RESELLER CHANNEL: News Briefs

Posted: 7/2003

News Briefs

Genesys Conferencing has promoted Gary Vilardi, a Genesys employee since April 1997, to executive vice president of North American sales. He will manage its wholesale program. Genesys also named Michael Coffey as executive director of wholesale sales. Coffey, the former vice president of Genuity Inc.s VoIP business, will oversee sales activities in the wholesale program.

OSS provider Concretio.com Inc. has developed a system to support local phone resellers migrating to a facilities-based model. The soup-to-nuts OSS solution includes inventory management, workflow management, network device interfaces and a softswitch interface. The Microsoft .NET-based system links multiple functions from diverse vendors, such as the Bell operator, a billing platform and internal sales and marketing systems. Across our base we are seeing significant interest in something like this, says CTO Jay Chopde. In Chopdes experience with customers, companies consider acquiring their own gear when they reach 100,000 lines.

Alliance Group Services Inc., a provider of wholesale long-distance services to CLECs and resellers, has enhanced its online provisioning support Web site, uControl. The latest iteration of the site features a new section that allows customers to provision and track their own toll-free services and additional tools to help customers manage and maintain their own accounts. The site also includes an improved intuitive interface, 128-bit encryption for secure transactions, improved integration with customer account profiles to provide complete features for specific needs, more detailed CDRs and clear descriptions of TCSI codes, and new functionality for managing agent channels. New reports provide traffic and trend analysis and enable review of minutes of use, calls by day, service type, jurisdiction, OCN or LATA.

Z-Tel Technologies Inc. has signed a twoyear broadband Internet access services agreement with Covad Communications Co. Z-Tel will provide Covad-powered SDSL services via direct sales and agents to business customers in Covad service territory. Z-Tel will offer the DSL services under its own name, so customers will receive one bill from Z-Tel for both voice and broadband. Z-Tel also will be the first point of contact for customer service issues. The fee structure of the contract is on a per-subscriber basis, and does not require Z-Tel to purchase a minimum amount of Covad services.

Z-Tel formed a new business services unit to spearhead an expansion beyond its core base of residential customers. The unit targets small and midmarket businesses, national accounts and wholesale prospects. Z-Tel plans to launch voice-activated applications, IP-based services, Web hosting and managed local exchange services later this year, to further penetrate the business market. Z-Tel also plans to offer these services to other carriers on a wholesale basis.

ComTech21, a privately held longdistance company with an indirect sales force, aims to buy hundreds of customer bases from resellers looking to shed operational costs and focus on selling. In a CD and letter sent in May to 1,300 long-distance resellers across the country, ComTech21 made its pitch: Resellers can stay on board as agents for 25 percent commission, or opt out of the business through a sale. ComTech21 plans to transfer the new longdistance customers to the WilTel Communications LLC network. Executives say ComTech will start CLEC service later this year.