Jola Cloud Solutions' Blog

Jola, the leading mobile data specialist in the channel, has teamed up with Three Business UK to develop and launch Unlimited SIMs specifically designed for resellers. Jola is offering a range of competitive Unlimited SIMs on the UK’s fastest 5G network.

There is huge demand from businesses for unlimited SIMs for mobile phones, tablets, routers and smart devices at competitive rates. Resellers have struggled to compete with Mobile Network Operators directly until now. Jola’s Three Business Unlimited SIMs combine the UK’s best 5G network with price points which allow resellers to make substantial recurring margins.

Lee Broxson, Jola’s CSO commented, “Our channel partners have been asking for competitive, unlimited SIMs for phones, tablets and routers for some time and the Three Business Unlimited SIMs meet the requirement. Being on the UK’s fastest 5G data network, with 99% UK 3G/4G coverage means they will work anywhere and will access the UK’s fastest 5G speeds at no extra cost.”

In a recent partner satisfaction survey, Jola scored a Net Promoter Score of 63, which categorises the company as ‘great’, with 43% of Jola partners giving them 10/10 and 93% scoring them 7 or higher. In the comments section, Jola partners praised Jola products, pricing, portals and people.

Andrew Dickinson, Jola CEO, commented, ‘I am delighted with our NPS. We now have over 1300 resellers and MSPs choosing Jola as their mobile data and intelligent connectivity partner. Our relentless product development continues with a long list of new products designed to help partners differentiate their offerings and win bigger deals. We have a fully redundant highly scalable IP edge network with DDoS protection from Cloudflare, and we continue to grow and invest in people, products, platforms and processes. We have a fantastic team here at Jola who are dedicated to supporting our growing partner base and it was great to see so many of them named in the survey by partners.”

Mobile data opportunities in construction are plentiful, as companies look to improve their waste management, reduce their construction costs and improve employee safety.

All construction sites need temporary telephony and WiFi for site offices. Jola partners operating in construction are also providing mobile data solutions for tracking and monitoring equipment and for security solutions such as IP CCTV cameras and alarm systems to help construction sites improve security and reduce costs.

Tool Handling

On a construction site, an array of tools are used by trained operatives to complete jobs at each stage of the project. Cranes, for example, need to be fitted with data loggers to record key operational parameters so lifting operations can be reviewed and monitored.

Equipment Monitoring

Asset-tracking devices can now be glued to almost any construction tool. Bluetooth technology combined with an app on a smartphone allows for a near-real-time tracking of location. It also records where the device was last seen should it go missing. 

Worker Safety

Push-to-talk radios, monitoring and recording devices all help improve communications and support safe systems of work.

Site Monitoring

Construction sites are often targeted by criminals so tracking assets and investing in CCTV is a must for sites however long they are operational.

Challenges

One of the biggest challenges construction companies face is managing their IT requirements in multiple sites on short-term contracts. Channel partners can help by offering short-term contracts and devices on a DaaS model with no upfront costs. SIMs can be carefully monitored in Mobile Manager and pooled data allows usage to be shared. Companies like Jola are helping partners operating in vertical markets such as construction and manufacturing, to understand the needs of their end-users and provide case studies of similar solutions used with excellent pricing to help win the deals.

Mobile data is helping businesses innovate within the service and maintenance industry. Jola partners offer solutions using smart devices and multi-network roaming SIMs to help them service vehicle fleets. It is much more accurate and efficient than engineers completing manual paperwork and office staff retyping this information into relevant systems. Private APNs are used to ensure secure data transfer.

Jola resellers help property owners and developers to monitor carbon levels. They have created solutions to monitor energy consumption across many different devices within the home. Their devices need 4G to report usage information and for general maintenance of the equipment.

We support resellers working on predictive maintenance within commercial ovens. The devices monitor the health of the ovens, predicting in advance, when the ovens will need to be serviced.

Jola MSPs offer managed solutions on a pay-per-month basis. SIMs are being used in smart sensors to measure air quality, as well as in smart fire and burglar alarms. Smart routers that are pre-configured and arrive plug-and-play help reduce installation costs and multi-network SIMs negate the need for engineer visits.

