Spitfire NewsSUMMER 2011

www.spitfire.co.uk

Ethernet is the UK’s benchmark guaranteed, fast, business Internet connectivity option – with none of the problems of variable speed, throughput and quality that can be experienced on Broadband.

The benefit of putting your SIP Trunks over an Ethernet connection is that the link will not suffer any degradation for other users ‘contending’ for the same bandwidth providing a secure and stable internet connection with low latency and jitter.

The two services – SIP and Ethernet are ideal together, providing a single Voice and Data circuit that has guaranteed parameters, and can be used to deliver all voice calls over Spitfire SIP Trunks and all your Internet connectivity requirements.

Spitfire have launched a new £500 per month package which includes 30 SIP Trunks, 200 DDI numbers and a 10mb Ethernet circuit. This package could save businesses as much as 50% when compared to existing ISDN30e and leased line costs.

There are also excellent savings for businesses with as little as eight ISDN30e channels who have an SDSL or Leased Line circuit.

The Internet access Ethernet circuits provide are ideal for businesses that require guaranteed throughput bandwidth with SLAs that support voice, video and mission critical data applications. To talk to us about the benefits Ethernet and SIP Trunks could bring to your business please call us on 020 7501 3333.

for the latest communications news, views and comment

Insi

de

Switch to IPv6 – The Internet Society organised World IPv6 day for 8 June this year

Making movies – Spitfire The Movie - captures the essence of the company and our services.

Doing the business – the iPhone’s iOS 4 software update has introduced a range of improvements

p3

p4

p6

Spitfire offers new SIP Trunk and Ethernet package at a ground breaking price pointSIP is the industry standard business VoIP equivalent of, and replacement for, ISDN30e and analogue telephone lines. SIP offers several advantages over ISDN30e, including significantly lower cost, excellent Disaster Recovery options and the ability to connect numbers from any UK exchange – especially useful when moving and wanting to keep existing phone numbers.

spitfire_news_spr11.indd 1 22/06/2011 10:42

0800 33 34 35

Foreword

As part of our marketing programme at major UK exhibitions, we exhibited again at UC Expo in March. The two day show at Kensington Olympia covered the latest developments in ‘unified communications’. UC is a concept which seeks to unify all business communications (voice, data and mobile), in one infrastructure and with ‘one number’ contact for staff regardless of location or device.

Spitfire has a range of solutions to support UC deployment and at the show we demonstrated our SIP Communicator™ hosted telephony service and the snom ONE together with our SIP Trunks, which we can provide as a complete end-to-end SIP service via our own IP and TDM infrastructure.

Thank you to everyone who dropped in to see us, the show proved to be a worthwhile event generating a lot of interest in Spitfire services. This year we even got a mention as a suitable SIP Trunk provider in one of the lectures on SIP security and it was encouraging to hear people calling us the SIP experts. If you would like to discuss UC solutions for your business or look at providing your calls over Spitfire SIP Trunks do call the Spitfire sales team on 020 7501 3333.

SIP solutions on show at UC Expo

2

Justin Orde Joint Manging Director

Welcome to the latest edition of Spitfire News. As a company providing communication solutions, it’s important for us to communicate effectively with our customers, which is why we carry out regular customer surveys.

This issue carries details of our latest survey conducted by independent survey specialists Improvia. The results were extremely encouraging and showed that

we are providing effective customer support. But the results also highlighted the issue of fault resolution ownership by a single contact and the need for regular updates.

We pride ourselves on being big enough to be well resourced for our customers’ needs, but small enough to care. We want to provide a personal ‘feel’ to our service provision and not the cold corporate response of some major telcos. To ensure that our personal approach is maintained as we get bigger we have introduced our “Keep Customer Informed” (KCI) policy with ownership of issues by one Support Technician and on-going updates on issue resolution.

The theme of improving our communication continues with news of our new video series now available to view on our website and also on YouTube. The latest technical innovations are much easier to explain in a video than in words. Training and installation information is also more easily understood through a visual medium.

Of course more and more people like to enjoy video communication while on the move. Since its introduction the iPhone has been hugely successful for this kind of application. In this issue we give details of the iPhone’s iOS 4 software update that improves performance for business users. Fixed-mobile convergence is a growing trend and we shall have more to say on this in future issues.

Finally Graham Lewis our Director IP Engineering has provided ten important tips for security measures to combat the growing threat of phone system fraud. We hope you will find all the news in this issue interesting and beneficial.

spitfire_news_spr11.indd 2 22/06/2011 10:42

You may have been reading a lot of news recently about IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6). In brief IP addresses have almost run out for assignment to new people wanting to connect to the Internet using the existing version of the Internet Protocol IP version 4 (IPv4). At the moment it is expected that all unassigned IPv4 address space will be gone by mid-2012 or even earlier.

