Dear Friend,

Well here we are almost at the end of the year which, despite the ups and downs of the recession and the telecoms industry, has been very good for Virtua.

The end of the year is always a good time to sit back and reflect on the successes and the frustrations of the past twelve months and to think about the opportunities and the challenges of the year ahead.

It’s also the festive season and time for all of us to spend Christmas with our friends, family and loved ones and to relax and take time to put everything in perspective.

We would therefore like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for all their efforts during a tough year for all businesses and to wish you all a very happy Christmas and an enjoyable and rewarding 2012.

Andy, Rob and Brian.
 

Network Testing

One of the most interesting activities we have been working on over the last couple of years is "Network Testing”.  Essentially it means having engineers driving or walking and monitoring existing network coverage levels for the mobile operators.  It is a vital service because the ability to measure what a wireless network subscriber experiences in any specific area, allows the MNO’s to make direct changes to the network, providing better coverage and service to their customers. The MNO’s also have large corporate clients who like to ensure they have good coverage and capacity at their offices/facilities.  This means we then walk around these buildings which can range from small offices to large sports stadiums and busy train stations. We undertake the testing either in heavily customised vehicles or on foot carrying the necessary equipment.  The customisation of the vehicles is quite complex - outside it’s a Ford Focus... inside it's a network of test phones, computers and highly modified, ultra sensitive equipment.  Above all, it ensures our drivers concentrate on the road whilst the engineers concentrate on the results.

We tend to categorise drive testing into five different areas: (1) Drive Testing Measurement’ service, (2) Mobile Network Operator (MNO) benchmarking, (3) Post-Processing, (4) Service Quality Monitoring’ and (5) Optimisation & Troubleshooting service.

Virtua's team of techies are able to demonstrate its capabilities by conducting several different forms of testing for several of our clients.  In fact, we are regularly enhancing our offering by improving and re-developing skill sets. Our teams excel when it comes to load and high speed data tests, identifying faults correctly on behalf of the client... and sometimes even finding issues that the clients are totally unaware of!

As ever with our team, our success is derived from a great team, willing to go above and beyond the call of duty, which includes both ‘Out Of Hours’ work in order to compensate for any live cell loading and exhausting "foot" testing scenarios... where a car is just too big, or access impossible, one of our chaps, quite literally shoulders the load and finishes the job on foot.  In fact in one recent case we even had an engineer out on a mountain bike!

For the really technical minded, you might be interested to know that we have also been conducting IP trace capture using approved software allowing the team to analyse captured network packets recorded from our tests.

With the run up to the Olympics well underway and the impact the event will have on the UK's mobile network, Virtua are looking forward to evolving its capabilities even further and testing our nations ability to cope with the influx of visitors next year.

Femtocells, FMC and the Future 

An area where Virtua has been leading the industry is the deployment of ‘femtocells’.

Essentially a femtocell is a small cellular base station, typically designed for use in a home or small business, that connects to the service provider’s network via broadband (such as DSL or cable). A femtocell allows service providers to extend service coverage indoors, especially where access would otherwise be limited or unavailable.

For a mobile operator, the attractions of a femtocell are improvements to both coverage and capacity. Consumers benefit from improved coverage, potentially better voice quality, better battery life and, depending on the carrier, they may also be offered more attractive tariffs.

Femtocells are an alternative way to deliver the benefits of fixed-mobile convergence (FMC). The distinction is that most FMC architectures require a new (dual-mode) handset, while a femtocell-based deployment will work with existing handsets but requires installation of a new access point that uses a licensed spectrum.

Until today, because femtocells were not regarded as ‘mainstream’, the early adopters have needed a lot of support. Fortunately, here at Virtua we have been leading the field in femtocell technical expertise since the start and have gained an enormous amount of experience in this relatively new technology.  In fact, we have been deploying femtocell networks across the world for almost five years, during which time we have evolved great expertise in surveying, testing, installing and commissioning dedicated solutions for clients.

