SureVoIP become Best Business ITSP (SME) Finalist in The ITSPA 2011 Awards thanks to FreeSWITCH!

Aberdeen-based internet telephony service provider SureVoIP has been shortlisted for a prestigious industry award.
The company is one of six finalists in the ‘Best Business ITSP (Internet Telephony Service Provider) for SMEs’ category of the 2011 ITSPA (Internet Telephony Service Providers’ Association) Awards.
The winner of the accolade – presented to the company which the judging panel deems provides the best service for small and medium business users – will be announced at an awards ceremony in the iconic BT Tower in London, on Monday, March 7.
In order to make the shortlist, SureVoIP had to undergo a rigorous assessment process, which involved providing comprehensive details on its service offering, as well as a period of technical testing.
The testing element of the assessment stage entailed over 1000 calls being made via SureVoIP’s internet telephony lines over a 3 month period to measure a number of metrics including voice quality, delays and background noise.
VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) offers significant improvements to the flexibility, speed and cost of global communication through transmitting voice and multimedia communication through the Internet, as opposed to the fast-disappearing Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).
Gavin Henry, Managing Director of SureVoIP – which became the first company in Scotland to achieve ITSPA Quality Mark accreditation in December 2010 – commented on the company making the shortlist:

“We are thrilled to be in the running for such a highly respected industry award.
“Being named as a finalist is a major, exciting achievement for SureVoIP, particularly considering the company has only been operating for a matter of months, having been launched in November 2010, but with all services being quality tested over the previous year before launch.
“Making the shortlist – which involved SureVoIP being assessed by top industry professionals – highlights the exceptional quality of service we already provide customers with and bodes well for the future success of the company”.
“We couldn't have done this without FreeSWITCH and the FreeSWITCH community”

SureVoIP, which is a division of IT and telecoms support specialist, the Suretec Group, was established to harness and utilise the vast technical expertise and experience with VoIP suppliers, which the group had acquired through its initial services relating to VoIP consultancy.
Established in Scotland in 2003, the Suretec Group specialises in open source IT support and consultancy, open source telecoms and training in open source software. SureVoIP is the fourth division within the group, which also includes Suretec Systems, Suretec Telecoms and Suretec Training.

SureVoIP, a UK ITSP based in Scotland and FreeSWITCH

SureVoIP is Scotland's First Dedicated Internet Telephony Service Provider.

Suretec recently got approval from Ofcom, the U.K. communications regulator, to assign U.K. telephone numbers. Therefore, SureVoIP can assign phone numbers across the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. The company is also authorised to supply global numbers for over 60 countries.

This is unique in the Scottish market, because other companies act as "middle-men" between clients and service providers.

SureVoIP is partnering with British Telecom (BT) through a VoIP Interconnect to offer clients added benefits. SureVoIP has also partnered with Xconnect on their Global Alliance program, as well as two other U.K. VoIP carriers.

SureVoIP also provides 24/7 emergency telephone support.

Gavin Henry, managing director of SureVoIP, and founding member of the Suretec Group, said, "Our journey to securing the approval from Ofcom has been long and complex, involving the submission of detailed business plans, demonstrating an in-depth knowledge of the Communications Act 2003, various legal requirements, help from ITSPA (we've worked so hard that we will soon be getting the ITSPA Quality Mark), documentation and a significant investment in equipment throughout the U.K. With out FreeSWITCH and the FreeSWITCH community this would not have been possible."

"Our position as an Ofcom regulated service provider will make us a preferred supplier, as we are ideally placed to offer a holistic and competitive service to clients within the North-east of Scotland and beyond," Henry said. "The applications of VoIP technology are clear and we see it being of particular interest to the oil and gas, shipping, legal and financial industries as they need to make international, reliable and cost effective communications as a basic function."

"FreeSWITCH has been instrumental in passing interoperability testing with all carriers and especially BT. It's scales so well that our hardware usage is kept to the minimum needed to power our reliable and fault tolerant core platform. We also use FreeSWITCH and FusionPBX to power our hosted platforms, oh and let's not forget OpenSIPS and PostgreSQL."

"We're all about Open Source software and it's no secret that millions of customers and consumers worldwide benefit from projects like FreeSWITCH, even if they don't know it. The community behind FreeSWITCH is always so responsive. The IRC channel is brilliant, the mailing list is brilliant as is the commercial support available from the project team, which is also second to none. It's actually quite hard to fault the project at all", says Gavin Henry.

Established in Scotland in 2003, the Suretec Group specializes in open source IT support and consultancy, open source telecoms and training in open source software. SureVoIP is the fourth division within the group, which also includes Suretec Systems, Suretec Telecoms and Suretec Training.