The Internet cannot be closed for new business and unlike telephone numbers an additional digit cannot be added to the front of an IP address. So the whole addressing scheme has to change and this is the primary driver for adopting IPv6 – a much greater range of possible IP addresses.

Last year in preparation Spitfire put IPv6 on our core network and acquired our first big block of IPv6 addresses ready to assign to customers. Our core network is what is referred to as ‘dual stacked’

meaning we run both IPv4 and IPv6 alongside each other on the same routers. We also established IPv6 peering relationships with a number of other ISPs who have also put IPv6 on their networks so we can reach most of the rest of the world that has started using IPv6.

The Internet Society organised World IPv6 day for 8 June this year on which some of the largest content providers on the Internet such as Google, Facebook and Yahoo took part in the biggest experiment yet to identify potential areas of ‘IPv6 brokenness’.

It was an important exercise for two reasons. Firstly as the Internet transitions to IPv6 it is important to remain backwards compatible with IPv4 as the two are likely to exist in dual stacked systems for many years. This day should have proved whether or not that is possible.

Secondly if it all went to plan it gives confidence to other websites to start moving their content to IPv6.

So what does this mean for our customers? There certainly won’t be any big bang where everyone goes to IPv6 overnight – the Internet today is too large for that. For Spitfire customers there will be lots of incremental changes as various services get IPv6 enabled and customers start using them.

We will keep you updated over the coming months but for now don’t have sleepless nights, we have it covered!

www.spitfire.co.uk

3

Spitfire’s switch to IPv6

spitfire_news_spr11.indd 3 22/06/2011 10:42

4

0800 33 34 35

Spitfire Makes MoviesWith Brit films sweeping the Oscars, Spitfire has produced its own award-winning real-life thrillers! We're proud to premiere our new portfolio of short movies, created to show you all about Spitfire and what we do. Our main film – Spitfire The Movie – captures the essence of the company and our services, and then you can watch specific movies that are relevant to your areas of interest - from Broadband to SIP Trunks, from Partner Services to Client Testimonials, Case Studies and Training films. Go to our Homepage (www.spitfire.co.uk), sit back and let us show you Spitfire! We even have our own YouTube TV Channel – Spitfire Telecomms.

We're so delighted by our films, we'd

like to tell you about the producers. They're called The Internet Video Company (IVC), and they specialise in TV-quality marketing films for business. If your company would like to discover the power of video as Spitfire have, we've arranged a special deal for Spitfire customers of 15% discount before July 31st. See IVC's website: www.theivc.com and contact them on 01962 779020, mentioning Spitfire.

Tom Fellowes, Spitfire's Sales Director says, "I'm convinced that video is the marketing tool of the future. We're really pleased we've done this, and we're really pleased we've done this with IVC."

Susie Ward, Spitfire's HR & Marketing Director says, “The business

communications concepts we want to get across to our customers are better understood through video. A film online explains more clearly the benefits of new services than a printed brochure ever could. Not only are the videos more informative and engaging, they are more environmentally friendly than printed marketing collateral. We hope customers and website visitors will be encouraged to take a peek”.

Following this feedback Spitfire Support Technicians have been involved in an on-going programme to enhance their technical skills in order to meet this aspiration and Spitfire put into place a “Keep

Customer Informed” or “KCI” Policy. This policy ensures one Support Technician manages the issue from start to finish and is responsible for keeping customers informed of the status of their issue every four hours, in rotation, by SMS text messages,

e-mail and phone calls.

The latest survey results were very encouraging with

79 percent of ISP customers surveyed

saying that their calls were resolved by the first

person they spoke to. A very positive additional benefit that came out of the survey was that

of the customers who responded, 90 per cent stated that the issue was resolved on the first call.

Customer satisfaction was not just limited to Spitfire’s ISP customers however, with survey responses across Spitfire’s complete range of services including phone systems, hosted solutions and SIP trunks, showing that in no area were there less than 85 per cent of customers with faults resolved following the first contact.

Speaking about the results of Spitfire’s most recent customer survey, Marketing & HR Director Susie Ward said, “We pride ourselves in providing a first rate customer service with market leading SLAs and we are always keen to hear our customers’ suggestions on how to improve. Naturally we’re delighted that our customers have been so pleased by our single contact policy and we fully intend to continue to raise the bar and provide our customers with an excellent level of service.”

