This article originally appeared in the Sept. 2012 issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY

When it comes to providing telecom solutions to VARs and their customers, Telco Depot thinks outside the box. Not only does the company outfit its partners with a range of communications gear, Telco Depot also brings to the table years of experience.

“We don’t just sell boxes, we sell knowledge,” explains Ron Bregman, CEO and co-founder of Telco Depot.

Telco Depot has been in business more than two years, but Bregman has been involved in the telephone business since 1983, a year before the Bell System divestiture. Over the years he’s been involved in the sales and marketing side of the communications industry, having worked in the voicemail business and acted as former president and CEO of Tadiran (News - Alert) Telecom. Bregman’s partner, co-founder Yaron Ram, meanwhile, is the technical brain behind the Telco Depot name. A hardware engineer, Ram has spent more than 20 years in the communications business.

The Telco Depot team also includes a staff of network engineers with knowledge across a range of disciplines and solutions, including VoIP, firewalls and converged networking. These experts are available to Telco Depot customers via a single 800 number.

“I will look to these guys first for all of my telecom needs in the future,” says one Telco Depot customer. “While they are in New York and I’m in Georgia, they still manage to be more accessible than the local guys to answer my questions.”

That’s particularly important for VARs that have traditionally been computer focused and may not be as knowledgeable about VoIP, notes Bregman. “So we enable them to interact with our technical department, and they create a subnet as needed,” he says.

While Telco Depot does not compete purely on price, and VARs may be able to buy some components here and there at individual lower prices, Bregman says that at end of day they will be more comfortable working with Telco Depot because the company offers a one-stop shop experience while being very competitive on prices and including a high level of support with every sale. Telco Depot provides voice and data cable installation, office phone system installation, and ongoing support to ensure phone systems run flawlessly. Telco Depot also can handle specialized tasks such as preprogramming the keys on phones to meet individual customer requirements. And, in some cases, Telco Depot brands product to the VARs’ requirements.

The voice products offered by Telco Depot range from inexpensive digital to higher-end multi-site VoIP solutions. Featured brands include Aastra, allworx, D-Link, Panasonic, Plantronics (News - Alert), Polycom, Syspine, Valcom and XBLUE Networks. Telco Depot also offers unique products such as the TD-100, an Asterisk-based VoIP server designed support two to 24 users. The system offers enterprise-level features while being very affordable.

As Telco Depot notes in its blog, there are many benefits to be derived by businesses that embrace voice over IP. Deploying VoIP can enable an organization to reduce its communications costs since interstate or international calls go through the Internet. It allows companies to establish rules on how calls are handled (leveraging software to do automatic call routing based on numbers, time of day, etc.); do call waiting; offer a call menu for incoming calls; get call reporting; send calls to voicemail, and more. VoIP creates a platform through which business users can make and receive calls from multiple devices. The technology is also noteworthy for its flexibility, which lets businesses easily add and move extensions as required, and allows employees to work from disparate locations but have the same calling features as they would if they were at headquarters. Once an organization moves to VoIP, they also open the door to a range of new communications possibilities including conferencing and collaboration.

But whatever the solution set, Telco Depot delivers complete solutions that specifically address the needs of its partners and customers, and that come with top-drawer support. Bregman says the company’s 100 percent reseller rating attests to that fact.

“We go the extra mile to make our customers happy,” he says. “We cater to their needs.”