Now that the femtocell market is starting to rapidly expand there is an increasing demand for knowledgeable engineers and Virtua are therefore very well placed to provide the specialists the market needs.

Partnerships in strange places

It’s interesting how Partnerships can start in so many different ways. Some result from careful analysis of business synergies resulting in formal proposals, some are the end result of a slow and steady convergence of ideas and strategies and some result from nothing more than a casual conversation between like-minded people.

The owner of the business park where we are based, Llew de Souza is also the MD and owner of an organisation called ‘Graham Smith UK’ who provide network connectivity solutions – particularly cabling for the Telecoms sector. When Virtua moved to our new premises a year ago we soon got to know our new neighbours better and it’s amazing how quickly relationships can develop from these casual acquaintances.

After chatting with Llew it soon became apparent that there were a lot of synergies between our two companies and it made a lot of sense to start exploring how we might productively work together for mutual advantage.  Explorations I might add that proved succesful as we are now regularly working together on a variety of projects.

Llew’s business has been built on a philosophy of providing great customer service and meeting the needs of their clients. In fact, most of his business comes through existing client recommendations. This is the same philosophy that we strive for constantly at Virtua and it helps enormously when two businesses share the same ethos and passion in relation to what they do.

Our commitment to service means that most of our customers tend stay with us and this has enabled us to build up trusted, long-standing relationships with some very large clients over the years.  Llew’s business is based on the same model and this is very encouraging.

One thing that I have come to realise over the years is how open communication with like-minded people can often lead to long and fruitful relationships. We all know the old adage that in business it’s all about “who you know rather than what you know” and actually, I have to say, there is a lot of truth in that statement.

Signing Off

The prime minister’s  somewhat Euro sceptic  position  last week has received  a lot of press coverage. Rather more than one of the news items that caught my eye during the  last few weeks which has been the recent EU directive that sets thirty days as the “standard payment term”. This is likely to take effect in 2012, a year earlier than we have to.

The new regulations have been drafted to set thirty days as the standard terms for public and private entities to pay invoices. This can however be extended to sixty days when suppliers have specifically agreed to give customers a grace period to review and acknowledge receipt of goods. The regulation very much mirrors UK practice in terms of public authority payment terms. Whitehall aims to pay 80% of its bills within five working days, while local authorities take 18 days on average.

In our case it’s much clearer. Most of our suppliers are small companies run by people with mortgages and families so it’s important that we are considerate. We're not perfect but we do try and pay every bill on time. Our terms are 30 days and exceptions are rare.
 
I’m always a bit uncomfortable with the government legislating about what a customer and its supplier can or can’t do. In this case, though, the legislation is in line with our existing practice and intent, so it’s not a bad thing. If enshrining the principle in law makes it more consistent across the economy that’s probably a good thing for everyone.

Meet the Team

Meet Kevin Tillotson

Sales and Marketing Director Kevin Tillotson joined the Virtua team nine months ago, although he had already previously undertaken some work there as a Consultant and it seemed like a natural progression to join the organisation full time. Kevin is a Sales and Marketing /Business Development specialist who has spent most of his career focused on the automotive industry.

At Virtua his prime responsibility is developing the business by working closely with the other directors. He helps define objectives and targets for inclusion in the business plan; whilst identifying and developing new business opportunities and strategic partnerships to ensure that these goals are met.

Kevin is married to Tracey and has two sons aged 15 and 13. They recently enjoyed a holiday in Marmaris, Turkey but Kevin has his sights set on a trip to New Zealand with his family when the opportunity arises. Outside of work, Kevin enjoys listening to rock music, watching action and adventure films and reading murder mystery thrillers but he also has a passion for sport. He has recently been working on increasing his fitness by taking part in triathlons and refereeing rugby matches. He also coaches rugby and swimming.

He enjoys the culture and ethos within Virtua and admits that if he ruled the world the first thing he would do is make lycra a more socially accepted fashion material!
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