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Guerilla redefines corporate connectivity, putting the user first

Disruptive technology provider designs a better way to consume business mobile phones and tariffs
Mobile networks have had the same “free phone” strategy for too long
Providing simple, low costs financing platforms for handsets allows monthly tariff costs to be reduced like never before
Now more affordable to invest in the right products at the right time to meet increasing demands

Disruptive technology company, Guerilla ICT, is shaking up the telecommunications sector by creating a new business model that no longer allows telco providers to hold business to ransom.

Company founder Craig Hall says: “For too long, corporate telecommunication providers have tried to incorporate the punitive costs of ever-more complex smartphones into mobile network’s tariff charges.”

“This business model needs changing urgently, but resellers and networks appear reluctant to move to a new, moore appropriate business model.”

Frustrated with the incumbent industry norms, veteran telco expert Craig Hall set up a new kind of company, Guerilla ICT, in 2020, offering digital disruption to an industry that does not evolve fast enough to suit the needs of dynamic customers.

Now, thanks to Guerilla ICT’s simple and straightforward approach to corporate communications and technology needs, businesses of all sizes can take full advantage of access to the latest equipment and cost-effective communications, without feeling like they are being ‘held to ransom’ by a phone tariff.

Guerilla provides the smartphone and tariffs companies require to operate most effectively, on a fixed price plan – entirely separate to the network tariff. This ‘customer first’ approach seems, shockingly, to be a new idea in the enterprise telecoms sector.

The best phones become affordable thanks to excellent financial terms, reducing capital outlay to zero. And rather than fixing the tariff to the hardware requirement (an inefficient way to buy hardware), customers are free to move to SIM-only network contracts, greatly reducing monthly outlay for every handset .

Customers are also free to mix and match networks to suit local requirements, such as signal coverage. Hall can easily show how this method reduces overall monthly outlay, while increasing employee’s effective communications – from everywhere.

“We are putting contractual power into your hands, because you are not repaying the network for the cost of the phones, or being tied into a bad deal. Since 1996, vendors have been selling contracts to companies that suit their needs, rather than creating cost-effective, more bespoke packages with the customer in mind – and now we are, at last, changing that,” says Craig Hall.

The disruptive new model dovetails with other areas where Guerilla ICT is also shaking up and improving the communications business.

Craig and his team, in spending this last year talking to many struggling business owners, is offering a new way to manage communications. Simply put, Guerilla helps companies ensure they are maximising their telecommunications and providing the best possible tools to ensure key talent has the best possible tools for the job.

He says: “Given the prevalence of remote working this year, a few urgent matters have come to the fore. We need to achieve three big shifts in the relationship between comms suppliers and clients. Firstly, we need to create fairer terms and shorter, more flexible contracts.

“Secondly, we need to integrate the best technology in creative ways to solve real problems. Finally, we need to remove waste and fat from bills to free up capital to help our clients focus on more ambitious outcomes.”

Craig’s long industry knowledge and contacts mean Guerilla can offer phones at fantastic price points, giving staff the opportunity to take full advantage of the latest technology, connectivity and productivity tools. Guerilla is working to separate the conversation between discussing hardware needs and business communications needs – which have been intertwined for too long.

“Vendors provide a finite amount of money by way of a network commission. This changes the conversation from what is necessary, to ‘what can we afford within the pot of money provided?’. This often creates unfair decisions on who can have an upgrade this year and who will have to wait two more years. The smartphone needs to be an asset to all employees, so the priority should be shifted. Our new business model brings that into effect,” he explains.

The move to mobile office working makes the timing of this launch even more important.

“We have to change the conversation, and this is a great way to do that because we don’t have to wait until a clients’ mobile contract is up before we look at supplying equipment. Do you have faulty phones? Don’t hang on, come to us now and we will provide the equipment straight away. Then, when your contract is due for renewal, let us loose to reduce monthly costs right down,” says the expert.

On top of an easy way to get the latest phones – and even reward the hard work of teams working under difficult conditions – Craig offers his famous ‘Cup of Tea Challenge’.

The challenge is a chance for Craig to explain how he can help extract business users from over-priced, over-complicated and often inappropriate communication contracts, in the time it takes to make and drink a cuppa.

“Whether you feel stuck in a contract, or simply want to cut costs, I’m always delighted to offer help and advice,” he says, “and we are now at a tipping point. I set up Guerilla ICT as I was tired of waiting for the larger telco providers to realise they needed to listen and respond to customer’s needs, rather than deliver what they always have.I’m doing it myself, and have been inundated with companies requesting details of how to get out of costly contracts.”