With technologies being switched off (PSTN, ISDN, 3G) and the current economic climate, demand for cost-effective, managed mobile data solutions from the Channel, has never been so high.

Hotels and care homes are replacing single phone lines with managed 4G solutions and other single PSTN applications like lifts, alarm lines and door entry systems are following suit. There is a need for secure pre-configured 4G routers for digital signage, temporary WiFi for construction sites and fixed IP SIMs for CCTV cameras. Multi-Net SIMs are required for ANPR cameras, wearables and tracking devices. 3G SIMs in thousands of devices from fixed line backup to street signs need to be replaced.

The list goes on, and the opportunity for the channel is massive. The challenge is finding the opportunities each partner can win and to do this Jola has come up with a unique process called The Mobile-Data Revenue Generator™.

Jola is helping channel partners uncover prospects with immediate requirements for mobile data SIMs. We help develop unique solutions that partners can't buy from anyone else, at a competitive price and healthy margin. We are channel-only so partners can trust us to help them pitch and close deals. We are on hand to support partners and their customers throughout the buying process and we can help create winning propositions, producing large, high-margin long-term contracts.

Jola celebrates its 9th birthday in April 2023, after its best-ever financial performance and in a year when it became the channel arm of Wireless Logic.

Jola has increased its partner base to over 1300 and continued its relentless product development, with a string of new products designed to help Jola partners differentiate their offerings and win major deals from the mobile networks direct. The Mobile Data Revenue Generator™ has been successful in helping partners to identify and win new business, increasing Average Revenue per Customer and reducing churn.

The channel has always thrived on technological change and compelling events like the 2025 PSTN switch-off is significant. To help partners capitalise on this, Jola developed a PSTN Replacement Toolkit which offers partners everything they need to replace PSTN lines with 4G/5G solutions. Combined with their Device as a Service proposition Jola partners do not need to pay any upfront costs and benefit from hardware replacement and upgrade options.

Andrew Dickinson, CEO of Jola commented, “In 2022 we closed the books on our eighth full year and were acquired by Wireless Logic. We continue to grow and invest in people, products, platforms and processes. We have a talented team here at Jola who are dedicated to supporting our growing partner base. It is great to see so many Jola partners building profitable revenue streams from our unique mobile data solutions.”

With demand for 4G and 5G data at an all-time high, resellers and MSPs need a way to manage global SIM estates in one portal. Jola’s Mobile Manager® gives resellers full control in real-time. Resellers using the portal are able to monitor data usage and add bolt-ons to avoid monthly data overage charges. Mobile Manager® allows partners to order and manage voice and data SIMs, data-only SIMs, mobile broadband SIMs, M2M and IoT data SIMs and pre-configured hardware.

Mobile data revenues are growing rapidly, with high demand for smart devices, such as digital signage, CCTV and tracking and monitoring. Jola has partners deploying pre-configured, intelligent 4G/5G connectivity for projects globally, negating the need for site surveys and manual configuration. Mobile Manager® allows our partners to monitor and manage each SIM in one easy portal. One of our partners showed us a tender they were working on recently and one of the questions was,

“Do you have your own real-time SIM management portal or are you providing third-party access to the Networks’ portals?”

The project was for thousands of SIMs in physical security devices. 2.5 years into a 36-month term, the incumbent had not been invited to tender. For redundancy, every device had two SIMs, one unlimited and one multi-network. The end user had found having to log on to two completely different websites exasperating. They had different features, and different CDR formats and not all the processes were automated, creating delays, especially out of hours. If that’s the experience of the end user, imagine the frustration of MSPs who want to sell all the networks to multiple end users.

Most suppliers will say they have a self-service portal but if they don’t have their own they are putting their partners at a significant disadvantage. How many of these portals are fully automated? Is data available in real time? Can intelligent devices be ordered and managed on the portal? How many people use the portal on a daily basis? How fast is it?

With technologies being switched off (PSTN, ISDN, 3G) and the current economic climate, demand for cost-effective, managed mobile data solutions from the Channel, has never been so high.

