talkSPORT_1What would happen if the phones went down at the UK’s largest national commercial sports radio station? It’s not something the talkSPORT team want to contemplate, and that’s why they’ve turned to Beckett Telecom to maintain their Siemens telephony system.

Beckett is now in its seventh year of supporting talkSPORT, working hand in hand with the on-site voice team to keep the show on the road (or on the air, as it were…). Their hard work at this 24/7 site ensures the radio station’s three million listeners have the chance to share their views live on air, speaking to sports-star presenters including Darren Gough and Stan Collymore.

Chris Davis, Managing Director at Beckett Telecom, says, “There can be few organisations that rely so heavily on good communications in the day-to-day operation of their business.  We’re proud to play our part in the smooth-running of one of the UK’s most successful commercial radio stations.”

Neil Sedley, Technology Manager for talkSPORT, says, “We rely on the ISDN lines for interviews off-site and live commentaries, so the phone system is vital to our business and Beckett work hard to ensure that everything works smoothly.”

Tapping into the tablet revolution

Let’s be frank – laptops are old news. A year ago, a visitor to your office would pull out his or her laptop and run through a few slides. Today, they’re more likely to reach for their iPad or Android tablet. It’s a much niftier way of sharing information and it doesn’t do their street cred any harm, either.

By now, you probably have a Samsung, HTC or Apple personal smartphone rather than a standard-issue work mobile, allowing you to retrieve emails and connect to the internet from any location. The romance with Nokia and Blackberry is over – for now.

If you think of your tablet as just a big version of your smartphone and put your business email account on both to securely retrieve documents on the move, then what is missing? Your work telephone extension, of course.

The application stores are now crammed with softphones. You can download the recommended one for your phone system, open it, and, hey presto, your iPad or Android device doubles as your work phone.  A work call will cause the softphone to pop up instead of the regular calling screen. You are now ‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD) – certified and able to pretend to your kids that you are high tech (even if social networking still remains a mystery to you). Your techno credibility is even higher if your phone system is in the cloud, as these systems also support softphones.

As always, you need to be careful about data limits when using wireless 3/4G devices. Some operators now offer limitless service and, in general, data is getting cheaper.

Beckett Telecom provides the infrastructure to support your on-site computing and we can provide all the Internet bandwidth you need for your wireless coverage in your office. When Beckett Telecom provides your phone service, your staff can use their personal smart device instead of a corporate phone, to work better while on the move.  Let Beckett Telecom help your office to function more efficiently – and improve your street cred!

Proving our worth – a message from our Chairman

No sane person could pretend it’s an easy time out there at the moment and many of our customers have a tough year ahead, with ambitious targets to save money and difficulty gaining approval for capital projects, despite the benefits. It’s important for all of us to prove our value to the businesses and organisations we work for.

At Beckett Telecom we have been steadily growing our maintenance business as customers find we can be very flexible, provide more for less and, more to the point, we can provide what our customers actually want, rather than blindly persisting with the “one size fits all” model.

In June we’ll be launching our Multi-Network Mobile Service and we aim to offer our customers worthwhile savings, great flexibility, simplified billing and free calls between mobiles and fixed telephones.

Our passion is to become increasingly relevant in these times, harnessing Telecoms technology to give the benefits and savings our customers really want, rather than just selling “stuff”!

Graham J Beckett, founder and chairman

Seeing Red

RedNoseDay_2Red Nose Day lay down the challenge recently to ‘do something funny for money’ and our team at Beckett Telecom decided to rise to the occasion.  Did our Managing Director abseil down the building dressed as Superman?

Did we take it in turns to sit in a bath of baked beans?  Did we release our own pop video on YouTube?  Not quite… We had a red-themed lunch buffet in our offices, with everyone bringing in suitably rosy-hued lunch items and giving a donation to Comic Relief in the process.

Ok, so we didn’t make it onto Red Nose Day’s live Friday-night TV show for our innovative fundraising idea,but we did raise £210 for this worthy cause (and munched our way through plenty of beetroot, cherry tomatoes, sticky strawberry laces, jam doughnuts and red cupcakes.

Sound tempting? Thought not…

Meet Graham

WheresWally_1Graham Titcomb, Project Manager at Beckett Telecom, talks about epic battle movies, heavy metal and definitely not becoming a vegetarian…

How long have you worked at Beckett Telecom?

I’ve been with Beckett for eleven years now, the last seven years as Project Manager. Before that I gained a wide range of experience in the Company in different roles.

What does your role involve?

As Project Manager, most of my time is taken up coordinating installation projects, maintenance and upgrade activities. I spend lots of time on the phone to customers and suppliers.

What’s your favourite film?

The action movie 300. I like most epic battle movies, and I enjoy comedy films (Shaun of the Dead, etc…). I’ve been watching a few Carry On films recently with my eldest daughter.

And your favourite take-away?

Kebab. I like anything with a high meat content.

Your top holiday destination?

Anywhere with sun, beach and a bar!  I had a great holiday in Kefalonia some time ago and would really like to go back, although since they filmed Captain Corelli’s Mandolin there, it’s got too expensive.

Any interesting hobbies?

Listening to heavy metal. I’m going to try to see more live bands this year.

What’s the key to Beckett Telecom’s success?

Having a large and varied product portfolio and a flexible attitude enables us to provide a solution for almost any requirement.

Are there any downsides to working for Beckett Telecom?

Absolutely none, it’s a great company to work for. (Pay rise, please…)