Soho66 awards are route to success

A Sunderland-based communications service provider, specialising in voice-over internet protocol (VoIP) has proven to have found the route to success after receiving two national highly commended awards for its services.

Last month, Soho66, a trading name of Pebbletree Ltd was highly commended by the Internet Telephony Services Providers’ Association (ITSPA) under the category of Best Business ITSP (Small Enterprise) and Best VoIP Innovation for its latest product, Quvu, a cloud-based contact centre system which enables contact centres of all sizes to analyse their activities in real time.

The company, which can host all of its user’s hardware in secure data centres was commended at the Altitude event space within the Millbank Tower, central London and the association aims to promote competition and self-regulation in order to encourage the development of a flourishing and innovative VoIP industry.

Soho66, which is named after a combination of the famous route 66 in the U.S.A. and the acronym Small Office Home Office, was first set up in 2007 from the home of managing directors and husband and wife team Janni and Robert Thornton and is the main business arm of Pebbletree Ltd.

With backgrounds in software development and call centre environments the duo learned that 80% of telephony companies are based in the south of the country and decided they had the expertise to set up on their own.

Janni recognises the awards as a step towards the company’s overall plan to diversify and expand.

She said: “The ITSPA Awards was a great opportunity to showcase what Soho66 has to offer and I’m delighted we have been commended for our hard work and development over the past couple of years.

“The software and technology industry is such a fast paced environment that is constantly making changes and as a small business, we always strive to diversify to stay in the game.

“We differentiate ourselves from our competitors by having a rigorously proactive approach towards self-improvement, and a focus on our self-built structure in order to provide a VoIP platform with industry-leading resiliency.”

To date, Soho66 has grown organically and has seen its workforce rise from six members of staff to 17 in the last three years, something which Janni is keen to continue.

Janni added: “We’ve been fortunate enough to almost triple our workforce in the past three years as Sunderland puts us within easy reach of some of the best employers in the software industry and we’re keen to build on this momentum with the success of our many services.”

The company, based at Liberty Way, recently benefited from a grant from Sunderland City Council to help target job creation and capital costs and is provided with support from Sunderland City Council’s business investment team.

Councillor Paul Watson, leader of Sunderland City Council, said: “I’m thrilled Soho66 represented the North East at an awards ceremony that is mostly dominated by companies from the south of the country. The company’s award wins are proof that software companies in the North East really are thriving and the success of the awards is a reflection of the efforts of the team at Soho66. I wish them the best of luck for the next stage of their development.”