For many technology companies, channel partners and MSPs are far more than an alternative route to market — they are an essential part of how communications, cloud, software, security, and other technology solutions reach businesses. Partners often serve as the trusted advisors helping customers evaluate, deploy, and manage those solutions, making the strength of a vendor’s channel program increasingly important, not only to its partners, but also to the customers those partners serve.
That role has become more demanding. Channel organizations are no longer simply selling individual products or services; many are helping customers navigate increasingly complex technology environments that span communications, networking, cybersecurity, cloud platforms, AI, and managed services. As portfolios expand and customer expectations rise, partners need vendors that can help them move quickly, build expertise, simplify operations, and create sustainable recurring revenue.
The strongest channel programs recognize that partner success depends on more than competitive products and commissions. Effective programs provide technical and sales enablement, responsive support, marketing resources, visibility into deals and deployments, clear rules of engagement, and tools that reduce administrative friction. They also instill confidence that the vendor will support the partner throughout the customer lifecycle, rather than disappearing once a contract is signed.
The winners of INTERNET TELEPHONY’s 2026 Channel Program Excellence Awards distinguish themselves through programs designed to help partners succeed. From training and co-selling to partner portals, financial incentives, marketing support, and ongoing customer engagement, these companies are investing in the infrastructure and relationships their partners need to grow. The following award winners demonstrate how thoughtful channel strategies can create new revenue opportunities, strengthen customer relationships, and build more productive long-term partnerships. We congratulate this year’s winners (listed in alphabetical order) and look forward to seeing what they accomplish in the coming years.
AireSpring (News - Alert)
www.airespring.com
AireSpring Global Channel Sales
AireSpring’s channel proposition begins with one of the clearest commitments in the industry: The company has operated exclusively through the channel since 2001. Its solutions engineers and channel managers are compensated on business generated through partners, creating structural alignment rather than forcing partners to wonder whether they are competing with the supplier’s direct sales organization. AireSpring supports partners nationwide while helping them address increasingly global networking requirements, with connectivity capabilities spanning 190 countries.
The program combines extensive human support with a growing portfolio of partner technology. Regional channel managers work alongside sales operations personnel and a large solutions engineering team with expertise spanning UCaaS, SD-WAN, SASE, mobility, and security. Training includes webinars, solution onboarding, and personalized enablement, with more than 3,800 partners earning AireSpring SD-WAN and security certifications. Marketing resources include co-branded campaigns, sales collateral, joint events, sponsorships, and partner-focused digital content.
Technology is intended to reduce friction throughout the lifecycle. QuoteSpring provides real-time quoting and proposals, DAX delivers 24/7 order visibility, agentSTAR houses partner resources, and AIreCONTROL provides IT service management visibility. Post-sale support includes dedicated implementation contacts, Tier 3 (News - Alert) AIrePOD engineering support, proactive service assurance, and escalation extending to the CEO.
Economically, AireSpring combines competitive pricing with evergreen commissions and SPIFFs — including renewal SPIFFs. Its broader appeal comes from pairing those incentives with a substantial global portfolio and a single-source delivery model. For partners managing complex or multinational customers, the ability to consolidate connectivity, networking, security, mobility, and communications under one provider, contract, bill, and support structure can be particularly compelling.
Calix (News - Alert)
www.calix.com
Calix Partner Community
The Calix Partner Community is undergoing a significant transformation around AI. Launched in 2014 with roughly 60 partners, the ecosystem has grown to more than 300 channel and technology partners worldwide. With the April 2026 introduction of the Calix One AI-native platform, Calix is now reshaping the program into an AI-first model intended to combine automation and self-service with the strategic, high-touch relationships its partners already value.
The community encompasses VARs, referral partners, distributors, consulting engineering firms, software and services vendors, and strategic alliances. Partners span three tiers — Authorized, Select, and Elite — with increasingly extensive benefits and obligations. Calix’s model extends beyond conventional resale. Ecosystem partners can integrate through Calix Cloud APIs, while higher-level relationships can include innovation and co-development opportunities. Its geographic footprint spans North America, Latin America/Caribbean, EMEA, and APAC.
The most notable development is the application of AI to the partner experience itself. Calix Partner Hub centralizes onboarding, deal registration, certifications, training, and marketing resources, while planned agentic AI workflows will automate processes and provide faster access to information and actions. Calix Partner Path is designed to recommend appropriate next steps based on partner characteristics, while self-service marketing tools, pipeline reviews, support access, and Early Adopters programs complement the platform.
The result is a strategy that fits with its AI mindset: Calix is trying to make routine partner interactions dramatically more automated while reserving human engagement for strategy, selling, and innovation. Partners also gain early access to AI initiatives and, at higher tiers, opportunities to help extend the Calix One platform itself.
