View from the channel technologyreseller.co.uk 33 “We deal with a huge number of care homes and because of the way their business is changing now, where instead of a clipboard and bit of paper at the end of the bed, everything is done on a tablet, they need a good solid reliable Wi Fi connection. Add to that the fact that residents want to FaceTime family or watch Netflix on a smartTV. Unfortunately care homes tend to be really old buildings with thick walls and extensions, so they really suffer when it comes to Wi-Fi.” After testing the market, F One partnered with TP Link and Draytek and set about developing strong direct relationships with those vendors largely because they tend to provide better technical support than a distributor that might have to deal with hundreds or thousands of vendor products. “Once we've chosen a product, our solutions director Stu always tries to build direct relationships with partners. We're quite self-sufficient and don't come across many things that we can't solve in-house, but because we're dealing with technology there will always be things we've never come across before that we just don't know the answer to. “One recent example involves TP Link Wi-Fi access points. These ensure that as you walk through a building your mobile device or phone gets a continuous signal as one access point hands over to another. We were having an issue with a cordless handset we supply that kept dropping that signal. We struggled for a long time to get an answer from the distributor, but when we got the direct relationship with TP Link they told us where the problem lay. We changed the setting and have never had the same issue since. Building those relationships takes time, but they're worth it.” IT services More recently, F One has started to dip its toes into IT services, with the intention of adding IT as a fifth pillar. It currently offers Microsoft 365 licences, anti-virus software, email and OneDrive backup and is looking to add new services and employ an IT account manager and IT salesperson next year. “We've always been a telecoms specialist and have promoted the company on that basis. However, I do think Teams and Office 365 are really good communication tools and if we don't start dipping our toe in, we’ll get left behind. “A lot of small businesses don't have an IT support contract and just want really simple, basic IT functionality. We can provide that – Office 365, backups, antivirus software – for less than £10 per user per month. I only see IT getting bigger for us but at the moment we're still a telecoms specialist and proud of the fact that we're a telecoms specialist.” Cloud-based telephony From day one, F One’s focus has been on cloud-based phone systems and even where it supplied a traditional on-site physical phone system, the lines would be SIP trunks rather than ISDN. “When we started the business, we didn't want to go into that ISDN world because it had been done. The reason we started the business when we did is because we knew IP was coming and would be a good wave to ride. We've got 1,300 customers and less than 10 of them use ISDN or analogue – and the only reason they do is because they have limited broadband availability.” To ensure customers receive the bandwidth and reliability they need for voice communications, as well as data, F One provides a range of internet connectivity solutions, including FTTP, dedicated Ethernet and satellite broadband. Thanks to partnerships with 10 alternative networks (altnets), including Giganet and Cityfibre, it is able to meet the needs of customers even where they can’t access a BT connection. “Where we come up against an area that we know has struggled with connectivity we'll find an altnet that we can go to and say we've potentially got a realm of customers here,” explains Lee. He adds that the greater reach that the altnets provide has enabled F One to offset falling prices for broadband by increasing customer numbers. “We can now provide solutions that give 1000 meg download speeds for £60 a month, whereas two or three years ago, you’d have to spend £400 or £500 a month for a 1000 meg connection. Whilst our profit margin from those has decreased, the amount we're able to supply has increased because people are far more willing to spend £60 than £500.” Downward pressure on prices is a constant across the industry but by diversifying its offering with new solutions and extending its reach through partnerships, F One Technologies has been able to increase turnover and maintain consistent profit margins. “When I started at Peach in 2005, we could charge 50p per minute for a mobile call and 10p per minute to call a landline. The margins in that were huge. Now, all UK calls, mobile and landline, are free, and if you don't give them for free you're not going to win the business. The margins we've got in those environments are significantly less so we've adapted and brought in things like Wi Fi and IT services to compensate for lost call revenue.” With the introduction of Wi-Fi 7 likely to give a further boost to F One’s Wi-Fi business and big plans for its IT services business in 2025, F One has plenty of scope for further growth. As Lee says: “If you're looking at IT as a spectrum from zero to 100%, we are probably only at 2%.” www.fonetech.uk continued...
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