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I was honoured to give my views on the future of the copper network in UK to the Federation of Communication Services annual Comms Provider event this year.   My crystal ball is as flawed as most peoples, but I took the opportunity to look back at customer behaviour over the last 20 years, took current analysis and then looked forward.   Ultimately, the customer is in charge of our collective destinies, the question is, what are we going to do about it?

A masterclass in the role of marketing in the channel from Mark Saunders, Group Marketing Director of Nine Group. Throughout this conversation we touch on so many things, systems, relationship marketing, brand and permission based marketing.  How do you use the information that your business collects?  

I was delighted to visit Pangea's offices in Surbiton this month to speak with Dan Cunliffe on the what the IoT really means to the UK reseller.  Pangea are a Global IoT solutions provider, so I was really keen to understand this new market place from his perspective. There are a couple of real lightbulb moments in this podcast, not least of all how if we simply change our perception of what we believe the IoT to be every reseller has the opportunity to benefit from it. There is also a great description of a wide area network that demonstrates this belief perfectly. And a stark warning at the very end! Enjoy.

So we've written quite a bit about the Internet of Things, but in this episode of the Twisted Copper Pair podcast we get into the detail with Erich Hugo of BAS ITG. During the conversation Erich dispels a few myths, gives us an insight into how IoT solutions come about and their practical value.   It is a master-class in lateral thinking and some great examples of how these seemingly complex relationships between hardware and communication can solve real world problems.   Watch out for next weeks episode when we will be exploring this topic a little more, and a little closer to home.

The say that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link and this is especially true of over the top services such as voice over IP.    Given that the value chain in deploying solutions such as these can involve numerous product and service providers, leaving anything to chance is, quite simply, bonkers.   I caught up recently with James Clarke, managing director of JPL to get his view on how things have changed in the channel and what might be in store.

Innovation in the telcoms channel fascinates us here at Copper Road. The journey from the copper network to technologies such as virtual reality affects us all. But as in all journeys, the starting point is as important as the destination, so for this, the first episode of the Twisted Copper Pair pod cast we caught up with Christian Bleakley of Telesis, Karl Cheshire of Lascom and Lee Waller from LA Connect, to find out what they think of Voice over IP, BT's announcement on the copper network and the challenges facing resellers today.