Continuously making strides forward in order to remain a major competitor within the service delivery space, today MPLS provider UNSi revealed that it has finalized the acquisition of Airband.
What does this merger mean for the company overall, in addition to channel partners and enterprises? First, now both fixed wireless and wireline services and capabilities will be significantly enhanced and powered via UNSi in 16 key markets, particularly in the southeast and southwest regions of the U.S. including Nevada, Texas and Florida. Also, VoIP will now be available from the company around the nation and 12 core MPLS Points of Presence (PoPs) will be added to its portfolio. With 17 PoPs already in place, this brings its total PoPs up to an impressive 29.
Additionally, the acquisition allows UNSi to expand its footprint and become one of the biggest fixed wireless providers on the market. Already boasting a strong MPLS network, according to Paula Como Kauth, director of Marketing for UNSi, “acquiring Airband allows us to further strengthen our MPLS network presence and product set growth.”
Some other benefits that will be seen by the buyout include enabling the company to deliver the last mile of the network that the MPLS provider can now control itself, whether it is the installation interval or SLA on the service itself, without being required to rely on a third party. Through combining a product that boasts both wireline and wireless capabilities it becomes highly resilient, and can be managed and monitored in a way that traditional telcos really can’t offer because they don’t have the same type of wireless capabilities at hand.
“In terms of support, this acquisition is completely changing the resale, service delivery and engineering facets we offer. We are now 160 employees strong and will be generating over $60 million in revenue. In essence with this move, we are doubling the size of the company which in turn gives us the professional depth that people have long been asking for,” added Allan Schwartz (News - Alert), senior vice president of Business Development and Strategic Planning at UNSi.
While in the past, UNSi was not able to keep with new opportunities coming its way due to a lack of resources, now with the newly added capabilities brought on through the purchase of Airband, the company will be better able to capitalize on the opportunities that are already coming in its direction.
When zeroing in on the ways in which the MPLS provider stands apart from competitors, it is clear to see that currently it’s the only provider in the fixed wireless space that is deeply rooted in the application space as well powering hosted voice, cloud applications, hosted desktop and e-mail functions.
Schwartz commented, “Our regional presence can now support the channel at the same time. We have always been able to leverage any access component for any address and we have no red zones, since we can utilize whatever the businesses’ underlying technology happens to be. Our network gives us extended reach and now being able to layer fixed wireless on top of it, makes our cost to enter a market and deliver our services much lower. Yet, we can mix and match network assets from major organizations like XO, Level 3, Comcast (News - Alert), Time Warner Cable and put them all together to work as a cohesive network for our customers with our own applications on top.”
If this acquisition wasn’t exciting enough, UNSi will soon be relaunching its cloud applications and cloud product set and co-bundling wireline and wireless services. For example, in a campus environment, the company now can bring wireline services to opposite ends of a large university and then deliver wireless services across the campus and manage it all with ease.
The company remains steps ahead of others in the industry through powering a carrier-grade service even in an enterprise or campus type environment. With predictions highlighting that it will be raking in nearly $100 million in revenue by 2015, this recent move is surely putting the MPLS provider on the map for the long term.
Edited by Alisen Downey