I've recomended CommPartners many times to WISPs, as a good choice for
someone thats willing to pay the upfront fee, as their QOS and Value is high
compared to other offerings in the space. Sales team was very responsive.
Technically they were very responsive as well and appeared to be solid.
However, now that someone has responded to my original post, its got me
thinking, and I have to vent a small rampage.
I agree and understand your explanation, and Commpartner's intent. I just
think its the wrong view to have.
There is no need for resellers (middle men) in VOIP. It just creates
billing/cashflow headaches for everyone involved, not to mention support
issues. That problem was learned with the DSL model. With DSL it was
justified because the cost to have a DS3 pipe to each small volume ISP
provider just wasn't realistic. So it was a technology barrier and cost
barrier that justified the middleman model that included resellers. In VOIP
there is no value added by the middle man, to justify it. There are better
way to motivate partners than to create barrier to entry. What it really
does is just deter partnerships from ever happening. Big volume is made by
having a lot of small partners that sell a little bit, rather than a few
partners that sell a lot. It sends a message that Commpartners only wants
to deal with the big fish, or our competitors (ILECS / Cable companies), and
thats not what I call an allie. How much time does it really take for a
wholesaler like Commpartners to deal with a small WISP doing low volume? Its
an automated web portal to do business!!! The truth is, the $5000 fee is a
way for CommPartners to cover it's sales people's commissions. Wholesalers
need to put as many resellers on the street as they can, some work, some
don't, and if there are enough out there trying, the odds are you'll also
get the ones that are successful. Everyone has potential, its near
impossible to know in advance which partners end up being the volume ones.
All that should matter is if there is scenargy between the two partner
companies, and a likely hood that their is a match in the vision of the two
parties. If CommPartners can't cost justify partnerships with low volume
WISPs, then it really means CommPartners is not yet at the stage where it is
automated enough yet, or its operations are not yet efficient enough to
handle a large number of partners. That exposes a weakness in CommPartners.
Success in VOIP is a race to obtain subscribers. They should be taking on
EVERY partner they can get their hands on. If they don't recognize that, I
fear they may not be one of the survivors, and should I select a VOIP
provider that I think may not survive? Just about 50% of my subscribers use
VOIP today, only two of them use the CommPartners reseller that I recommend
and use. Thats because my clients want to buy VOIP from me, not from
someone I refer. Otherwise they shop it. I'm the marketing engine who has
the customer's trust, not a third party reseller. Its me that knows about
how to get to my client, not the third party reseller. So what if I do high
volume, why is it necessary for a partnership? The relationship is as easy
to manage as a List server and a web portal. This is a commodity market,
customers want cheapest price, and the person responsible for customer
retention and sales should be rewarded by commissions, not a middle man that
serves no valid purpose. There is no room for a middle man. If there is, the
offering will not be competitive enough for consumers, or not profitable
enough for us to bother marketing.
I do not recommend that any WISP sell VOIP through a middle man. There is to
big a risk not having a contractual agreement between you (WISP) and
wholesaler that is providing service to your end user. The man in the middle
makes it impossible for the WISP to protect themselves legally in the
partnership. Its a disaster waiting to happen.
The only way I think buying from a reseller makes since is, if you are also
buying other bundled services from the reseller as well. For example, if a
wholesale WISP, was a reseller for a company like a CommPArtner, and bundled
that for its resellers and agents, that would make since. Just about all
WISPs or ISPs will have resellers, agents, or referall partners. So its
logical for a WISP to become a direct reseller partner for a wholesle VOIP
provider like Commpartners. But why would a WISP want top take on a service
from a provider that they as well could not extend to their resellers and
agents? Four levels deep is undoable in VOIP. CommPartners needs to
understand that WISPs have resellers. Charging someone for Partnership is
the most rediculaous thing that I have ever heard in my life. Its just
stupid. That why we never ended up partnering with CommPartners directly.
Its not that we couldn't afford the $5000, its just that why should we pay
it? What value did I receive for my $5000? I got the largest network in my
three surrounding states, colocated on top of over 200 MTU buildings, and 5
out of the 10 largest management companies in the palm of my hand, why would
I pay someone for them to have access to my assets? I personally took it as
an insult that they did not view me as a valuable enough candidate for a
partnership, that they had to charge me $5000 to reduce their risk. What
about reducing my risk? What about the thousands of dollars in marketing I'd
end up doing, without a guarantee on how well they would support our
clients? They wanted me to take a leap of faith, but were not willing to
take a leap of faith themselves. Its hippocritical. Hardly a basis for a
trusting partneship. What makes their side of the partnership more valuable
than mine? Their real fear is that they WON"T be able to support me well
enough, and that if I don't put skin in the game, it will be to easy for me
to switch to another VOIP partner that does.
What I'm critisizing is their management and views on building their
channels. They advertise partnership, but do not have true partnership
mentality. I believe the most important thing to evaluate when choosing a
partner is wether you see eye to eye with the management of the other
company, that is something that likely will not change over time. The
technical side is always solvable, and challenges can be tackled when minds
are put togeather.
My mentality is I pay my sales people, they can pay theirs. I'm looking for
a partner not another vendor. If they want my partnership, they have to
earn it, I'm surely not going to buy theirs.
My opinion is nobody controls when and where I spend my marketing efforts.
