costs down.

When it comes to cost, VoIP is almost always a cheaper way to make calls than traditional phones. It’s also convenient for businesses because it can be portable. A business or employee can move the phone anywhere and keep the same number – whether it’s at a remote office, at home or routed to a mobile phone.

If a lot of what we’ve spoken about resonates with you then I highly recommend that you look into hosted solutions. Here at Go Gloucestershire Communications we specialise in business hosted telephony and can offer any advice or questions that you may have. Contact us today on 07990 552329 or email at michael.stanley@gogloscomms.co.uk  

Please read HERE for more information on VoIP.

Why Ultrafast broadband can’t come fast enough for many businesses (Psst we can help!)

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Anyone that has followed the development of the broadband market over the last two decades will be used to reading calls from politicians and business leaders for faster broadband to drive the UK economy in the digital era.

The statistics about the UK being behind the rest of the world in terms of higher speed connections are often cited as evidence of why we need to accelerate the roll-out of fibre-based ‘superfast’ and ‘ultrafast’ services.

In August last year, figures from the Cable.co.uk website, compiled from open source data, show that the United Kingdom comes 31st in a global ranking of nations by internet download speed. The average download speed recorded by the firms that conducted the research was just 16.51 Mbps, compared to the top speed of 55.13 Mbps in Singapore. Sweden was the fastest European country with a speed of 40.13 Mbps.

The politicians and analysts have a point then, when they say that the UK is lagging behind. To be fair to Openreach and the other companies who are investing in making faster services available, a lot of work has been done since August to accelerate the roll-out of faster broadband in the UK.

Openreach has been rolling out the hybrid G.fast fibre technology to one million UK premises as part of an initial pilot and on the back of that BT and others have launched ultrafast fibre broadband packages that offer download speeds of up to 152Mbps (G.fast) and 314Mbps (FTTP).

G.fast is expected to be available to 10 million premises by the end of 2020 and FTTP may be available to two million premises. Together, these services would in total cover around 40 percent of the UK. Openreach has also said that it will make FTTP available to three million premises by 2020 and to 10 million premises by around 2025, or at least, that’s the plan.

‘Superfast’ services, offering download speeds of up to 24 Mbps, are now in theory, available to 95% premises in the UK, but not all those connected to these services will get the full 24Mbps of course. And the Cable report looked at average speeds without discriminating between connection types.

The UK is making some progress in delivering higher broadband speeds, but the critics can argue that it is not getting there fast enough. They could also argue that the so-called ‘superfast’ option is not enough anymore and that the need to provide higher bandwidth options is becoming urgent and businesses need the ultrafast speeds already. The fast growth in sales of dedicated leased lines over the past two years gives some credence to this argument.

But why do businesses need ultrafast broadband Internet? The main reason is that businesses are transforming – moving away from their previous dependency on ways or working that were and underpinned by manual processes, to workflows that are entirely digital. This is increasing their dependency on web connections.

Many rely on cloud-based applications and services to offer and sell their products and services – and to seek and buy the products and services they need. Many businesses are run entirely online now. The Internet has lowered the barriers to entry and they are reaching further and farther into new markets.

They are also making use of the web to transform their back-office systems. Many are now turning to hosted VoIP and cloud-based computing, both of which require more bandwidth. Demand for IP-based voice services has sky-rocketed as more businesses realise the benefits. Market confidence has grown, and this has also encouraged many firms to look at other hosted options.

It is now quite common even for small businesses to place their data backups in the cloud and more are adopting ‘virtual’ servers, to run their business applications and for storage. These services make IT easier to manage and scale up or down as business requirements changes. Almost all software is now being offered on an ‘as-a-service’ basis and managed and updated constantly from the cloud.

More companies are also making use of remote working and collaboration solutions – and video conferencing is now just a part of this – to bring remote teams together and drive more invention, creativity and innovation.

All of this is increasing the bandwidth businesses need to run their everyday operations. It is making fast, efficient, reliable connectivity vital to their business. With all this online activity taking place, up to 24Mbps is already not enough for many businesses and as more of them digitally transform and adopt cloud infrastructure and services, the need for even higher speeds will unquestionably grow.

For many businesses, ultrafast broadband can’t come fast enough.

Please get in contact with Go Gloucestershire Communications to see when ultrafast broadband is going to become available in your businesses area.  We can look to improve your current internet speeds whilst you are waiting for Ultrafast broadband to become available.  Call us today on 01452 238866 to book your FREE review.

