About Phase 5 Communications Ltd.

Phase 5 Communications Ltd are an IT services company focused on providing complete, leading edge, fully managed and supported IT services for a wide range of customers.

Originally Established around 1998, holding a number of key Microsoft accreditations, and an extensive amount of in house training along with extensive industry experience, the Phase 5 team are unquestionably proven IT industry professionals. Our dedicated work force of highly skilled engineers endeavour to meet all IT demands from larger local, national and international clientele, to smaller local private businesses and public sector organisations – meeting the varying needs and budgets that such a wide ranging portfolio demands time and time again.

We are also 100% transparent. We publish our rates on our website so that you always know how much we will cost before you have even picked up the phone. And, once we have started working for you, our online Service Area provides you with all the tools you need to track progress, costs, and communicate directly with the technician that is handling the job, quickly, easily and at a time that best suits you.

A breif history

The current Director, James Alan Sefton, originally started trading in 1998 as a sole trader under the busniess name 'wasteofinc.net'. The primary service offerings of 'wasteofinc.net' were Web Site Hosting and Design/Development, with some IT Support services as a sideline. wasteofinc.net specialised in the design of bespoke dedicated servers for a wide range of applications.

In 2003, the business took on a radical change in direction to focus on IT Support as the primary focus of the business. In November 2003, Phase 5 Communications Ltd was incorporated and the company expanded from the previous 'one man band' and soon started taking on staff. Phase 5 Communications Ltd promptly acquired 'wasteofinc.net'.

In early 2005, after supplying and supporting a large number of individual networks; Phase 5 came up with an idea of an off the shelf 'plug and play' networking product and released a pilot scheme of a service called 'Shared Network Service'. This was primarily a market research project to evaluate the viability of such a product. The pilot was limited to the BBIC business centre in Wilthorpe, Barnsley.

The pilot was more successful than anticipated and was quickly filled to capacity, with more customers waiting for the service. In response to the demand and taking into consideration our experiences gathered from the 'Shared Network Service', we released a Second Generation pilot of the service around mid-2006 which was known as 'Managed Network Service'. This was still limited to the BBIC in Wilthorpe.

In 2008, after many years developing the 'Managed Network' idea based on experience from the pilot products, we finally unveiled the full product; PLEXUS.

This final offering of the product, unlike the pilot editions, was designed to be scalable. The service can be deployed just about anywere an internet connection can be established and has no known limitations to the number of clients it can accomodate. It is a true, enterprise level architecture.

Towards the end of 2008, Phase 5 once again set out on a change of direction. The PLEXUS product became the main offering from Phase 5. Standard support contracts are no longer being offered to new customers.

The two pilot scheme's, 'Shared Network Service' and 'Managed Network Service' were both withdrawn by the end of March 2009. All of our existing customers agreed to transfer to the new PLEXUS service.

Where we are today

While PLEXUS is our main offering, a lot of the products and services that Phase 5 have developed through its lifetime are still available from us.

Website Design & Hosting services are popular choices along with dedicated server hosting. Internet access services, domain registrations, network cabling, traditional network installations and general hardware purchasing/supply are still available.

Support services are still available for occasional requests and are quoted on a job by job basis.

What the future holds

A very large project to move our whole core network from BBIC in Barnsley to Synergy House in Manchester Science Park is going ahead on Sunday 15th March. This project will not only see network capacity increased substantially but also adds quite a few improvements to network security. One notable change is that Synergy House will provide fully generator backed power supply - making power problems a thing of the past.

The PLEXUS service will always be in development. It is our aim to improve on the product time and time again. Check out the Developments section of the user guide for an idea of current developments.

The whole point of PLEXUS is to make your IT easier, and to try and encourage our clients to make better use of IT systems where possible to improve their business. One of our longer term ambitions for the product is to expand the existing support service to include full training seminars across a wide range of IT subjects, specifically aimed at making our clients - better with IT.