Singapore’s ZONE Telecom launches new cloud-based service

ZONE Telecom, a Singaporean telco set up in 2000 when the country liberalised its telecoms industry, has launched a new cloud-based service to make it easier for users to manage their sales processes. According to a report in The Strait Times, the operator’s new ‘Zone Spectrum’ service enables small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to manage their sales leads, projections and any projects they have closed. The firm’s chief executive Peter Ong confirmed that the new offering was unveiled two months ago as a free service for its 40,000 corporate customers. ZONE Telecom has carved out a niche in the international direct dial (IDD) segment and says that, to date, about 150 customers have already signed up, of which 50% are active. In 2012, the operator became an internet service provider (ISP) so that it could provide high speed data services using the nation’s fibre-optic broadband network – Next Gen NBN – offering peak throughput of 1Gbps. According to Ong, the firm is also interested in offering mobile services in Singapore, but not via a mass market offering. Instead ZONE is considering a machine-to-machine (M2M) option, providing mobile SIM cards to companies that want to use them as part of sensor kits to collect data, he said.