If you’re like most independent telephone companies investing to deliver bigger and better broadband services, you may also be seeing special access revenue slowly replaced with Virtual Private Network Service (VPNs) over Internet, or even point to point wireless service. This has been a common challenge within the industry, as many cost recovery Telco’s only have Interstate Tariff’s and investing into their networks may be driving rates higher. As these rates climb, it pushes IT personnel from local banks, hospitals and businesses to give up their reliable T1 or Ethernet Transport Services (ETS) to less expensive VPN over Internet service.
These customers moving away from a dedicated service to a best effort broadband often find you get what you pay for. They are now subject to issues in their service delivery that just worked in the past. Issues, like DDOS attacks or Internet outages, can leave a remote bank branch unable to look up account information from their main bank servers. These outages may be brief or far and few in between, but when they happen, it can be a bad reflection on your service delivery even though the outage may not be within your network.
An alternative to watching these revenues slip away is to adopt an Intrastate tariff with competitive rates, allowing those qualifying customers to sign a fixed rate term plan. These rates may be lower than your Interstate access rates, but much higher and more reliable than the VPN over Internet service customers are moving to.
Customers won’t naturally ask you if your new Intrastate rates will benefit them. If you know which customers may qualify as Intrastate service, a proactive approach to move them to a more competitive rate may prevent that customer from disconnecting all together and you will look like a hero by lowering their bill.
Don’t forget by moving customers from PTP T1s to ETS, they may need a new router or firewall, which could lead to additional monthly revenue. If you’re not selling or installing managed firewall or router services today, this may be an additional monthly revenue source for you. If you don’t have the technical staff to support your customer’s technology needs, Nex-Tech can assist you with this.
To find out more about how Nex-Tech can increase your monthly revenue opportunities with managed services, contact Doug Kuntz, Carrier Access Manager, at 785-621-2974 or visit nex-tech.com/carrier.