Telarus and AireSpring: Guiding Telecom Agents Through Carrier, Service Provider Options

By: Erin E. Harrison

In the increasingly competitive marketplace of telecom carriers, finding the most cost-effective and practical solution for enterprises can be a daunting challenge; finding the right service provider can be an even bigger task.

Draper, Utah-based Telarus (News - Alert) offers telecom agents the ability to offer highly competitive pricing with unprecedented access to 40 telecommunications carriers, including major players such as AT&T, ACC Business, Level3, Covad, AireSpring (News - Alert), NuVox, Qwest and XO. Telarus is a full-service “master agency” offering the following solutions: T1, NxT1, DS3, OC3, OC12, OC48, MPLS, VPN, Ethernet, POTS, voice T1, local T1, local PRI, conference calling, FREE411 advertising access, VoIP, SIP trunking and managed security.

In a recent interview with Patrick Oborn, vice president of marketing and co-founder of Telarus, he explains how the company generates leads for its agents using “trade secret” strategies in search engine optimization. Telarus also has direct and indirect agents who specialize in online and offline lead generation and represent 40 different carriers around the world.

One of the best kept secrets of Telarus is perhaps the fact that they are a software company. In 2003, Telarus authored and patented the first “real-time” commercial telecom pricing software. In addition, the company provides its agents with a private-labeled Web site that has GeoQuote software pre-installed. In addition, agents can run additional quotes in their own back office. The results of GeoQuote can then be converted into official proposals by the agent and sent to the customer in seconds.

“We wrote and patented software that enables agents through our back office run quotes and our quoting system is electronic and goes out and queries systems like AireSpring, AT&T and Qwest (News - Alert) systems, and brings back all the pricing for all of the different options for that particular service type at that customer’s particular location. And so it does everything from data T1s to OC3. We have NPLS research tools, we even have a Google (News - Alert) map with Ethernet fiber routes so that if any agent is out there and the typical master agent will need a quote for a customer, a human being with go into all these systems, and then get back to the agent with the quote, whereas our system will query all 40 vendors every single time, so there is never a vendor that gets left off. It creates a very transparent marketplace that enables carriers like AireSpring to really compete for the business of our subagents,” explains Oborn. “So when they’re provisioning orders quickly and they’re turning around manual quote requests quickly – a lot of the times the special things the customer wants obviously that can’t be done through an automated system – so we rely on a electronic lead-based system similar to Facebook (News - Alert), where they look for a quote, and someone from AireSpring, for example, will write on their wall and post prices for a two-year or three-year term, and the agent can go back and propose that to the customer.”

As a benefit to agents selling telecom, Telarus carries the high sales quotas so that individual sales agents don't have to worry about meeting a minimum monthly sales number to keep their agency agreements in compliance. Telarus helps its agents sell by creating technology to help generate Internet leads as well as technology that cuts down the sales cycle by calculating real-time quotes for commercial high-speed Internet and voice services.

“What we make sure of is that every carrier can compete, even new ones, even small ones. In fact we’ve had several ‘no name’ carriers come into our system just do an absolutely outstanding job with agents with response time, with the cut the provisioning process, billing, paying commissions on time, and they’ve gone from nothing to huge carrier in a matter of no time,” Oborn said. “It’s a virtual marketplace of carriers where subagents come in and get access to those carriers through the electronic system. There is a minimum threshold if an agent doesn’t do at least $5,000 in volume per year, they are invited to participate in our referral program, in which a lot of the access to the detailed research tools is removed and they are placed with one of our larger agents, a Telarus master agent.”

The company has also has a marketing division that creates Web sites that generates leads for businesses looking for telecom services, which are delivered to Telarus agents. “So not only do our agents get access to all the tools for their own customers that they’re consulting for, they actually get leads from the Web site. Our system divides the commission and gives some of the commission to the lead generator, the affiliate, and then a reduced commission to the agent. We pay them 75 percent of regular commission. They not only get tools, they get opportunities,” Oborn added.

Telarus has 300 full-time agents and 5,000 lead generator agents, as well as 26 full-time employees. Their carriers currently cover the U.S. and some carriers also have points in Canada and Europe.

“We want to help agents make sales, and help them meet more customers and help them be more efficient and help them make them make more sales because they’ve got the carriers they need that have the best price points. That’s really where AireSpring fits in. Their price points are exceptional.”

In fact, Telarus has increased sales by 50 percent with AireSpring, according to Oborn. Telarus and AireSpring’s relationship is one of reciprocity thus far; Telarus was AireSpring’s No. 2 agent in the country last year, and likewise, the No. 2 carrier for Telarus.

“AireSpring is really moving up the ladder. When we first got involved with them, they were pure resellers and their main value was knowing the lowest cost routing. They had five underlying carriers and they could put your customers on the one that would work best,” said Oborn. “Now they are starting to take that and ‘hybridize’ their own network and spending a lot of money on building out portions of their network – really lowering their operating costs and enabling them to compete on price where a lot of other folks in the same reseller space can’t touch AireSpring.”

For more information on AireSpring, visit their channel at http://www.tmcnet.com/channels/sip/ IT

Erin E. Harrison is senior editor of Technology Marketing Corporation.

» Internet Telephony Magazine Table of Contents