I was recently giving a presentation to a group of telecom decision makers in the Portland area.
They asked me several questions about the telecom "state of the union" as well as where I thought things were moving to in 2012.
Near the end of the meeting a man in the front row asked a very simple question.
He told the group that he was in the middle of a telecom project and has several proposals from a variety of sources.
His question was: "We are talking to carriers, resellers and agents.
They are all recommending different solutions.
In your opinion, who is giving me the best chance of success?" I actually laughed a bit, paused, stalled, pondered my answer and told him to look to my blog for the answer.
Here you go: To start, you need to remember that he asked me for my opinion.
This is how I see it.
I have been in the telecom business from February of 1985 and my opinion has not changed.
The Carrier Rep: This person has ONE job to do.
Convince you to buy circuits on THEIR network.
Period, end of story.
Is their solution the best one for your application? It doesn't matter.
They MUST sell you their network.
This one is self explanatory.
The Reseller: The reseller has a group of "underlying carriers" that make up their network.
They have wholesale relationships with the carrier like Verizon, Qwest, AT&T, XO, Paetec and Level 3, to name a few.
Like any retail business, they buy at wholesale, mark it up and sell at retail.
There are some good resellers out there with some really nice software tools but there are problems.
The biggest issue that customers have with a reseller is the lack of control.
They do not like having a "middleman" between them and the carrier.
Oh by the way, if the reseller doesn't pay the carrier's monthly wholesale bill, what do you think happens? If you find a good reseller that you trust then this is a good option but not the best.
The Agent / Carrier Partner: The Carrier Partner is the best of both worlds.
These companies have a portfolio of products to bring to the table for their customers.
They are sales agents for the carriers and the customer pays nothing for their services.
The customer gets three distinct benefits from the Agent / Carrier Partner.
•Diverse product mix to choose from assures proper network deployment •Carrier Partner that works for the customer during contracting and project management •Security of dealing directly with the carrier without middleman Those who read this blog know that I work for a ShoreTel VAR as their Manager of Carrier Services.
TRUE.
A few years back after I sold my hardware business, I wanted to get involved in network services.
I met with all of the big carriers, master agents and resellers.
I made my career decision based on the exact information that a customer should use in choosing how to procure network services.