After a bit more research, I am no longer confident about O2...

After a bit more research, I am no longer confident about O2 being the winning Lead tender Covata is talking to. Telefonica sold O2 Ireland to Hutchinson in June 2013 and an agreement in principle to sell O2 UK to Hutchinson was reached in March 2015 however the sale has hit huddles with UK and EU Telco regulators. O2 UK pulled out of a UK Emergency Services tender at a late stage mid 2015 due to uncertainty about its corporate structure going forward. Hasn't really changed since then, so I think it is unlikely to be O2 UK. Telefonica still looks like a good candidate as a LATAM Telco partner.

11/04/2016 article: http://www.theweek.co.uk/68673/three-o2-deal-becomes-eu-referendum-issue-after-latest-intervention

Two other strong candidate for the UK G-Cloud tender win are BT and Vodafone.  Both have very strong partnership relationships with Cisco. Vodafone is similar in market cap size to Deutsche Telekom.  Both already have strong links with the UK Government Public Sector and have  G-Cloud capabilities.  I found the following article on the Cisco web site this morning - worth watching the video at the bottom.  Also, some of the senior staff in Covata UK and US used to work for BT (refer ASX announcement 27 Nov 2014 and web site):
* Travis Weston (Director of European Operations) in the UK has worked with BT, Vodafone and Cisco
* Amy Peraza (VP Strategy & Product Marketing) used to work for Cisco
* James Taneyhill (Chief Revenue Officer) used to work for BT Federal in US


http://blogs.cisco.com/security/security-insights-with-british-telecom

Security
Security Insights with British Telecom



Sam Rastogi - January 5, 2016

The explosive growth of video, mobility, Internet-of-Things, and cloud services has brought about enormous business opportunities. Service Providers are adopting open and programmable network architectures that increase business agility and lower costs. However, adversaries are increasingly exploiting the growing attack surface presented by these new services and expanded network connections.
British Telecom, the largest service provider in the UK, has recently announced a partnership with Cisco to deliver threat-centric security solutions based on our joint expertise and leadership. By partnering with Cisco, BT will strengthen network and advanced threat protection capabilities and automate its threat intelligence to detect, analyze and remediate attacks, while providing the same security capabilities in offerings to their customers, with BT Assure Cyber, BT’s Managed Security Portfolio.

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Les Anderson, VP of BT Cyber, and ask him how BT manages security to protect their networks and their customers and to get his take on our new partnership.

Sam Rastogi – Cisco Security: What changes in the threat landscape are you observing?
Les Anderson: Over the last 13 months, BT has experienced a 1,000% increase in threats. We’ve seen our networks targeted in ways that we haven’t seen before. There is unprecedented speed in the innovation, resiliency and evasiveness of cyber attacks.

CS: How do you counter these threats?
LA: Partnership with Cisco for threat-centric security and consolidating where it makes sense for our business and our customers.

CS: What security technologies are top of mind for you?
LA: We need threat-centric technologies that are able to stop threats. We look to solutions, such as ASA with FirePOWER Services, Advanced Malware Protection (AMP), and Next-Generation IPS (NGIPS) – all, working together. They amount to a differentiated capability in the market – to see and stop more threats for us and our customers.

CS: How do you view security as a growth engine for organizations?
LA: BT doesn’t compromise when it comes to prioritizing our own cybersecurity; security can be a growth engine for business like BT to take full advantage of today’s opportunities to be more productive, make organizations more efficient and customers happier by keeping systems — both ours and our customers — secure.  By relying on threat-centric security, we’re thus able to focus on our core business goals, making security a differentiator. Investing in security in turn inspires further trust in doing business with us and with our customers.

CS: Why did you choose to partner with Cisco? And why now?
LA: Cisco has made smart security acquisitions and technology innovations that provide a significant differentiation in the market. I’m seeing that Cisco has the ability to deploy security products into SDN and virtualized environments to unlock additional value that is critical to security. Lastly our joint portfolio has allowed us to sell the largest cyber strategic security capability globally to a nation state.

This is all possible with the strong partnership we have in place together.

Watch this video to learn how BT is taking advantage of security solutions from Cisco to protect its own environment and its customers.

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http://www.asiapacificsecuritymagaz...to-develop-next-generation-security-services/

BT and Intel Security collaborate to develop next generation security services

By APSM on Mar 04, 2016 in Cyber Resilience, Movers & Shakers
BT and Intel Security have announced a strategic agreement to create new solutions to help organisations improve security and prevent cyber-attacks. The companies will also work together in a joint cyber partnership to further develop their common vision of creating next generation security services.

These new solutions will bring together key elements of both companies’ technology platforms and address current shortcomings of traditional point security products by avoiding the operational silos that widen the gap between detection and response. They are designed to simplify management and support, close many of the expertise gaps in the market and improve speed of response.

In the face of an ever-evolving cyber threat landscape, organisations need continuous innovation to help them protect their critical data and applications wherever they choose to host them; on their premises, in the cloud or a hybrid of both. BT and Intel Security are focused on integrated, open security systems with cloud-first technology designed to empower organizations to resolve threats faster and with fewer resources.

Together, BT and Intel Security will work to address these threats with a single ecosystem that can handle multiple security controls. This means that the controls within both companies’ platforms will talk and interact with each other. This may provide considerable cost benefits for customers as the same controls can be delivered often with less hardware, less configuration and less management overhead.