“I ask people to answer a few simple questions,” concludes Craig: “Do you want help in ensuring your company survives these tumultuous times? Do you want your staff to enjoy a professional point of presence, office level connectivity on the road, and the latest phones? And do you want to save money on your monthly phone and internet bill? Get the kettle on…let’s talk!”

Whatever your connectivity issues – or however intractable you might feel your incumbent contract is – Craig offers a free consultation with the aim of helping every business weather the current adverse economic conditions.

Broadband, Contracts

Stop the chatter – time to take remote working to the next level

There’s simply no need to suffer poor connectivity at home, and as we continue working remotely, we need to ensure we can communicate properly…

We’ve all been there. You’re online – Zoom, Skype, Teams – and are about to make a major presentation, or you’re listening in on a vital company update from the board – and your signal drops. The call is dead, and so is that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

If you’ve ever wondered why your Zoom meetings are such poor quality, you might not know that the biggest roadblock when working from home is simply this: it’s a difficult environment to deliver Wi-Fi.

It’s annoying, it’s frustrating and it can be embarrassing. But it needn’t be like this. Craig Hall and the Guerilla ICT team feel your pain. We might all have to communicate from home, we might all be working remotely, but Guerilla ICT can, at least, help ensure smooth comms.

And smooth comms are vital for business survival right now. We can’t live in a world where important client meetings drop, where we are all moaning about poor Wifi – when it’s not even the fault of the Wifi, but more often than not, it’s a simple case of a few tweaks, a different piece of kit and the enterprise savvy of Craig and his team.

Internet to the device

Says the veteran comms expert: “We have heard so many people complaining about bad Wifi. But more often than not, it is not the WiFi signal – it’s how the signal is affected in the home, or the home office, or office.

“There are myriad reasons why broadband is affected in personal properties. But now, more than ever, it needs to be a business-grade product. Our commitment is not just internet by any means. It is Internet to the device by any means. It matters not if your perimeter wall has high speed fibre broadband If your inner walls have affected radio transmission.”

There’s a myriad of solutions, of course. Craig’s argument is that while we are moving towards the second year of working remotely and working from home, it’s time business leaders helped ensure their remote workers enjoy enterprise level connectivity.

And how to achieve that? Firstly, it’s worth getting a bit of context.

Craig explains how Wifi signals operate in a tiny bandwidth. (And remember, bandwidth is the volume of information that can be sent over a connection in a measured amount of time). As we are all using more web connected devices, for more data intensive applications than ever before at home, it’s important to make sure bandwidth increases as well.

If you’re at home, your Zoom call is competing with your Sky Q, Netflix, the microwave, your phone(s), your tablets, your gaming console, etc etc- not to mention all your neighbours’ devices. And all these devices are trying to get in on a signal in a tiny range.

Listening out for chatter

“Imagine being in a crowded pub on a Friday night with a mate – you can only hear each other if you start raising your voice. Or imagine a swimming pool on a busy day, you can fit 250 people in the pool, but no-one will be able to swim – this is what we’re up against in terms of your broadband content. And it’s what we call chatter. Our job is often to find the best way to literally cut through the chatter,” he explains.

A strong signal could be directed into your house, but it can be shattered like a crystal glass once over the threshold, given the number of devices fighting for it.

And then there’s the physical environment. Craig says we can think of Wifi like radio waves. Walls, doors and natural landscapes can all weaken the signal strength. And it’s on the same spectrum as light. “If you can’t shine a torch through it, the signal won’t go through,” says Craig.

And modern houses made with aluminium-backed plasterboard, for example, act like signal-blocking Faraday cages – in other words, your entire home could be acting like a shield, stopping Wifi signal in its tracks. Certainly, many of us experience different signal strengths from room to room – and this can be explained simply by understanding how the walls are made.

Craig’s career has seen him deliver powerful broadband connectivity to hundreds of businesses and communities, and he readily admits he ‘headed back to school’ to discover how best to deliver broadband to devices within properties. Home networks are predominantly wireless, whereas businesses are predominantly wired. So, that’s a major difference between home working and working within office premises.

Swimming lanes

Craig picks up on the problem again: “The biggest thing is that you’re working on a very crowded broadband spectrum. There are devices within premises that are eating away at the capacity of the wireless, (known as co-channel interference) and homes are often on estates where your home and others are very close – and are broadcasting within the same bands.”

