If there’s one thing that Texans appreciate, its Texas. Alpheus Communications, a Houston-based competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) is building its future by focusing completely on serving Texas based enterprises. Alpheus, which provides wholesale and enterprise telecommunications and data center services, has a strong presence in Austin, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston and San Antonio, which are four of the fastest growing markets in the U.S. 

The CLEC was created eight years ago by an energy company in El Paso that decided to deploy fiber alongside its pipeline and made a strategic decision to build its dense fiber footprint directly into AT&T central offices (COs). The company’s third owner, The Gores Group, a Los Angeles based private equity firm, acquired Alpheus in December 2011.

Because they do everything big in Texas, it’s no surprise that Alpheus’ network is huge. When its fiber plant is combined with fiber owned by First Communications, also owned by The Gores Group, the company’s fiber network spans more than 10,500 fiber route miles across Texas. Today, that network to serve approximately 120 wholesale customers.

Alpheus is in the beginning stages of using the network to offer what will be a growing suite of products and services aimed at the enterprise customers, says Scott Widham, the company’s newly appointed CEO. To officially get the ball rolling in that direction, Alpheus announced its Carrier Ethernet-based E-LAN portfolio of services at the end of 2011.

In addition to an abundance of fiber, Alpheus has a lot of Ethernet over Copper deployed throughout its network. “We sell E-LAN over our E-VPL product,” says Francisco Maella, COO of Alpheus. “We just happen to use copper as the delivery method for many end user locations. Typically, copper is the only viable solution.” 

Alpheus also bundles in quality of service and class of service and uses the Metro Ethernet Forum’s Trust Model, customer tags based on P-bits, to prioritize the IP frames across the network, he explains.

“We also went one step further. We are able to look at the DSCP bits of the IP frame, even if it’s a Layer 2 product,” Maella ads. “All the CPE that we have certified for use in our network can actually look at a DSCP bit for enterprise customers that are not able to map their internal VoIP applications to a priority bit. That is a value add for our customers.”

In addition to E-LAN, the CLEC is planning to launch voice a SIP-based trunking voice product as well as other managed services.

“Right now, we are weighing the alternatives of doing those things in-house or contracting with third parties to white label their services,” said Widham.

Growing Big

Getting things done right the first time and offering great services and customer service are how Alpheus differentiates itself from the many other service providers operating in Texas, he adds. 

While Alpheus is serving 90% wholesale customers and 10% enterprise today, the CLEC expects that ratio to switch to 65% to 35%  by 2015, according to Chip Robertson, Senior Vice President of Carrier Sales, Alpheus.

“We are seeing steady gains on our E-LAN product,” he says. “And being a Texas-based company we are the next ubiquitous-looking player other than the ILEC, because we offer Ethernet and a wide array of options.”

Strictly fiber-based competitors do not have the ability to cost-effectively provide customers with between 5 Mbps and 10 Mbps, but Alpheus can do just about anything a customer needs and provide it via any type of facility be it fiber-to-fiber, microwave, TDM, dark fiber, and copper, he explains. That point, as well the CLEC’s 123 on-net LCOS, gives Alpheus the ability to address a much bigger piece of the pie than most of its competitors, he adds.

In addition to all of the above, Alpheus is attacking the enterprise market with a strategic game plan, says Layne Levine, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Sales. The CLEC has identified 8000 companies that earn more than $1 million per year in revenue and employ more than 50 people that are purely owned and operated in Texas and located within 1.3 miles of  Alpheus’ LCOS.

“We can get to 95% of them with an EoC bundled services package of voice and Ethernet from 5 Mbps to 25 Mbps,” says Levine. “We think that is a very compelling product bundle for that marketplace.”

The marketing campaign involves direct mail and assigned accounts to the company’s expanding sales force. It is complemented by messaging that invites Texans to do business with another Texas-based company—Alpheus.

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If there’s one thing that Texans appreciate, its Texas. Alpheus Communications, a Houston-based competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) is building its future by focusing completely on serving Texas based enterprises. Alpheus, which provides wholesale and enterprise telecommunications and data center services, has a strong presence in Austin, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston and San Antonio, which are four of the fastest growing markets in the U.S. 

The CLEC was created eight years ago by an energy company in El Paso that decided to deploy fiber alongside its pipeline and made a strategic decision to build its dense fiber footprint directly into AT&T central offices (COs). The company’s third owner, The Gores Group, a Los Angeles based private equity firm, acquired Alpheus in December 2011.

Because they do everything big in Texas, it’s no surprise that Alpheus’ network is huge. When its fiber plant is combined with fiber owned by First Communications, also owned by The Gores Group, the company’s fiber network spans more than 10,500 fiber route miles across Texas. Today, that network to serve approximately 120 wholesale customers.

Alpheus is in the beginning stages of using the network to offer what will be a growing suite of products and services aimed at the enterprise customers, says Scott Widham, the company’s newly appointed CEO. To officially get the ball rolling in that direction, Alpheus announced its Carrier Ethernet-based E-LAN portfolio of services at the end of 2011.

In addition to an abundance of fiber, Alpheus has a lot of Ethernet over Copper deployed throughout its network. “We sell E-LAN over our E-VPL product,” says Francisco Maella, COO of Alpheus. “We just happen to use copper as the delivery method for many end user locations. Typically, copper is the only viable solution.” 

Alpheus also bundles in quality of service and class of service and uses the Metro Ethernet Forum’s Trust Model, customer tags based on P-bits, to prioritize the IP frames across the network, he explains.

“We also went one step further. We are able to look at the DSCP bits of the IP frame, even if it’s a Layer 2 product,” Maella ads. “All the CPE that we have certified for use in our network can actually look at a DSCP bit for enterprise customers that are not able to map their internal VoIP applications to a priority bit. That is a value add for our customers.”

In addition to E-LAN, the CLEC is planning to launch voice a SIP-based trunking voice product as well as other managed services.

“Right now, we are weighing the alternatives of doing those things in-house or contracting with third parties to white label their services,” said Widham.

Growing Big

Getting things done right the first time and offering great services and customer service are how Alpheus differentiates itself from the many other service providers operating in Texas, he adds. 

While Alpheus is serving 90% wholesale customers and 10% enterprise today, the CLEC expects that ratio to switch to 65% to 35%  by 2015, according to Chip Robertson, Senior Vice President of Carrier Sales, Alpheus.

“We are seeing steady gains on our E-LAN product,” he says. “And being a Texas-based company we are the next ubiquitous-looking player other than the ILEC, because we offer Ethernet and a wide array of options.”

Strictly fiber-based competitors do not have the ability to cost-effectively provide customers with between 5 Mbps and 10 Mbps, but Alpheus can do just about anything a customer needs and provide it via any type of facility be it fiber-to-fiber, microwave, TDM, dark fiber, and copper, he explains. That point, as well the CLEC’s 123 on-net LCOS, gives Alpheus the ability to address a much bigger piece of the pie than most of its competitors, he adds.

In addition to all of the above, Alpheus is attacking the enterprise market with a strategic game plan, says Layne Levine, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Sales. The CLEC has identified 8000 companies that earn more than $1 million per year in revenue and employ more than 50 people that are purely owned and operated in Texas and located within 1.3 miles of  Alpheus’ LCOS.

“We can get to 95% of them with an EoC bundled services package of voice and Ethernet from 5 Mbps to 25 Mbps,” says Levine. “We think that is a very compelling product bundle for that marketplace.”

The marketing campaign involves direct mail and assigned accounts to the company’s expanding sales force. It is complemented by messaging that invites Texans to do business with another Texas-based company—Alpheus.

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