FluentStream
www.fluentstream.com
FluentStream Partner Program
FluentStream has built its partner program around a relatively simple proposition: Make it easier and more profitable for MSPs, technology advisors, and IT consultants to serve SMBs without adding unnecessary operational complexity. Rather than emphasizing volume requirements, the program is structured around transparency, retention, recurring revenue, and long-term customer success. That approach is particularly suited to relationship-driven partners serving healthcare, professional services, education, multi-location businesses, and other SMBs with demanding communications requirements.
Partners receive nationwide coverage and direct access to U.S.-based sales, implementation, and support resources. FluentStream’s partner portal adds operational transparency by allowing partners to follow registered opportunities from quote through close, track onboarding and implementation milestones, monitor support activity, and review commission statements. Straightforward pricing, no hidden fees, and no-charge installations are intended to further reduce friction for partners and customers.
One of the program’s distinctive element is its flexibility around partner economics. Affiliate, Channel, and Strategic tiers allow companies to participate according to their own business models without rigid volume commitments, while a transparent commission structure and optional commission buyout provide additional financial flexibility. FluentStream positions this combination of predictable compensation, visibility, accessible support, and ease of doing business as a way for partners to protect customer relationships and generate sustainable recurring revenue. Partner testimonials reinforce that positioning, highlighting responsiveness and the feeling that FluentStream operates as an extension of the partner’s own team.
Fusion Connect (News - Alert)
www.fusionconnect.com
Fusion Connect Channel Partner Program
Fusion Connect’s channel program is designed to give technology advisors, TSDs, MSPs, VARs, systems integrators, and cloud consultants a broad platform from which to expand recurring revenue. Its partners serve customers ranging from SMBs through enterprises, with particular relevance for complex multi-location organizations, regulated industries, and distributed workforces looking to consolidate communications, networking, cloud, and managed services.
Partner enablement combines dedicated Channel Managers and Sales Engineers with deal registration, opportunity protection, MDF and co-marketing programs, training resources, co-branded campaigns, roadshows, networking programs, and executive engagement. The Impartner-powered Fusion Connect Partner Portal centralizes deal registration, opportunity management, sales resources, marketing content, and training, while direct engagement with channel and engineering teams provides additional visibility into implementation and the customer lifecycle.
A notable element of Fusion Connect’s strategy is its use of several “wedge” offerings designed to create an initial customer conversation. Connectivity, Microsoft (News - Alert) licensing and Teams Calling, and POTS replacement address immediate modernization, cost, and hybrid-work requirements and can provide an entry point into Fusion Connect’s broader portfolio of UCaaS, CCaaS, networking, cloud communications, and managed services.
That land-and-expand strategy is central to the program’s value proposition. Partners can begin by solving a clearly defined customer problem and then expand wallet share while reducing the number of suppliers the customer must manage. Fusion Connect complements that portfolio breadth with U.S.-based customer support, responsive channel management, tailored incentives, collaborative pre-sales assistance, and executive accessibility. The underlying philosophy is that Fusion Connect should function as an extension of the partner’s organization rather than simply another supplier in the technology stack.
Object First
www.objectfirst.com
Object First Partner Program
Object First’s partner program reflects the company’s 100% channel-led business model, where every transaction flows through resellers, distributors, or service providers. Its core partner profile is very specific: Veeam-focused resellers, MSPs, and CSPs that can use Object First’s immutable backup storage to expand customer conversations around ransomware recovery, cyber resilience, data sovereignty, and compliance.
The company supports partners through regional channel leadership backed by partner management, distribution, sales engineering, and marketing teams. Resources span onboarding, technical and sales certification, business planning, pricing, deal registration, MDF, co-branded campaigns, webinars, telemarketing, and field activities. Its Partner Portal provides opportunity tracking, education, marketing assets, and demand-gen tools, while Fleet Manager allows partners and service providers to centrally monitor distributed Object First appliances across customer environments. Distributor workflows provide additional quoting and ordering support.
One particularly distinctive enablement effort is Object First’s fully funded Hands-On Lab program. These 90-minute in-person or virtual sessions allow partners and customers to configure the company’s Ootbi technology in a Veeam environment. Object First handles much of the event logistics and combines the technical session with customer engagement activities, creating a relatively low-effort path for partners to demonstrate the product and develop a pipeline.
The program’s growth metrics suggest substantial channel momentum: Object First reported 183% year-over-year bookings growth in 2025, a 215% increase in transacting partners, and continued expansion in early 2026. At its core, the program’s appeal is relationship-driven, based on hands-on co-selling, accessible enablement, simplified onboarding, and a focused opportunity for partners to develop recurring cyber resilience and managed security revenue around the Veeam ecosystem.