There are several tips and tricks that can be used to help ensure the signal gets better, such as separating out devices that are vying for space. Going back to the busy swimming pool analogy, Craig says Guerilla ICT’s offer is the equivalent of putting swimming lanes in for each device.

“We can also use the Earth of an electrical circuit to create a data network to get past the walls, but it’s done in such a way as to compliment the router not to battle the router, which out of box products don’t do,” he adds.

In his experience, larger more broadband-hungry devices should be hard wired into the network. So TVs and gaming consoles should enjoy a wired connection. Smaller, less used and less broadband hungry devices like phones can be used wirelessly.

The problem with extenders

“We break things down. We also defend the home against other signals from other properties by moving the bands and making sure they’re in quiet space. We do this using Wi-Fi survey tools, which measure the signal and the signal to noise of everything in the environment. So, as we walk around a property, we can locate ‘black spots’ and can put in solutions to solve those black spots. It’s done through facts, not supposition.

Another part of Craig’s frustration is that he feels It is not fair for a customer without experience of engineering connectivity solutions to go and take a product off the shelf and expect to maximize the use of it themselves.

Surely WiFi extenders go some way to solving the problems?

Craig says no: “So one of the biggest problems is people who buy Wi-Fi extenders. So they take the Wi-Fi signal in the location and then power it up and redistribute it out from their own device. It’s a plug-in device. The problem is it is taking bandwidth from the router. It is not using the wire of the Earth to get to it, and therefore is crowding out the actual router itself.

There is another issue. There are two different internal Wi-Fi frequency bands available – 2.4 gigahertz and 5 gigahertz. Within each band there are different channels – Essentially, WiFi channels are smaller bands within the 2.54 or 5GHz WiFi frequency bands, used by your wireless network to send and receive data.

Bands on the run

Current 2.4 Ghz bands offer only 100 megahertz bandwidth, and just 14 channels available in that narrow bandwidth. Routers and other devices are pre-set to mostly connect via the three biggest channels – 1, 6 or 11. So you can see the problem – there is very limited space for devices to compete for bandwidth. Where 5Ghz connections are available there is a larger range, so less crowded channels, and more bandwidth.

Craig explains: “Immediately when you plug anything in, it’s automatically trying to go for those three bands, so is your neighbour’s router, so are all the other devices.”

Off the shelf products all have pretty much the same defaults (utilising those three crowded channels) and because nobody is treating this with the detail it deserves, everyone is just plugging in a bunch of default settings, adding to the problem, often without even realising.

Craig can visit a property and explore connectivity with a signal strength meter, and advise on where and how to position routers, and earth mains connected signal extenders.

He then creates a ‘perimeter of power’, ensuring strong connectivity as required throughout the property, cutting down on interference and chatter.

“Poor connectivity is always either due to a poor signal between your device and your router, or an interfered signal through the air. Our job is to see this and to counter it. Our job is to use our expertise and our knowledge of the reasons why these issues arise, to create an on-net environment within a property.

“It’s by understanding the weaknesses that we can use them. We use our knowledge and experience of getting fast broadband to people’s devices in business and consumer properties and crucially we create affordable solutions,” concludes the expert.

Time to call the experts

Don’t live with poor quality video calls and meetings. You simply don’t need to. What you need to do is call the experts – like Guerilla ICT – to analyse your property, your signal strength and identify the issue, and create a smooth, less stressful work environment for all.

Says Craig: “My message is simply this: – company owners need to invest a little effort, time and capital in ensuring all their staff enjoy the same levels of good connectivity they have come to expect in their work environment, regardless of where they are. Communications continuity is going to help people survive the storms that are coming. Why suffer business losses and poor communications for the sake of a brief meeting with me, and often, a same-day solution?”

As the much-used phrase goes, this is the new normal, and if we need to carry on working remotely and conducting business online, isn’t it time your company enjoyed enterprise level connectivity at home?

Broadband

Proving businesses can get blazing broadband

Guerilla ICT proves businesses can get blazing broadband ‘by any means’.

Disruptive telecoms and high speed business internet provider company brings Nottingham businesses 2020 broadband. How to clean up your business broadband connectivity from super-slow to blazing in a few hours.

Nottingham-based Kitchen & Bathroom World prides itself on exceptional customer service and delight, providing a growing customer base with the kitchens and bathrooms of their dreams.

But one element of the business, especially during the ongoing pandemic, was leaving a gap in their otherwise exemplary service: poor broadband connectivity.

