Cloud

Rent-to-Own Model Eases VoIP Entry

• December 31, 2005

CARRIERS AND SERVICE providers that want to offer hosted VoIP services often begin by buying one of the highend fully featured software suites designed to support those services, such as BroadSoft Inc., Netcentrex S.A., Sylantro Systems Corp. and Tekelec Inc. These suites, which can include all the features of a PBX, plus softswitch functions and […]

reseller channel: FastLign Accelerates VoIP Entry

• October 31, 2005

Given high broadband penetration and relatively low cost of IP network infrastructure, its never been easier to become a telephone company. At the same time, launching VoIP services can be rather tricky considering time-to-market pressures, equipment and software integration required and the time it takes to get the right network services partners in place, says […]

Counting On Telecom Expense Management

• September 30, 2005

Karl Scheufler Brad Batten Gary Storm Karl Scheufler walked into the Fall 2004 Channel Partners Conference & Expo presentation, Inside the Buyers World, and found the differentiated service he was looking for: telecom expense management, or TEM. The offering now is so crucial to his consultancy, in fact, that it has entirely changed his business […]

New Hosts Enter Wholesale Market

• July 31, 2005

  Hosted voice services are hot products for the resale channel, and there are a number of new entrants into the wholesale arena, most interestingly Lucent Technologies Inc. The equipment giant rolled out a few hosted services in the past year, but at SUPERCOMM 2005 in June debuted a much more extensive suite. Service providers […]

From Arms Length to Hand-In-Glove

• July 31, 2005

Carriers that outsource their billing operations reduce operational expenditure and avoid a capital outlay for the platform. But that doesnt mean that outsourcing is a worry-free proposition. It requires an intermingling of disparate elements: inhouse and hosted platforms, processes and data. To boot, changing carrier services have given rise to further concerns such as how […]

Microsoft On Tap at Local Telcos

• June 30, 2005

Microsoft Corp. dived head-first into the “software as a service” market in December 2004 with a $7 million deal with British Telecom plc to develop a suite of hosted online services for smaller businesses. It has followed up with the spring release of the Microsoft Solution for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration 3.0, a hosted service […]

Webinars a Win-Win for Web Conferencing Sellers, Buyers

• June 30, 2005

One way to boost conferencing sales is to stop talking about it as a cost-saving communications tool and start talking about it as a profit-making presentation tool. “It’s gotten to the point that [conferencing is] affordable for everybody. …The education of the market is done; now, it comes down to gaining market share,” says Greg […]

All Aboard

• June 30, 2005

VoIP is a booming business, and as the market grows, more resale opportunities for niche providers have cropped up. Many second-tier operators not only lack a network, but the back-office expertise that goes along with it. Some enterprising vendors have crafted enablement packages to help these resellers, creating a fledgling ecosystem. “More and more companies […]

Wholesalers Lure Level 3 Hosted PBX Resellers

• February 28, 2005

New Global Telecom Inc. is among the wholesale carriers seeking to pick up resale agreements with about 100 phone companies, long-distance resellers and other customers of Level 3 Communications Inc., which announced it is phasing out (3)Tone, its wholesale hosted PBX service. Resellers, including traditional phone companies like SBC Communications Inc. and others, have until […]

Reselling Hosted VoIP May Not be as Easy as it Looks

• February 28, 2005

Wholesale VoIP has been in the news lately, and the news hasn’t been all that good. Level 3 Communications Inc., supposedly one of the premiere wholesalers of hosted PBX services, is pulling out of the business, shuttering its (3)Tone service, which is being resold by as many as 100 service providers. Level 3 will shut […]

Look Before You VoIP

• January 31, 2005

For a battered telecom industry, VoIP appears as an oasis in a desert, but practitioners caution that it’s a destination providers should not journey toward without a worn roadmap. “On the surface, it appears to be easy and plug-and-play; and it is not. A lot of people underestimate what it takes to deliver this service […]

Slam Dunk

• January 31, 2005

With easy conferencing on the rise, remote collaboration is more than just a solution for the travel-weary executive set. Conferencing is finding a home with businesses of all shapes and sizes, and vendors are looking to agents to spread the word. “In the past couple of years, the industry has gotten away from attended services […]

Nine Technology Launches Hosted Backup and DR Platform for MSPs

• January 2, 2002