The demands of my core business have priority. Thats something I don't
loose control of. The last thing I need is a sales rep on my back, because
he didn't make his quota from me one month, presuring me to make sales in an
area that may not be my priority. (For example pushing managed business
services, if I'm catrering to residential). I need a partner that can give
me consistent plans in advance and loyalty long term, so I can build and
grow a business model around them. Even if I never did one sale personally,
Compartners should have made us a partner jsut so we'd prioritize
performance to their VOIP servers over our network. Think about it, do you
think I'm going to allow the same performance to our competitive VOIP
provider as I do to our own VOIP services? By getting us to be a Partner for
them, we'd optimize them for our own benefit, and indirectly Comm Parnters
would guarantee that our network would be optimized for every other reseller
of theirs that used our network. I would have cost them ZERO dollars, to
guarantee that RAPIDDSL would optimize their performacne regardless of what
method they used to obtain and market clients located on our network! So
what if I never solf a circuit? They could have picked any of their
resellers to market on our network, without fear of performance issues. Its
the same reason I always give management companies in the building FREE
broadband, they can't pull the plug if it also cuts them off. They should be
making me a partner just so I omtimize performance for their clients.
CommPartners doesn't get it. WISPs also aren't necessarilly the sales guy. I
let my building management companies and Network consulting firm agents
drive my leads and sales. Whether high volume VOIP sales are made depends on
them as well. I need to know I can have a consistent plan to offer them.
Wether it sells successfully depends on wether the wholesale option is
competitive enough to attact the subscribers and profitable enough to
attract the resellers, and has nothing to do with wether I have "skin in the
game". You don't put provisions in place that deter business and interested
people, its just anti-sales. Any Wholesale VOIP providers that do not
realize these basic principles does not have a clue. And I don't do
business with clueless people.
So I say good luck CommPartners, and I wish you the best. But one of the
stupidest things you've ever done was pass up a partnership with RapidDSL,
over $5000 you didn't deserve to have from me in the first place. Not
because we would be such a huge volume provider of VOIP, but because there
was absolutely nothing to loose by having us as a parter, and so much
potential to lose by not. Just plain stupid.
have resellers who sell one circuit a quarter
A sale is a sale. Its worth sending out an invoice for any amount above $7.
What important is not how mcuh they sell, but how much of your time they
take up once they are a partner. If they manage themselves, so what if the
volume is high. A WISPs job is not to drive a VOIP provider's sales. A
WISP's job is to be a conduit to facilitate a VOIP provider to make sales.
Partnership on that alone is worth it. What they are doign is allow all
these low volume non-partners to experiemnt with other providers, and
accumulative they all add up to be a large number of WISPs that are giving
their business to CommPartner competitors. Having a reseller that does one
sale a quarter, and knowing they are with you, is better than not knowing if
they are doing huge volumes with your competitor.
Tom DeReggi
RapidDSL & Wireless, Inc
IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter R." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org>
Sent: Friday, December 30, 2005 10:01 AM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] verizon fios pricing - VOIP / CommPartners
We deal with a couple of VOIP Providers that know Wireless is the way to
go.
The ILEC needs to be cut out of ever newly development network for
sustainability.
On a separate note, I rep CommPartners (CP), Primus and many others. I
even have a CP Reseller WISPs can work with.
CP's new plan is pricey, mainly because they are learning (like Broadview
and others) that most of the VOIP Provider clients sell very few lines.
The upfront costs is a barrier to entry. If you spend $5k for set-up and
have a commitment to meet, you will be serious about selling VOIP. I'm
sure you guys have resellers who sell one circuit a quarter.
Happy New Year!
News-letter
http://www.rad-info.net/newsletters/00n123105.html
Thank you.
Regards,
Peter
RAD-INFO, Inc. - NSP Strategist
We Help ISPs Connect & Communicate
813.963.5884 or 985.240.4156
fax 305.675.6494
http://4isps.com
Tom DeReggi wrote:
Commpartners is one of the popular ones, with lots to offer, but they are
getting a little big for their britches charging $5000 setup fee.
Nuvio, has a lot of programs that help you cover end user equipment.
Primus, is happy wholesaling you a raw business line without PBX
replacement/managed service.
The list goes on. They all have positives and negatives, mostly related
to billing methods.
I'm not aware of any of them that embrase the residential phone service
business wholesale. I want VOIP strictly for residential, and although
they'll do it, they constantly are pushing you to promote/sell the
managed business VOIP PBX services, to consider you a valuable partner,
which isn't our focus for VOIP.
Early on, there are less choices for Wholesale VOIP providers. However, I
think VOIP providers will become a commodity sooner than later, with
everyone on a broadcom platform offering the same plans and options.
Right now, the wholesale VOIP providers still control the terms. I think
Wireless providers on the other hand are the ones that should be able to
control the shots eventually. We own the client and our local underserved
markets. We get the VOIP providers into needy markets
(rural/underserved/mobile) they will never have from DSL and Cable
companies. Its my opinion as owners of the conduit to the subscriber we
should be charging $5000 grand to accept the partnership not pay it. So
we have been holding out for the right wholesale partner that sees our
value and embrases the residential MTU and underserved VOIP markets. The
clock is clicking though, so if they don't come soon, we will build
ourselves.
Tom DeReggi
RapidDSL & Wireless, Inc
IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband
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