“Mark Hughes, CEO, BT Security”

Mark Hughes, CEO of BT Security, said: “At BT, we are determined to stay ahead of the security game. We are collaborating with Intel to bring together BT’s security intelligence with Intel’s advanced security tools in real time. We believe that our combined proposition will be an industry first in terms of the scope and ambition. Intel’s cutting edge security technology and our knowhow in service design and delivery can help make our customers safer.”

Raj Samani, EMEA chief technology officer, Intel Security, said: “Our goal is to enable businesses around the globe to more aggressively and effectively defend against data security incidents and targeted attacks. Together with BT, we plan to close the gaps between detection and remediation by creating and managing a security ecosystem designed to enable real-time communication, intelligence exchange and response across security tools.”

About Intel Security

McAfee is now part of Intel Security. With its Security Connected strategy, innovative approach to hardware-enhanced security, and unique McAfee Global Threat Intelligence, Intel Security is intensely focused on developing proactive, proven security solutions and services that protect systems, networks, and mobile devices for business and personal use around the world. Intel Security is combining the experience and expertise of McAfee with the innovation and proven performance of Intel to make security an essential ingredient in every architecture and on every computing platform. The mission of Intel Security is to give everyone the confidence to live and work safely and securely in the digital world. www.intelsecurity.com.

BT Security

BT Security is building on 70 years’ experience of helping organisations around the globe and across all sectors get ahead of the threat curve and reduce the uncertainty and complexity of security. We provide an end-to-end capability to help organisations enjoy higher levels of security at a time when security budgets are not keeping pace with the threat landscape.
The sophistication of our security operations means that we think about the assets, the people, and the processes, and combine these with both network and security intelligence to help our customers stay ahead of the security risks. BT Security protects both BT and its customers. These customers are advised by a global team of 2,000 security practitioners and professional services consultants. To find out more about BT Security, visit www.bt.com/security .

About BT
BT’s purpose is to use the power of communications to make a better world. It is one of the world’s leading providers of communications services and solutions, serving customers in more than 170 countries. Its principal activities include the provision of networked IT services globally; local, national and international telecommunications services to its customers for use at home, at work and on the move; broadband, TV and internet products and services; and converged fixed-mobile products and services. Following the acquisition of EE on 29 January 2016, BT consists principally of six customer-facing lines of business: BT Global Services, BT Business, BT Consumer, EE, BT Wholesale and Openreach.

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https://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1748243

Cisco Announces Collaboration with Ericsson and Intel To Develop Next-Generation 5G Router for Business and Residential Services
1

Collaboration of Industry Leaders to Advance Verizon 5G Technology Forum

FEBRUARY 22, 2016

BARCELONA – February 22, 2016 – Today at GSMA Mobile World Congress, Cisco announced that it will begin collaborating with Ericsson and Intel to develop and trial what is expected to be the industry’s first 5G (fifth generation mobile networks) router. As members of the Verizon 5G Technology Forum, Cisco, Ericsson and Intel are partnering with Verizon within an ecosystem to accelerate the pace of critical 5G innovations.

The companies expect the next-generation 5G router to enable business and residential customers to achieve significantly faster networking speeds, lower latency, and the ability to handle exponentially more Internet-connected devices.  This advancement is intended to help accommodate the expected explosion of the Internet of Everything, and the streaming of high-definition video content.

This collaboration of industry leaders and 5G pioneers will help to enable secure, ultra-high speed wireless bandwidth. The solution will offer Gigabit-per-second speeds by combining Cisco’s enterprise networking innovations with Ericsson’s advanced 5G mobile networking technology and Intel’s next-generation 5G silicon.  Today’s announcement reinforces how industry collaboration will foster innovation in 5G via end-to-end technology development and trials. It also advances the next-generation strategic partnership between Ericsson and Cisco to create the networks of the future, which was announced in November 2015.  For this project, that partnership will be further enhanced by Intel’s contribution of 5G modem and device technology.

According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index™ (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast (2015 to 2020), released earlier this month, the surge in mobile users, smart devices and machine-to-machine (M2M) connections is expected to increase mobile data traffic eight-fold over the next five years.  Mobile video will have the highest growth rate of any mobile application, according to the forecast.  A new generation of robust, high performance wireless networks will be critical in facilitating this growth, and 5G networks will be instrumental in helping the industry develop a new economic model for offering new services for digital business transformation – the rapid and escalating value derived from the interconnectivity of people, processes, data and things.

“Verizon continues to accelerate innovation around 5G technology by working closely with our partners,” said Ed Chan, Senior Vice President, Technology Strategy & Planning at Verizon. “We were the first to launch 4G nationwide. With 5G, we will again drive innovation across the technology landscape.”

“Today’s announcement represents a major step forward in mobile technology that will have a tremendous impact on businesses and consumers,” said Kelly Ahuja, senior vice president of Cisco’s service provider products and solutions.  “Only technology leaders of this caliber, partnering with a mobile and 5G visionary like Verizon, are capable of laying the foundation of tomorrow’s mobile network.”
“Collaboration among industry leaders in mobile, computing, and networking is critical to drive innovation and make 5G a reality,” said Asha Keddy, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Next Generation and Standards Group.

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