VoIP Unlimited wants VARs to add minutes
Service provider seeks VARs for channel growth
Internet telephony service provider VoIP Unlimited is courting small IT resellers that want to branch out into billing services, as it looks to multiply its channel in 2007.
The company has recruited about 15 resellers for its core SIP trunking and number provision offering since it launched in 2005, but is now plotting a wider assault on the channel.
Steve Bieniek, sales director at VoIP Unlimited, told CRN: “We’re targeting IT resellers that want to get involved in minutes, but don’t have the facilities. Telecoms VARs don’t have the same level of understanding.
“I would like to get between 50 and 100 IT dealers reselling our core services by the end of the year.”
Partners can white-label or resell VoIP Unlimited’s managed billing service free of charge. They will then earn between 20 and 25 per cent of the margins generated from the minutes.
Bieniek said its VARs tend to be Microsoft Small Business partners already offering broadband.
VoIP Unlimited has signed interoperability partnerships with a slew of equipment manufacturers, including Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent and VegaStream, which Bieniek claimed has helped it win over new resellers.
“The reason VegaStream likes working with us is because we don’t compete with it,” he said. “Most other SIP trunking vendors, such as Gamma, also do IP Centrex.”
David Hewett, managing director of VAR Iteam Solutions, said: “We come from the data side, not VoIP [voice over IP], so to swap from one to the other isn’t easy. However, VoIP Unlimited made it easy for us to get into that market.”