Spitfire survey shows successFeedback from previous surveys to our customers by independent survey specialists Improvia highlighted that ownership of fault resolution by a single contact and regular updates were important issues.

spitfire_news_spr11.indd 4 22/06/2011 10:42

5

www.spitfire.co.uk

The iPhone does the business It’s well known that the iPhone is one of the most innovative and popular products in the history of the mobile phone industry. Like all Apple products the operating system is superb, and the slick touch screen interface in combination with a vast range of ‘apps’ has made the iPhone very popular, despite a premium price for the device.

Despite its general popularity with consumers, one area in which the iPhone has struggled to compete is in the business arena, with Blackberry and Windows mobile devices so far taking the greater share of this market.

The tide might be turning though as the iPhone’s iOS 4 software update has introduced a range of improvements that make it more adaptable than ever for business users. These updates include enterprise features such as wireless app distribution, mobile device management, virtual private network support, and even support for the Microsoft Exchange Server 2010.

There’s also now a handy unified email option, enabling users with multiple email accounts to merge several inbox’s into one for easy management, whilst retaining the option to keep accounts separate if this is preferred. Emails are also now automatically filed by subject thread, meaning that multiple replies to the same subject will no longer swamp your inbox.

The iPhone iOS 4 is a free update for the iPhone 3G, 3GS and iPhone 4. Owners of the iPhone 4 will also benefit from increased battery life. Thanks to the installation of a much larger battery, owners of the iPhone 4 can also now enjoy much longer usage with up to seven hours talk time and six hours of Internet use on 3G, and an overall standby time of up to 300 hours.

The iPhone is available through Spitfire on a choice of either Vodafone or O2. If you would like to discuss options for your organisations mobile communication needs contact us on 020-7501 3333.

Images courtesy of Apple

spitfire_news_spr11.indd 5 22/06/2011 10:42

overnight security guards you may want to consider what numbers they really need to be able to dial overnight. We had an incident recently where a customer’s security guard spent all night phoning a telephone psychic service on a premium rate number. It left the company out of pocket and the guard out of a job. The psychic never saw it coming but you could have!

Create dial plans that restrict international calls to only those users who have a

real business need to make them. Somalia, Cuba and North Korea are prime destinations for fraudulent telephone calls to premium rate numbers that offer a scammer revenue share – obviously these countries are outside jurisdiction of UK regulations and law and attempting to retrieve costs of fraudulent calls is impossible unless you have access to an army.

Check call logs for unusual activity – calls placed outside normal working hours and

calls to un-recognised destinations. Weekends and Bank Holidays are favourite times for frauds when no one is around to notice. If you have say 12 SIP trunks then over the course of a Bank Holiday that is over 50,000 call minutes that are available to a fraudster – at only a £1 per minute that is a devastating loss. Ten of thousands of pounds of loss is easily possible. Often a hacker will make one or two test calls from a PBX before hitting it big time overnight or over a weekend – so even spotting a single odd call may be an early warning sign.

Incidentally you may want at this stage to check your business insurance to see

whether you are covered for such a loss – some insurance companies have Electronic Fraud cover built into policies already – such insurance is purchasable but it won’t probably pay out if you didn’t change the default admin password (see point 1).

6

0800 33 34 35

tips that could save you a small fortune – Graham Lewis, Director IP Engineering

Most attacks on IP telephony installations are surprisingly not sophisticated but use the same “attack vectors” that have been used for many years on traditional telephone systems that an experienced PBX engineer would be aware of. Today anyone can download and install a telephone system on a PC at the click of a mouse without a single day’s experience of telephony. We live in enlightened but potentially dangerous times. Here we offer ten tips that would have stopped most of the frauds we have seen in recent months:

Change default administrator/ engineer passwords – it used to be that

hackers coveted the default engineer passwords to telephone systems and traded them with other hackers. Today everyone on the Internet can find out the default password of most PBX systems – don’t blame Google – change the password.

Disable or remove any built in default accounts – often a software PBX vendor supplies

built in accounts to help “get you going”. This is useful in a closed lab but not for production use and easily overlooked once installed.

Change extension and voicemail default access codes – PBX vendors have

a vested interest in making their PBX easy for you to install and use. Your businesses best interest is to change passwords to something less easy to guess. If extension 100 has password “100” and there are

no limits on how many guesses a hacker can make then your PBX has the words TARGET written in big neon lights all over it.

Ensure that if you have configured your voicemail for access from outside the

office that calls cannot be made from within the voicemail system by “dropping down to dial tone” – this is a classic “telephone phreaking” technique normally only used for making individual calls to hide other nefarious activity.

Another easily set up and commonly used technique is to simply forward someone’s

extension to a fraudulent number – so be wary of what numbers calls can be forwarded to, by whom and how. Forwarding your extension to a premium rate number is easy money for a fraudster.

