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Carrier Services
Verizon Business crafts integrated service packs for SMBs
Extends higher-end enterprise services to smaller businesses in customizable combinations
by Doug Allen
Verizon Business has launched a new set of repackaged existing services into “integrated service packages” for the mid-sized business (300-1000 employees). The “BizPak” line is designed for large, generally single-site customers looking for a full-featured, unified voice/data access package combining Web functionality as well as IP telephony.
Each BizPak bundles a voice service with a related data service, delivered over a converged line. VoIP BizPak combines Verizon Business’ Internet Dedicated Access with Hosted IP Centrex or IP Integrated Access supporting analog, digital TDM and SIP trunking on the customer side); PRI BizPak marries IDA with ISDN and local/long-distance calling plans. Customer can also access Verizon’s Private IP service through the carrier’s wireless 3G services for the first time.
Both Paks come with carrier-provided CPE, typically an ADTRAN IAD or router) managed installation and a number of enhanced Internet features, including email, a toll-free number, flexible calling plans based buckets of minutes available per line and managed web hosting.
BizPaks is an important element of Verizon Business’s overall competitive strategy, since the new combinations, while comprised of existing services, still represents a break with its previous marketing for SMBS. Where the Verizon Telecom division once handled the lower-end SMB market, selling primarily in-house services primarily in-region, Verizon Business is now offering its higher-end products and services to this usually underserved segment, and has begun to implement a national marketing and sales campaign specifically for these customers. Moreover, the carrier has opened up the BizPak template to allows for more open-ended, customized voice/data bundles from the Verizon Business portfolio, which gives the full spectrum of SMBs the ability to choose the appropriate service mix for them.
This renewed emphasis on the SMB market, applied on a national scale, puts great competitive pressure on rival carriers both in- and out-of region. Even without the allure of new, innovative services, Verizon Business’s deep pockets, brand name, and extensive portfolio mean it can go head-to-head with pretty much anyone, even outside their primary territories. The move threatens both entrenched competitors such as AT&T, Qwest, and to a lesser extent EMBARQ, as well as regional and national CLECs.
“Verizon Business has set up BizPaks to be the flagship service that has the potential to bring the Verizon name back to wireline services for nationwide SMBs,” writes Brian Washburn, research director, and Cindy Whelan, senior analyst at Current Analysis, in a recent competitive intelligence report. “Through its BizPaks, the carrier aims to make it easier for SMBs to do business with the company; Customer service representatives have automated tools to build a service package, together with a competitive price quote, for inquiring SMBs. BizPaks are assembled independent of the underlying transport mechanisms; Whether the underlying connection for the quote is a single DS1, up to six DS1s, or even a fractional of full DS3 will depend n the service components the customer orders. Verizon’s internal SMB quoting tool for BizPaks has been structured to take a SMBs’s entire telecom spend into account, then to discount the package on the basis of the cost to provide the underlying service and customers’ overall telecom spend with Verizon.”
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