Posted 6/29/10 By Dan Baldwin, TA Executive Director, 951-251-5155 email
Don't you hate it when you get a great prospect or their IT partner on the phone after months of prospecting them and the first thing they say is they're getting their data and Internet from the local cable company or Verizon Fios/fiber and it "works just fine". Or when you've pitched a nice 3.0 meg data pipe from your favorite CLEC and the prospect says, "Tell me again why this is better than the 10.0/2.0 meg connection I've got from my cable company that cost less than what you've proposed."
Man, I hate that! don't you?
Well we can hate it as much as we like but the sad truth is the "good old days" of making decent money from single location business customers in metro areas where the cable companies have strong business service footprints are long gone. What do we do now?
Of course the next bad thing that will happen is that you've found a great 20-location customer that needs help only to learn they've got some smart-alecky IT consultant telling the decision maker that instead of buying your "competitively priced" MPLS network they should just pick and choose all the cheapest Internet connections in all the 20 locations. That way they IT guy can field a rickety VPN using cable access in one spot, DSL in another, Verizon Fios' fiber in a couple more and then cellular 3G in the rest.
Man, I hate those smart-alecky IT guys!
Never fear, Bandwave Systems is here! Bandwave is a nationwide reseller that puts whatever data or Internet access your customer wants under one bill. Want cheap cable access? Got it! Want the Verizon Fiber where it's available? Not a problem. Need data access over a 3G cellular network for those location wher only the buffalo roam? Check! And don't forget DSL, they've got that too. Click the link below to listen to the interview I recently did of Tom Azelby, Bandwave's managing director.
(Editor's note: It's important to note, so no one get's sued, that Bandwave does not resell Verizon Fios. Bandwave does however have their own branded fiber offering in almost every footprint where Verizon Fios is available. Get it? Wink, wink!)
Click player below to listen to the Tom Azelby interview now. Click here to download the MP3 file.
Interview Notes
00:18 - What's "Cable connect"? Wholesale agreements with Comcast, Cablevision, Time Warner & Charter to provide nation-wide cable data access which covers about 70% of the country. We hope to increase that to 90% by adding another cable provider or two.
00:57 - "What kind of business end users are asking for this sort of solution?" Mult-site clients and multi-location enterprise clients looking for multiple types of data access for a primary VPN solution or to back up an existing primary MPLS solution. They're also looking for a single provider to bill them, provide support and monitor all the connections.
02:00 - "So the key is multi-location clients that want multiple inexpensive data connections managed by one company?" Yes, a big solution we bring to our multi-location clients is providing an inexpensive redundant backup to their expensive tier-one carrier MPLS network.
03:15 - "So agents need to ask every customer, 'How are you backing up your MPLS?'" It's a great question to ask any IT decision maker because not many have a great answer.
03:51 - "Tell us what we need to know about Bandwave Systems." We started over 10 years ago as one of the only DSL aggregators and now we're aggregating practically any sort of data access a multi-location business customer could think to ask for. We have over 125 telecom agent and channel partners and over 95% of our revenue comes in through our channel partners.
04:45 - "Who are you competing against in this solution space?" - Mostly the providers we're reselling. We provide the single source ability for multi-location business customers to get what they need from all our providers but to have it all installed, managed, billed and monitors by one company - Bandwave. What really closes the deal for us is the single point of contact for our help desk or service desk. Customers want unified billing and just one "traffic cop" when it comes to a large deployment of data connections to 50 or more locations.
05:49 - "Can you share any recent case studies about a multi-location client you helped?" - We won a recent HVAC customer deal away from AT&T. They had their own Cisco network in place but they needed management of all the broadband connections. We won the deal by providing proactive circuit monitoring down to every DSL connection and by providing them the best price for each broadband data connection.
07:00 - "What else do you have coming out to help solve customer problems?" - We're in the process of rolling out metro Ethernet aggregation this year. So if all the regional metro Ethernet providers have been giving you a headache recently we'll be able to help so stand by for that!
Internet backup on Video Steaming/ Surveillance etc that reduce the bandwidth needs on the MPLS is the way to go. Lot's of options out there though to stil look at
Posted by: Tradd Duggan | 08/09/2011 at 11:04 AM
Marino... The redundant connection is not part of the MPLS and has its own IP block. The connection as you stated can be used just for Internet. These Internet backup connections are also being used by clients for applications such as Video Steaming/ Surveillance etc that reduce the bandwidth needs on the MPLS.
Posted by: tom azelby | 07/01/2010 at 07:28 AM
We have been agents for Bandwave Systems for over ten years and the difference is Pre Sales support, Post Sales support and great customer service. Tom and George and his team have large capabilities to deliver the "goods". Their Fiber Connect offering gives our customers the bandwidth they need with out having to deal with the bureacracy of a giant cable or phone company.
Posted by: John J Gallagher, Managing Partner, Common Sense Technologies | 07/01/2010 at 03:34 AM
when you say redundant back up to an MPLS how can it be that the IP addresses are on the MPLS carrier??
BPG ? giving the work to the routers ?
or back up of just internet and not the private side?
Posted by: marino maronati | 06/30/2010 at 01:19 PM