Connectivity is not only key to servicing client needs, but it now lies at the core of successful business management – and survival.

For years, Kitchen and Bathroom World suffered with poor broadband connectivity, with no answer in site.

Kitchen & Bathroom World Director David Green said: “While our business is very much in the real world, we have seen an increasing reliance on the need for strong, secure broadband, and it has become increasingly frustrating that we excel in every area of our business, apart from this one vital element – timely communication.”

For such a renowned and respected company to often rely on staff mobile connectivity for swift customer communication is simply impractical.

Step up Guerilla ICT, the disruptive telecoms and high speed business internet communications provider with a “broadband by any means” philosophy, and a deep understanding of business communications built over three decades of experience in the field.

Craig Hall, Guerilla ICT’s founder says: “Good broadband has never been so vital to business survival – along with ensuring your remote workforce is ‘always-on’, with the same ‘presence’ regardless of how a customer communicates. I see bad contracts and terrible connection speeds every day, and it’s heartbreaking.

“We work to enable businesses to take full advantage of the latest technologies, but also save them money, by helping them escape lengthy, inappropriate and overly complex telecoms contracts.”

KItchen & Bathroom World asked for Craig’s help, and it took the time it takes to drink a cup of tea – Guerilla ICT’s now famous ‘cup of tea challenge’ – for the comms expert to explain his company’s ‘broadband by any means’ philosophy and that he would find a way to fix the seemingly intractable connectivity issue.

After a thorough search of Guerilla ICT’s cherry picked supply chain, it was identified that only ethernet or costly fibre options were available to the company.

Craig quickly undertook a 4G/5G survey at the Castle Boulevard, Nottingham premises and discovered a fantastic 5G signal was available.

Says Craig: “Our survey showed download speeds of over 100Mb. So we quickly organised our kit and installed it – but not before taking a speed test of their current connection.”

That speed test revealed a miserable download speed of 3.18 megabits per second (Mbps), and a shocking upload speed of 0.58Mbps.

“I was shocked. This is 2020, and how can a business be expected to run at speeds like that?,” says Craig. For context, the most recent OFCOM report suggests average UK home broadband speed is now 64 megabits per second, despite the massive increase in traffic caused by the pandemic lockdowns and working from home.

With the swift installation of a Huawei plug and play 5G router and sim card, coupled with a signal-boosting ultra wideband MiMo antenna, Green and his team immediately saw a rapid increase in their connectivity speed.

Download speeds at the site were now being recorded at a blazing 284Mbps, while uploads sit at a healthy 23.03Mbps – the sort of speeds appropriate for a modern business with more and more dealings online.

David Green, Director of Kitchen & Bathroom World says: “It was mind-blowing to see how quickly Guerilla ICT resolved our broadband issue, which before meeting Craig had seemed impossible to fix. It’s probably the best cup of tea I’ve ever had.”

“We’re now enjoying the fastest broadband I’ve ever seen, which means we can deal with customers more efficiently and effectively – and it’s cheaper than the broken broadband we were stuck with before!”

In fact, David is so delighted and impressed, he has asked Guerilla to improve the broadband at the company’s other site, and even connectivity at his home address.

“I will definitely be contacting all my local business connections to recommend Guerilla ICT to service their needs. In a tough year, saving costs and improving our communications is a real boon, and will help your business plan for a longer, brighter future,” concludes the director.

Partners

Connectus joins Guerilla ICT to bring clarity and cost-effective IT solutions

Connectus is joining forces with disruptive start-up Guerilla ICT to deliver ultrafast broadband, telephony, IT and cyber security services to SME and enterprise customers across the Midlands in a new way.

Guerilla ICT, brainchild of industry veteran Craig Hall, aims to provide a no-nonsense straightforward and cost effective raft of IT and communication services, helping businesses to mitigate cost complexity, unfathomable contracts and risk.

Hall says he has launched his new company after 25 years of frustration with big industry players, and the way they sold their technology – locking businesses into inappropriate packages at great cost.

The fundamental Guerilla difference is that companies are advised firstly how to save money, and secondly how to make best use of appropriate technology, rather than being strong armed

into ‘one-size fits all’ packages.

Craig Hall became aware of Connectus through a connection with company investor and Connectus sister company DropJaw Ventures. After discussions with the owners, he knew Connectus shared his strong customer care philosophy and desire to push the right technology to market. “As soon as Guerilla ICT became a reality, it was inevitable that the partnership would happen,” says Craig.