RedZone Technologies
www.redzonetech.net
RedZone Passpoint JuMP Start Partner Program
RedZone’s JuMP Start program is less a traditional partner program than a structured mechanism for helping MSPs and technology providers move into higher-value cybersecurity services. Introduced in May 2024 for Passpoint channel partners, the program targets MSPs, VARs, and technology solution providers serving mid-market customers, particularly in compliance-sensitive environments, such as healthcare and financial services. The ideal partner already owns trusted customer relationships but does not want the cost, staffing burden, or risk associated with building a complete security practice internally.
JuMP Start differentiates itself through active co-selling. Instead of simply providing collateral and expecting partners to develop their own sales motion, RedZone joins discovery calls, assists with account planning, provides co-branded customer and partner materials, and remains involved throughout the sales cycle. Partners receive a defined entry strategy built around Cadence Penetration Testing as a Service, Fractional Remediation, and, where appropriate, Ransomware Impact Analysis.
Most importantly, the program has an intentionally designed revenue progression. A pentesting engagement typically valued at $18,000-$30,000 can identify issues that lead naturally into remediation and ultimately into a managed relationship generating $4,000-$5,000 or more in MRR. RedZone describes that expansion path as being built into the model rather than something partners must create themselves.
The other important differentiator is accountability. RedZone’s “One Accountable Operator” concept addresses customer frustration with fragmented security providers and vendor finger-pointing. For partners, JuMP Start provides both a revenue expansion strategy and a differentiated cybersecurity story without requiring them to build every capability themselves.
Reinvent Telecom
www.reinventtelecom.com
Reinvent Partner Program
Reinvent Telecom has spent roughly two decades developing a wholesale model designed for partners that want something more valuable than an agent relationship: Ownership of the customer. Originating with telecom resellers and SIP trunking, the program has expanded with the broader market into UCaaS, CCaaS, connectivity, security, managed networking, AI-enabled services, and other technologies. Today, it targets resellers, MSPs, MSSPs, VARs, ITSPs, ISPs, fiber providers, and other businesses that want to build recurring revenue while maintaining control of their brand and customer base.
That ownership model is the program’s defining characteristic. White-label partners can set their own pricing, package services with hardware or professional services, bill under their own brand, and own the customer relationship. A co-branded option retains many of those advantages while shifting regulatory compliance, taxation, remittance, and billing responsibilities to Reinvent. The company says cloud communications margins can exceed 50%, with no quotas or startup costs, creating an opportunity to build recurring revenue while potentially increasing the partner business’s valuation.
Reinvent surrounds the model with extensive operational infrastructure. Its partner technology covers quoting, proposals, ordering, provisioning, customer management, commissions, private-label billing, support, and service visibility. Its Revive platform brings these functions together, while HaloPSA supports service-management workflows. Regional managers, engineers, partner-success specialists, billing and porting teams, and executive escalation provide human support behind the technology. Ultimately, Reinvent’s proposition is that partners can offer an increasingly broad technology portfolio without spending years building the underlying infrastructure themselves, and they can build equity in their own company rather than someone else’s brand.
Telesystem
www.trusttelesystem.com
Telesystem Partner Program
Telesystem’s channel strategy grew out of its transformation from a regional CLEC into a national technology provider. In 2014, the company shifted away from direct sales and expanded its channel presence through relationships with brokers, TSDs, VARs, telecom consultants, and MSPs. Its sweet spot is partners serving organizations with lean IT teams, particularly multi-location customers with roughly 100-2,000 employees in healthcare, education, financial services, and retail.
A major strength of the program is the depth of resources surrounding the partner. National and regional channel managers are complemented by sales engineers, cybersecurity specialists, account managers, sales support personnel, and 24/7 U.S.-based technical support. Telesystem also provides co-brandable marketing materials, customizable email and social campaigns, proposals, event opportunities, and a partner portal for tracking orders, commissions, trouble tickets, and service changes. A single-point-of-contact model and dedicated project management team provide continuity through design, installation, and ongoing service.
Telesystem sees ownership of its nationwide network as an important channel differentiator. Controlling the underlying infrastructure gives the company greater influence over reliability and the overall customer experience, which it connects to an average customer tenure of 11 years and a Net Promoter Score above +75. For partners, that translates into greater confidence that customers will remain satisfied and recurring revenue will remain stable. Executive accessibility, transparent communication, and accountability throughout the customer lifecycle further reinforce the company’s “IT’s About Trust” channel philosophy.
Edited by
Erik Linask
