Our Voice On VoIP

Sometimes a thousand words are better than an image.

Pictures cannot encompass the finesse of our ideas, but words can paint concepts in beautiful colours.


Rural Broadband in Scotland. Let’s do it. Together.

Exciting times ahead, especially for those of us with that can do attitude that’s the foundation for success. Things are happening fast:

  • the Scottish Government has just announced the birth of a Scottish Investment Bank, with a £200M seed capital available shortly;
  • Local Councils are strapped for cash by an ideological austerity imposed by the same architects of the – still ongoing – financial collapse;
  • The collective demand to be connected with each other by reliable and affordable broadband is piling enormous pressure on telecoms operators, local and national governments.

This is why we have decided to take on this challenge and be the David that defeats the Goliath. But we need your help.

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Wasting time

I already told you about the silly number of chancers trying to get uninvited access to our customers’ VoIP systems, and how uncanny is to see the same IP addresses being banned swiftly from all the systems we monitor, thanks to our intelligent network and a little help from our honeypots.

trollfaceMost of these attempts come from IP addresses owned by small hosting companies, where you can rent your virtual machine for a few quid a year and do whatever you fancy with it. These small, often barely cobbled up rent-a-mob junk yards don’t care one dot about what you do with their rusty metal, anything goes. There is no control on what you can send or receive, what you host, whose data you hold, etcetera.

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Connection Voucher Scheme – End of the line?

Stop_HandAs expected, the funds allocated for the Connection Voucher Scheme have now depleted to a point that the UK Government Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has suspended all new applications for vouchers across the entire scheme.

All applications put before yesterday have been accepted, and there is some funding left to cover their costs.

At this stage there is no indication if the Scheme will continue with a fresh allocation of funds or if the UK Government will move on to other things.

But if you missed the occasion, don’t worry: we have access to other funding sources to get you connected.

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The sharks are circling

Not a happy place

In the past few days we had a few customers contacting us to ask what were our contract terms.

My gut feeling is that there’s an offensive from some very determined salesmen doing the rounds and carpet-phoning businesses in this neck of the woods to make a quick buck promising to “save you a bundle on your phone bills”.

Please do not fall for these scammers, they’re recycled salesmen from some pyramid scheme, paid on commission for every customer won, without the faintest idea of what services you have, how they work or if really you are paying too much.

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New Year, New Website

Press that button!

Press that button!

After much fettling and a long trialling period we have finally decided to take the plunge and go live with the upgrade to our website.

The new engine behind it will enable us to introduce a number of new features, as the ability to log-in to your dedicated User Portal from this same place, or an interactive dashboard with the status of our ever expanding services.

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Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

2015 is here, a fresh new year for all of us.

Enjoy it fully, there is much more to come.

A warm, heartfelt thank you to all our customers – old and new – for being part of this adventure. It’s been great so far, and it will be better every day!

 

Computers and Cowboys

I am sad.

I have spent the whole day looking after some customers’ systems, and not a single one of them was set up properly, not even remotely close.

I don’t mean that there was something wrong with them: EVERYTHING was WRONG on so many levels that I am now sad.

Sad to see that an extremely important, for some of you vital staple of your daily business is trumped by the sheer incompetence of some self-appointed “computer experts”.

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A day at the office

Why?

Why?

You might believe that in a business sector so hyper-technological like ours, every day something amazing happens. Well, I’m sorry to shatter your dreams of glory and awe, but most of my day is filled with a basic daily grind, like many other office jobs.

The truth is that I rarely have the time to be social: either write here in this blog, post a few tweets, update our status on Facebook or even just get started with Google+. Until something happens, and I feel the need to let some steam off, or to update you about some fantastic news. I’m sorry, this time is a rant but there are some words of advice attached.

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Another price hike from the Big Boys

Every penny counts nowadays: reap the savings with Scottish Broadband Telecom

We are sure you heard all about the gas & power companies’ recent price rises from the news, but one price increase that is going almost unnoticed comes from the telecom sector.
BT announced a 5% increase in the line rental and a price hike for call costs, and TalkTalk followed suit with a 9.5% increase in line rental.

We live in the same planet as you, and we understand this is not the right time for the cost of your utilities to rocket up. That’s why all our telephone tariffs are firmly anchored to 2010 prices, no exceptions.

Remember also that – throughout our VoIP services – many additional features that cost big bucks with other providers are included in the line rental: Caller ID, fully-featured Voicemail, Call Waiting and many more. Read more