Hall and his team can help companies extricate themselves from existing contracts and then offer a bespoke equipment leasing plan, allowing companies the flexibility of growing their technology backbone as the business grows. Being vendor agnostic, Guerilla’s partnership with Connectus is a no-brainer.

“Connectus shares our vision of honest, straightforward technology solutions – you might say we are bringing old fashioned values to 21st century bleeding edge technology,” explains Hall.

The maverick managing director of Derby-headquartered Guerilla ICT says “I am delighted to have a flexible partnership with Connectus for the main strands of our supply chain. The Connectus team will help us deliver the desired outcomes for all our clients, current and future.”

Speaking of the new partnership, Andy Marsden, Group Business Development Director, Connectus, says: “Connectus is delighted to be working with Guerilla IT to enable us to deliver a suite of managed services to SME and Enterprise customers via our well-renowned and established ‘Connect, Protect and Collaborate’ model. This is a complete white label solution to assist Guerilla in its ambitious growth plans.”

Connectus’ Connect, Protect and Collaborate model encompasses a blend of fully managed services to protect businesses, enable them to scale, and create sustainable competitive advantage.

Connectus brings a range of services covering connectivity, network and cybersecurity, voice, IT support and data storage and backup to leading organisations across the North East and Midlands.

Investment

DropJaw helps drive digital disruption with investment in Guerilla ICT

DropJaw Ventures Group, the award-winning business advisory firm, has invested in Guerilla ICT, a disruptive technology firm set to change the way companies connect forever.

Guerilla ICT is the brainchild of Craig Hall, a communications and IT industry veteran who was fed up with the way the industry provides solutions to business.

“You might say the lockdown provided me with the time and impetus to set up the business that I’ve actually had in mind for 25 years. It’s the culmination of 25 years of frustration and battles with big industry players, which has led to Guerilla ICT – a new company for the modern era,” he said.

DropJaw immediately saw value in the start-up, being closely aligned with the ICT sector itself.

DropJaw Ventures Group Managing Partner Roy Shelton said: “We are delighted to be the sole investor to Guerilla ICT. This is our fourth transaction in as many months and reinforces the DropJaw approach of providing access to capital and advisory services to companies wishing to scale-up, along with our ability to complete quickly.

“Our focus on working with the talented teams across the technology and professional services sectors continues to add value to our portfolio companies, as we adopt a hands on role creating a trading market place and an immersive shared learning experience.”

Guerilla’s MD Craig Hall was delighted to receive vital funding from DropJaw, which will be immediately put to use in marketing and developing the company.

“The business model is simple,” he explains, “we are disrupting and revolutionising the way a client consumes their voice and data, to create a compelling, sustainable competitive advantage. It all starts with a simple challenge. We want a client to put their ICT bills on the table, make me a cup of tea and in the time it takes me to drink it, I’ll show how I can save them money.”

Some of Hall’s reasoning behind his disruptive new company lies with the fact that IT and telecoms companies lock businesses into inappropriate packages at great cost.

Craig says he’s been frustrated how businesses are still being forced to buy things like they did 20 or 30 years ago, suggesting that “Our sector seems stuck. Access to technology has changed to such a degree that a more disruptive and beneficial approach to supply should have happened years ago, but the incentive not to change is high. Hardware and ongoing costs benefit the vendor to the detriment of the client, so we are shifting that focus to the client.

“We design what they need and ensure we have the best partners who will plug into part of our overall project needs with their own specialised skills. We then focus on bringing it all together and making it work.”

Guerilla provides a service based on assessed needs, and delivers end user (hardware) equipment needed, such as laptops and smartphones, on a tax-efficient capital equipment lease basis.

“We supply clients with a simple technology finance plan that funds each desk of a member of staff, then provide an “all you can eat buffet” of services, calls and data access for a simple monthly subscription. We ensure everyone is always on and always available wherever they are, thanks to innovative apps, rock solid reliability and iron security,” says the maverick.

Guerilla’s refreshingly simple approach means transparent contracts, simple monthly fees – which also avoids high set-up costs – and a flexible approach. “We appreciate that companies grow and contract, and we offer cloud-based services which can change with your business, rather than leaving you stuck in multi-year contracts which may no longer be appropriate.”

Craig and his new company see vast untapped opportunities in the sector to help companies save money and enjoy state-of-the-art technologies at a fraction of previous costs. He also seeks to bring fairness back to the supplier/client relationship.

“Thanks to my experience and expertise, and DropJaw’s investment, Guerilla is here to smash the status quo,” concludes the company founder.