Frost & Sullivan recently spoke with Richard Grange, President & CEO of New Global Telecom (NGT), recipient of Frost & Sullivan’s 2005 Customer Value Enhancement Award.

Richard C. Grange boasts a long and successful career in telecommunications services. He co-founded TMC of Colorado, a long distance reseller, in 1982 and served as its executive vice president and chief executive officer until 1987. After TMC of Colorado was sold to TelAmerica in 1987, Grange founded and served as president and chief executive officer of Meridian Telecom International, a provider of international call termination and international operator services from 1995 to 1996. From 1994 until 1995, he served also as president of Technology Resource Group, an international call back carrier.

Rich Grange founded NGT in 1996 and has served as its president and chief executive since its inception. Headquartered in Golden, Colorado, New Global Telecom was founded to take advantage of recent telecommunications market deregulation. Originally, it offered international wholesale services to Tier 1 inter-exchange carriers in North America and, later on, in Asia and Latin America. When AT&T required international wholesale management services, NGT introduced a network management service that exceeded AT&T’s needs, and which AT&T used from 1999 until late 2004. When migration to next-generation networks began affecting the industry, NGT developed Time Division Multiplexing (TDM)-to-IP conversion services to help customers manage dual networks. The Company also introduced a managed wholesale VoIP product suite in January 2004, under the brand name 6DegreesIP. The evolution of NGT over the past decade proves Rich Grange’s ability to identify market opportunities and steer its company on the path toward growth and success through competitive differentiation and delivery of greater customer value.

Q1. Rich, New Global Telecom recently received Frost & Sullivan’s Customer Value Enhancement award for its 6DegreesIP service. In your opinion, what are this service’s competitive advantages and how does it help you differentiate from competitors?

"Our 6DegreesIP service has several competitive advantages. First of all, we create leading product innovations that require scale, and that provide competitive differentiation to Service Providers. This helps drive faster adoption industry-wide. Our aggressive product roadmap has leveraged NGT’s consolidated market intelligence, technical depth, vendor management skills and nimble behavior to deliver such innovations as the integration of the Carbon 12 Telephony Toolbar, the development of a nomadic E911-compliant solution, and the deployment of on-net calling via IP peering point.

Secondly, we deliver superior customer support derived directly from market intelligence and best practices so that our Service Providers are well-trained, informed and ready to adapt to a dynamic marketplace. Customer Support includes extensive training during on-boarding process, sales support & lead generation, marketing tools and channel management.

Last, but not least, the breadth and depth of the NGT’s product evolution capabilities provides our Service Providers with access to large, addressable markets with a competitively priced offer. At the heart of this is an integrated end-to-end VoIP product suite which includes the applications, network access, network transport, LNP, E911, database services, Tier 2/3 support, network monitoring & management, billing, OSS and CPE certification.

Next, we deliver this product suite across multiple technology platforms, which are fully integrated to ensure appropriate functionality and security - including application servers, softswitches, media gateways, core & edge routers, and NAT traversal via session border controllers. And, we then add productivity-enhancing applications integration which delivers value-added features to the end-user, including presence, call center, and planned future integrations for CRM, ERP and mobile phone."

Q2. Your customer base has grown substantially over the past year and we know you implement a set of practices that ensure your company’s strategies are in sync with your clients’ needs and demands. Can you comment briefly on some of these practices?

"NGT’s business model involves delivering customized network outsourcing on a broad scale, and our success is based on the success of our customers. With this in mind, we’ve instituted best practices over the years to ensure each of our Service Provider customers receives the support they need. These practices include processes that start with the hand-off from sales to implementation, customer-specific initial training sessions with regular product release and new service supplemental training via audio/web conferencing, ongoing dedicated account management resources, internal documents for tracking customer input and quarterly Customer Advisory Board meetings."

Q3. You have enhanced your service over the past year based on customer feedback. What were some of features and capabilities customers requested and you were able to provide?

"Some of the requested items include-

• NPA-NXX look-up tool for determining availability of select telephone number area-codes and exchanges;
• Online ordering systems for our VoIP services;
• Better understanding of Call Detail Records (CDR) – with ability to add various call type functionalities in the records;
• Additional Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) and network device testing from our in-house Product Lab;

Additional features we’ve added that have been very popular with our customer base include-

• Telephony Toolbar – for dialing directly from within Microsoft Outlook or on an Internet Explorer web page;
• Enhanced Customer Case Management Portal for tracking network issues from onset through resolution;
• Point-and-click Reception Console for truly simplified front-desk management."

