It’s been a decade since Jennifer Schoenhofer founded Axis (News - Alert) Technology. She did it after having worked as director of strategic alliances at BellSouth, during which time she hired high-end consulting firms and saw the steep price that the telco was paying for their services. So Schoenhofer, who was grateful for the MBA that BellSouth (News - Alert) had paid for during her time at the firm, decided she could do the job better and at a fair price.

Ten years later, Axis Technology provides buying, engineering, integration, planning and strategic advisory services to Tier 1 and 2 telcos in the U.S. and Canada, including AT&T (News - Alert). 

Axis was responsible for helping launch the iPhone nationwide, she says. Axis also does core engineering, so when a Tier 1 telco went from Nortel (News - Alert) to Ericsson switches, it did all the standardization, implementation and cutovers involved in that effort. The standardization alone saved the telco millions of dollars because of the streamlined coding and maintenance practices it enabled, she says. Axis also standardized E911 for another Tier 1 and saved them millions, she says, explaining that the telco had been getting charged double from the public safety answering points.Schoenhofer says that Axis is a “wireless-centric company,” and it has been since its creation – a focus that, she adds, some of her friends in telecom were highly skeptical about at the time she started the business. Core network engineering, data centers, transport, tower services, and small cell and M2M are among the key areas of expertise Schoenhofer and her team bring to the table.

Unlike the larger system integrators, Schoenhofer says, Axis delivers an affordable solution. And unlike the large telecom equipment manufacturers, she adds, Axis is more horizontal, and understands and is more impartial about the whole ecosystem.

By helping carriers “thread together” different parts and partners within the ecosystem, and various technologies along the way, Schoenhofer says, Axis is able to improve service providers’ speed to market, and help them foresee and avoid potential pitfalls, which can save a lot of money in the process.