Hotels and care homes are replacing single phone lines with managed 4G solutions and other single PSTN applications like lifts, alarm lines and door entry systems are following suit. There is a need for secure pre-configured 4G routers for digital signage, temporary WiFi for construction sites and fixed IP SIMs for CCTV cameras. Multi-Net SIMs are required for ANPR cameras, wearables and tracking devices. 3G SIMs in thousands of devices from fixed line backup to street signs need to be replaced.

The list goes on, and the opportunity for the channel is massive. The challenge is finding the opportunities each partner can win and to do this Jola has come up with a unique process called The Mobile Data Revenue Generator™.

Jola is helping channel partners uncover prospects with immediate requirements for mobile data SIMs. We help develop unique solutions that partners can't buy from anyone else, at a competitive price and healthy margin. We are channel-only so partners can trust us to help them pitch and close deals. We are on hand to support partners and their customers throughout the buying process and we can help create winning propositions, producing large, high-margin long-term contracts.

It is clear that Covid has changed the workplace forever and beneficiaries have been the UC and collaboration solutions such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom and WebEx.  In most workplaces, the option didn’t exist to regularly work remotely and as a result, companies didn’t necessarily provide UC and collaboration tools required.  Covid changed all that and remote working became mandatory for most of us.  At first, we used the tools to simply have multi-person video calls, but quickly started sharing screens and in many cases moved to mass participation web conferences. 

In the past, it was the PBX or hosted PBX providers that were providing UC add-ons to their basic service sometimes at a significant premium.  Now it is the collaboration vendors that, with the addition of PSTN calling, are now displacing the PBX and/or hosted PBX.  It is now relatively easy to port a UK PSTN number to an MS Teams user and use that single client (desktop and mobile) to be able to interact using the rich Teams experience or make and receive traditional voice calls as required.

At the moment the UC collaboration experience is all based on two dimensions video and screen sharing.  However, we already see our SIMs being used in Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) applications in specialist industries with purpose-built tools and devices.  However companies such as Microsoft, Apple and Google are investing heavily in AR and VR for both consumers and businesses.  This combined with the widespread availability of 5G makes me think it won’t be too far away before the UC and Collaboration tools that we use every day start to open up AR and VR for widespread B2B use.

How is the UK progressing with the rollout of 5G and full fibre technologies?

All 4 major UK networks are well underway with their 5G rollouts. Three and EE are ahead in terms of numbers of cities compared with Vodafone and O2, however the reality is that most major cities now have 5G which accounts for over 50% of the population.  The expectation being set by the operators is that it will take a further 5 years to reach 90% of the population.  Achieving this will involve turning off the 3G networks to re-use that spectrum to support 5G.  The last 10% may well require technology or an approach that has not yet been used in UK mobile networks such as using 5G satellite constellations to provide infill.

Biggest opportunities

The performance offered by 5G can be better than the performance offered by the fixed line broadband service available in many locations.  The channel are bound to have customers with poor broadband performance and 5G could well be the answer, especially when combined with a high performance 5G router and external antenna.

5G provides high performance Internet access in locations where there is no fixed line connectivity at all.  This means locations where solutions such as hosted voice, collaboration, IP CCTV could never have been supplied are now accessible for the first time.

5G requires new devices to take full advantage of the increased performance.  A fact often overlooked is that all the UK networks support LTE-Advanced or 4G+ with a much larger footprint than their 5G networks and yet the vast majority of 4G routers on the market today don’t take advantage of the extra performance.  In some cases a good quality LTE-Advanced or 5G router would provide up to 4 times the performance on 4G compared to using a device that doesn’t support LTE-Advanced.  In many cases where you’re deploying 4G in a fixed location we would recommend installing a 5G router because it will provide much better 4G performance and will be ready for 5G when the coverage reaches that location.

Biggest challenges

One of the biggest challenges is that a customers existing equipment may not be ready for the latest 5G or full fibre technologies. This means that there is a potentially significant capital expenditure required.

To address this problem, we launched our Device as a Service offering.  Good quality, high performance 5G devices are expensive, potentially three or four times the price of the equivalent 4G device.  Our channel told us that this was an obstacle to 5G adoption.  So now we offer all our devices on an Op-Ex model so that the channel partner and the customer don’t have any hefty upfront costs that might put them off taking advantage of 5G.