Q4. Are there any features and capabilities that customers are demanding today and you are looking to develop and deploy in the near term?

"Absolutely, and part of NGT’s strategy is to leverage our relationships to ensure our customers will be in the market with the most cost-effective, competitive solutions available. This includes the comprehensive planning and development of an FCC-compliant E911 solution – work that NGT began in January of 2005 in advance of the FCC Order. The magnitude of the project ensures our Service Providers will have extensive coverage with a fully compliant E911 solution.

Additional product enhancements include a developer’s portal, enhanced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) tool, variations on integrated voice-data converged product offerings – which is sometimes called PBX-trunk replacement services – and platform upgrades for existing services to incorporate the latest features and functionality."

Q5. What do you believe is the value of the wholesale business model? What do you bring to the table and what are some of the assets and skills that your partners leverage in this relationship?

"Due to the complexity of adding VoIP services to an existing organization, many Service Providers find a wholesale model provides accelerated speed-to-market on a reliable, proven product. In addition, training and "ramp-up" the VoIP learning curve ensures responsiveness and positive brand awareness for Service Providers who would otherwise struggle with an internal implementation. Once implemented, NGT’s depth of experience and regular innovation in response to customers needs provide our Service Providers with an invaluable, strong partner for their ongoing VoIP revenue models."

Q6. Can you share a couple of success stories with us? Tell us about some of your partners, what challenges they were facing and how you helped them improve their competitive positioning.

"In late January, Level 3 Communications announced it was discontinuing its (3)Tone hosted IP PBX business service. Dozens of Level 3 resellers were confronted with a tight deadline for transitioning all their business customers and thousands of (3)Tone business VoIP end-users to a new platform and a new wholesale provider. As a growing leader in the wholesale VoIP market, NGT moved quickly to contract with former (3)Tone resellers and start transitioning end-users in advance of the June deadline. Ultimately, NGT migrated 5,500 end-users from 245 different companies during a 10-week migration period. End-to-end migrations averaged 30 minutes per site, with sites averaging 20 users and with an approximate five-minute average downtime per site. The rapid and successful completion of the migration provided our customers with a thorough introduction to NGT’s operational processes and platform. As a result, customers had the confidence to immediately resume selling VoIP services. In addition, NGT has expanded its base of knowledge in relation to hardware and software compatibility and migration issues between platforms.

Another success story is the integration of the Carbon 12 miPA Lite Telephony Toolbar into our 6DegreesIP product suite. Carbon 12 developed an application for the BroadSoft platform that enables users to make and accept telephone calls and change telephone settings from a toolbar within Microsoft Outlook® and Internet Explorer® – without ever leaving the Outlook or Explorer application. We launched this Telephony Toolbar in April of this year, and in the past five months, our Service Providers have sold over 14,000 licenses with interest continuing to increase at a steady pace. The Toolbar itself is an example of product innovation that meets the demands of the market, and has been a great win for our customers. Since then, BroadSoft has acquired Carbon 12, and we hope to see more unique end-user desktop applications from this creative team."

Q7. What is your vision of the evolution of the business telecommunications market over the next decade? What do you believe is going to be New Global Telecom’s role in this evolving marketplace?

"VoIP services will continue to push the telecom average cost curve down, but the real value lies in the potential to change people’s communication behavior, through truly customizable personal communications. The business telecommunications market has unique communications applications all converging on the desktop and NGT is there pushing new services and features right where business users are most comfortable using them – based on point and click functionality. We see the business market as truly on the verge of massive VoIP adoption, and it’s a wide-open market. NGT recently co-sponsored market research to determine the buying behaviors within the SMB marketplace. Surprisingly, no particular category of Service Provider stood out as the winner of the SMB space – creating a great opportunity for those Service Providers who master the most effective means of tapping into this market. NGT’s unique approach to product innovation and devoted customer support best practices will continue to be our strength in the evolving marketplace, and we look forward to helping our Service Providers succeed."