Please read HERE how we helped one rural business improve their connectivity.

Local support = Peace of mind

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More and more businesses are now seeing the importance of requiring local support, to help grow their organisation.

People are becoming frustrated with having no personal point of contact when dealing with their large telecoms company and find that far too much time is wasted trying to seek out the correct person to help them rectify their issues or queries.

As much as offshore resources for support definitely have their place in today's market, it is common knowledge that most contact centres script their staff, often meaning that people calling through to them can risk wasting more time and energy than needed, and potentially losing money at the same time for their business!

Here at Go Gloucestershire Communications we ensure that each client has an immediate direct point of contact, somebody who will help support them with their needs and requirements from day one - whilst offering unbiased solutions and advice on the latest technologies in the Telecoms and IT world.

We want to be an extension to your business so that we do the jobs that you don't want to do, so that you can do the job's that you need to do to ensure your companies success and growth!

If you are fed up with wasting too much time and efforts trying to liaise with your telecoms provider and feel that having a direct 'local' point of contact with be an immediate benefit to your business, then call us today to book your free Telephony and IT review on 01452 238866 or email us direct at michael.stanley@gogloscomms.co.uk

 

Rural Business Support

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STRUGGLING WITH A POOR CONNECTION WITH YOUR TELECOMS AND BROADBAND?

At Go Gloucestershire Communications we like to do our best to help rural business. We know that it can be tricky at times to find a good quality signal or even a decent internet connection. Being a rural business shouldn't mean you have to settle with an inferior service compared to City, town or suburban business.

With our communications and IT expertise, we have an array of solutions available to ensure you get the best possible service for your business. With our knowhow, we vastly improve pubs, restaurants, village stores and shops and other rural businesses communications set up, which will help to greatly reduce costs and increase your growth and reputation,

Case Study

The Tipputs Inn, Stroud, Gloucestershire

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The Tipputs Inn, situated in Horsley, near Stroud, is a renowned local rural Inn. They contacted us with a plea for help, that is typical for some rural businesses - poor WiFi. They were suffering from a very poor connection and also needed to upgra…

The Tipputs Inn, situated in Horsley, near Stroud, is a renowned local rural Inn. They contacted us with a plea for help, that is typical for some rural businesses - poor WiFi. They were suffering from a very poor connection and also needed to upgrade there old phone system.

After our free audit, we helped to set up a new WiFi connection (using access points and clever broadband methods), a new Epos system and a VoIP system.

Their business was struggling with poor connectivity and paying over the odds for an expensive, aging telephone system which was complete overkill for their needs. We assessed the area and the options available to them and implemented a few technical tricks.

They now have a great WiFi setup for their business and customers and the bill for their lines and calls has been slashed by over 40%!

Working with The Tipputs Inn, is an perfect example of how we can greatly improve some of the worse connected areas!

If you're a rural business struggling with low or intermittent connectivity, or feel that your comms and IT could be improved, call us or use the contact form below and ask us for a free audit!

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We are so pleased we found Michael. He’s been really helpful to us and now we have great wifi, a new till system and he’s made us a great saving on our telephone bill. We couldn’t have asked for more!
— Lillian, Landlady of The Tipputs Inn

FEELING LEFT OUT AS A RURAL BUSINESS? ASK FOR YOUR FREE AUDIT.

Amazing ....Broadband with automatic failover to 4G!

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Introducing 4G Assure - available NOW!

The UK’s first and only broadband with automatic switchover to 4G giving customers the ultimate reliability. Now, even if the network is down, customers will have a fast and reliable connection through 4G. And new customers get connectivity using 4G whilst waiting the standard lead time. What's more, it’s free for BT Premium and Ultrafast customers.

Why is this big news?

No one else offers this - a real differentiator for BT

No more downtime - built in automated failover to 4G in case the network goes down (failover allows the Static IP to keep working)

4G connection right away - while awaiting fixed line (approx 15 days)

Proactive support - if the broadband fails BT will call customer to let them know and resolve the issue. They may not even have noticed!

What does it cost?

It’s free for BT Premium customers, only £8.00 a month otherwise.
FREE - Ultrafast 1 and 2, Infinity Premium, Broadband Premium

£8/pm - Infinity, Infinity Unlimited, Infinity Essential, Broadband, Broadband Unlimited

Check EE coverage HERE  

For more information contact us direct on 01452 238866
or email: michael.stanley@gogloscomms.co.uk otherwise please complete the contact form below.