Block access to the PBX from all IP addresses except those that have legitimate

access. Spitfire provide SIP trunk circuits within a closed MPLS VPN but some customers choose to deploy their PBXs on an internet connection in which case it is essential to lock down the network. Using the tools that hackers use to scan your own network, Spitfire can help scan your network after installation.

Consider the physical security of the voice LAN to prevent people just being

able to plug in a phone or laptop – particularly if you work in a shared office environment. If you employ

Incidents of telephone system fraud have increased over the past two years which is attributed in the industry to the rise of IP PBX systems being installed by inexperienced people.

10

01

04

09

08

10

05

06

07

02

03

spitfire_news_spr11.indd 6 22/06/2011 10:42

7

www.spitfire.co.uk

People News

Congratulations to Steve King our Logistics Manager and his wife Irene on the birth of their son Barnaby in February this year.

This year Spitfire will be entering a team of runners into the British 10Km London run which takes place on Sunday 10th July 2011. We will be running in aid of the Multiple Sclerosis Society and any donations to assist us in being able to contribute a meaningful sum would be very much appreciated. We have set up a site for donations http://www.justgiving.com/Spitfire10krun.

Kitty baby congratulation to Angel Cakes who had her first litter of 3 kittens in March.

Talking Donkeys Reign SupremeSpitfire’s Indoor Cricket team, the Talking Donkeys recently continued their unbeaten run to win their division.

After a nail-biting semi-final against Barclays Capital, which saw some tight bowling by paceman James Liddell, the TD’s successfully defended their total by just a single run off the last ball to reach the Grand Final against a team of Australian Expats.

The Talking Donkeys won the toss and decided to bowl. Off-spinner Tim Clackson led the way for the Talking Donkeys with some key wickets early leaving the Expats with a low total of 83 runs off 16 overs. Level headed batting from league leader and fearless captain Toby Lelliott followed, setting the platform for an easy win and a Grand Final victory.

The Talking Donkeys have now won promotion to the prestigious London A-League to be played at Play-on-Sports, Canary Wharf over the summer. We wish them the best of luck in what will be a big challenge for them.

spitfire_news_spr11.indd 7 22/06/2011 10:42

8

SPITFIRE, 6-7 SBBC, Ponton Road, London, SW8 5BLSupport Desk: 020 7501 3030 • Sales: 020 7501 3333

Win some celebratory summer wine!

Competition Winner Congratulations......to Tim Talbot of Shasonic Ltd who won a super case of white wine from Private Cellar as the winner of our Winter Spot the difference competition.

Spitfire exhibiting at IP Expo 2011This year we will be exhibiting at IP Expo, which is at Earls Court 2 on the 19th and 20th October 2011. This shows is one of the leading communications events in the UK and we will be demonstrating some of the systems we sell, including our award winning hosted telephone system, SIP Communicator™ as well as our SIP Trunks, which offer a robust, flexible and cost effective alternative to ISDN30. If you would like to come and see us we will be sending out a link nearer the time to enable you to register to attend the show.

The winner will be the first correct entry which we pull out of the hat after the closing date on 19th August 2011. Simply tell us what the images are and send in with your name, address and contact details to the address below, fax it to 020 7501 3001 or e-mail it to competition@spitfire.co.uk.

What Is It? Competition,Spitfire,6-7 SBBC, Ponton Road,London SW8 5BL.

Win 12 bottles of excellent wine from a Private Cellar...

Simply tell us what this is?

The judges decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

Update on number portabilityIn our last newsletter we mentioned that we were joining BT IP Exchange which would mean we can port phone numbers from different network providers. We are pleased to report that we now have porting agreements in place with Gamma, Magrathea and Gradwell. This means that customers on these networks are now able to port their numbers to Spitfire’s network.

Partner seminar successThe latest Spitfire partner seminar was held recently at One Great George Street, a splendid building which houses the Institute of Civil Engineers in the heart of Westminster, London. With partners from over 50 companies attending the event was a great success.

With our roots in London and a branch office in the West Midlands we have concentrated on expanding our customer base in the rest of the country through a network of partners, mainly drawn from the IT and data reseller community. This allows us to develop national network services that can be supported locally by dedicated IT suppliers.

Nick Goodenough, Partner Service Manager for Spitfire, says of the event, “The relationship with our channel partners has to be based on good communications and the seminar events we hold have proved to be the best way of briefing our channel on our service portfolio, getting feedback and providing a forum for discussion. We plan to continue with our programme of partner events during 2011.

spitfire_news_spr11.indd 8 22/06/2011 10:42