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NetCarrier has come a long way since its start as
an AOL dial-up alternative operating out of a base-
ment in Philadelphia. Back then, in 1996, no one
could have predicted the shift to all-IP carrier net-
works – but NetCarrier has since become one of the
strongest companies in the field, with a focus that’s
squarely on master agents.
From that humble start – “we had a couple of
PRIs,” according to vice president of sales Bruce Wirt
– the company blossomed into a force in the market,
with Internet access customers up and down the East
Coast. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, when it
was clear that dialup was going away, the company
became a CLEC in Pennsylvania and went on to grow
its footprint throughout the mid-Atlantic. Then, in
2011, it began a national push and now offers a full
coast-to-coast slate of local and long-distance voice
and data services, plus a prodigious bring-your-own-
bandwidth proposition for a range of VoIP services.
On the facilities-based side, the company has six
different NNIs for dedicated access, and its own last
mile in 40 major U.S. markets across the country,
served with fiber or copper and either type 1 or 2
access. It has an MPLS network that can integrate
into any of those areas, and NetCarrier can get
phone numbers in all 48 lower U.S. states with the
ability to port numbers for almost any operator, in-
cluding in the smaller cities served by independent
LECs. And finally, it has six backbones for least-cost
routing and redundancy.
As far as VoIP goes, “Our hosted VoIP platform
is really unique,” Wirt said. “This is based around a
proprietary SIP architecture that allows us to bring
enterprise-level features to SMBs – we can scale to
thousands of seats, or serve as few as two or three.”
It’s not a fresh push for the company, he added,
noting that the network was built around VoIP from
the beginning. “Even back in 2001 and 2002, when
we were just starting out as a CLEC, we had dynami-
cally allocated T1s when no one was even thinking
about that,” said Wirt.
Also, all deployments are managed, he explained.
“We don’t believe in plug and pray,” he said.
“Everything we do is managed, from the site survey
to the equipment installation and testing to the LNP
turn-up. We also have no answering service, and no
customer service outsourcing. Customers call and we
answer, with a 27-second average response time.”
Of the BYOB push, Wirt explained, “We had a
lot of customers that had Comcast circuits already
and those from other providers. We discovered that
customers in many cases would order a circuit with
enough bandwidth from someone in their local mar-
ket, but then want to deploy NetCarrier voice.”
To add momentum to its ongoing expansion, the
company has been building out a dialogue with mas-
ter agents, and to date has signed up CSNG and TBI,
among others.
“The thing that wins them over is the fact that
we’re not just a VoIP provider,” Wirt said. “Our niche
is that we can offer hosted VoIP over any type of ac-
cess, but also the traditional stuff.”
In 2007, the company decided to go completely
indirect, jettisoning the last of its direct sales people
in favor of hiring a team of channel managers, sup-
port personnel, sales engineers and operational
staff. As part of that decision, the company is struc-
tured under one organizational chart. “Our mes-
saging is aligned to the same goals across depart-
ments,” Wirt said. “Some of the big guys, when you
submit an order, sales sends it on to support, and
it’s a separate org chart, and they may kick it back.
We are set up with the right model to have the best
support we can for our partners.”
Going forward, the company’s goal is to continue
to grow its master agent channel and cultivate solid
VAR relationships, to position for ongoing, national,
organic growth.
“Our eyes are focused on the master agent chan-
nel, because we know that’s the best way to develop
market penetration in different geographies around
the country,” Wirt said. “We actively recruit VARs al-
most everywhere – and we feed those to our master
agents. We also have agreements with different pro-
viders to give us channel partners on the street
in various markets.”
ROFILE
anaged
Services
IP
Telephony
IP
Telephony
NetCarrier Eyes
Organic Expansion
By
Tara
Seals
72
Channel
Vision
|
May - June 2015