The past couple years have been especially challenging ones for the channel at large and the Agent Alliance in particular. INTERNET TELEPHONY recently checked in with Bill Power, CEO of the Agent Alliance, on how the group is evolving to help its membership address new trends in networking and to get an update on the organization’s legal tangle with Blue Casa, the new owner of TNCI (News - Alert). Below is a paraphrased version of that conversation.

For those not familiar with the Agent Alliance, give us some background.

Power: The group has been around since the late 1990s. It originally was formed as a caring and sharing group, to allow people to share their experiences.

But as time went on we saw we had an opportunity to band together and negotiate contracts together. That’s still important aspect of the alliance.

We are now a for-profit corporation and our members are shareholders. We have 17 shareholders, and we’re adding more. We opened up 12 more positions, for which we’re recruiting cloud brokers and agents.

What value do you bring to your members?

Power: We offer our members value in three areas. The first is by virtue of these group contracts. We have such a significant mass within the alliance that we can negotiate favorable contracts – with the best compensation, terms and agreements. Second is the caring and sharing I talked about before. The value there is tough to quantify, but it is valuable. Third is member-to-member commerce. Alliance members have more than 300 unique contracts with one another. We find all the time that if one member needs to access a provider not in their portfolio they will do that through another alliance member, and they will do that with a handshake and with attractive commission pass through.

The alliance recently added The Cloud Taskforce and Fostar as members. First, tell us about The Cloud Taskforce and what they bring to the table.

Power: They are the first non-tradional telecom agency we’ve added to the alliance. They are doing 3 things I just described.

The Cloud Taskforce can add to our production, and brings experience on the cloud –which is incredibly valuable to us.

What about Fostar?

Power: It’s a telecom agency in Minneapolis, a large Integra contract holder, very experienced. They will add incredible energy to the group.

The press release announcing that The Cloud Taskforce and Fostar have joined the Agent Alliance talks about how the alliance is shaking thing up. So has the Agent Alliance reorganized, or has it just added new members?

Power: We have reorganized, we have created several strata of shareholders within the group. The founding members have settled into different categories. And we are for the first time holding each other accountable for contracts, so we now have a quota. As far as membership, we are looking for other additional cloud brokerage firms, and we’re looking for VARs with telecom practices.

What is your view about the changing nature of communications, what it means for agents, and how the Agent Alliance is helping its membership respond?

Power: We’re in the middle of a dramatic change, kind of like during the CLEC boom, before which agents were just selling long-distance and then we started also selling local

Now there’s much more significant change, with the introduction of cloud services. It’s no longer about just slinging pipes. To be a more trusted adviser is where we need to be now.

So how do you do that?

Power: It’s a huge challenge. Every one of my members is faced with how do you continue to add value beyond selling pipes. It’s about either buying expertise, building it yourself, or strategically partnering. The strategic partnering goes on within our membership. For example, one guy in alliance is focusing on virtual desktops, and now other alliance members can leverage that expertise.

Sounds like a clearinghouse. Does the Agent Alliance have a clearinghouse, or are these partnering relationships among alliance members more casual?

Power: It’s not a formal clearinghouse. But we want to make sure everyone in the alliance understands what everybody else in the alliance is doing. And there is great accountability within the alliance.

OK, I have to ask you about the Blue Casa legal tangle and the TNCI Equity Plan. Please start from the beginning.

Power: Reseller TNCI’s equity plan was conceived in 2007. Then TNCI’s business plan was to grow and sell/be acquired, and they were willing to share the proceeds of that sale with agents.

Agents would sell TNCI services to help TNCI grow, and then when TNCI was sold, the agents would get a piece of the deal. The alliance owned that contract, but there was a mechanism through which non-alliance members could participate.

But it didn’t work out the way we expected. TNCI ran into financial problems and tried to evolve from a switchless reseller to a facilities-based carrier – that was well before Blue Casa. And in 2009-2010 the traction the alliance got with agents embracing TNCI service was lost because our members saw that it wouldn’t be as successful as first hoped.

Then, in October of 2011 TNCI filed Chapter 11. I was on the official creditor’s committee and there were lawyers all over the place. When they first filed Chaper 11, as a creditor the alliance filed a claim of $18.5 million in unpaid commissions, which included the value of this equity plan and some other items.

TNCI tried to get a reorganization plan approved and that was turned down, so TNCI decided to sell its assets, and Blue Casa materialized. TNCI has since sold to Blue Casa.

The alliance’s contract with TNCI has been rejected by Blue Casa, so we are no longer involved in that. So there are thousands of customers of TNCI with no agents to support them. It’s a real mess.

At this point, we are in the process of negotiating as part of a creditors pool. We’ll probably get 10-15 cents on the dollar. I’m guessing this will happen in the fall time frame. Meanwhile, Blue Casa has contracted with some agents, but most of them it has not.

How did the TNCI/Blue Casa situation impact Agent Alliance’s membership and leadership?

Power: The same leadership is in place, and it didn’t impact the numbers of our membership. Everybody has stuck together. I really think the struggle has made the alliance much stronger.