Posted: 03/2000
News Briefs
* MCI WorldCom Wholesale Services (www.wcom.com) has designed a program to help agents become certified resellers. The Venture Program, MCI WorldCom's initiative includes counsel from four vendors who have created a partnership with MCI to walk agents through the steps of becoming a reseller.
Some issues include federal and state certification, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) (www.fcc.gov) compliance, end-user customer support, billing, provisioning, third-party verification (TPV), state and local tax issues and other items that need to be resolved in becoming a reseller.
"As the agent opportunities are becoming less attractive for many of the seasoned agents, our Venture Program opens the door to wider flexibility and potentially greater profits," says Dave Roylance, wholesale market management.
All agents are eligible to enter MCI's program. Although no predetermined qualifications have been set, the agents must go through the certification process to become licensed by the FCC and the PUCs in the states they want to do business.
According to Roylance, the advantages to becoming a reseller include more flexibility in packaging and marketing, greater profits, owning their customer base and setting their own margins.
MCI WorldCom will field agents' questions regarding the move to reselling and, if agents decide to become resellers, MCI WorldCom and its vendor team will take them through the process step by step.
"All [the agents] have to worry about is sales and marketing," says Roylance.
* With expanded territory, Broadview Networks (www.broadviewnet.com) will introduce a "new and improved" agent program in first-quarter 2000.
Prior to this year, Broadview was limited to selling its local, local toll and long-distance products in New York and Eastern Massachusetts. However, this year the company will expand into almost all of Bell Atlantic's territory.
Dick Rothman, previously with Covad Communications, was hired in January to be Broadview's vice president of sales, agent and affiliate channels. He says Broadview will focus its program on telemarketing agencies, interconnect companies, value-added resellers (VARs), consultants, systems integrators and traditional long-distance agents.
The "hook" Broadview offers its agents is a two- to three-day provisioning and billing system. Rothman explains this is accomplished by a simple point-of-sale (PoS) terminal with minimal required LOA information, after which Broadview's system speeds the process along. The company plans to release details of its new agent program no later than March 1, with second-quarter offers to include DSL and Internet services.
