Ethernet Plays Key Role In Integra’s Up-Market Focus

CEN Feature (Nov 6 2012) Access , Metro Ethernet , Regional , Wholesale / Exchange

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   Once focused entirely on serving small to medium sized businesses, Integra Telecom has given itself a makeover during the past year. The changes began with the appointment of a new executive team headed by CEO Kevin O’Hara.

   The competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) is keeping its pledge to provide customers with excellent customer service. However, Integra’s primary emphasis during the past year and going forward has changed. The company is strategically focusing on its underlying fiber assets and making them available to larger enterprise customers and wholesalers, said O’Hara. Proof that the change is for real lies in the numbers.

   “Approximately 70 percent of our new sales are being made to customers with multiple locations,” said O’Hara. “And 35 percent of sales are coming from new sales of $5,000 and higher.”

   In addition to leveraging its fiber facilities in its 11-state footprint, Integra also is expanding Ethernet over Copper (EoC) facilities to reach more customer locations within that footprint. Integra currently has 3,000 route miles of fiber in its metro markets and 5,000 route miles of long-haul fiber. Approximately 2,200 buildings are connected to that fiber and Integra has managed to capture 12% of the market share of the addressable spend, said O’Hara.

   “We plan to expand our market share by up-selling our existing customers and gaining new customers,” said O’Hara. “There are 16,000 enterprise buildings within 2,500 feet of our fiber. We have it broken down by 1,000 feet, too.”

   The CLEC is introducing EoC on a broader basis and a high percentage of the company’s existing plant has been upgraded from 30 Mbps to accommodate 60 Mbps data rates. Integra’s EoC capability has had a lot to do with increasing the number of network-to-network interfaces (NNIs) the company has entered into with other carriers. Large national providers are using EoC circuits as termination points on the network and Integra expects that trend to continue. In an effort to make it easier for wholesale customers to connect to EoC circuits, Integra recently introduced an Internet-based tool that enables them to determine EoC loop lengths and data rate capabilities.

   Whether Ethernet service is provide via copper or fiber, it will continue to play an important role in Integra’s business because its Ethernet ports address all of the value scenarios that verticals are trying to solve, said O’Hara.

   “Approximately 70 percent of our new sales are enabled by Ethernet,” he added. “The sales are either triggered by Ethernet or they come along with the sale. That was not so a year ago.”

   The larger enterprise companies that Integra is pursuing are looking for Ethernet based wavelength services, E-Line point-to-point services, and E-LAN services, which Integra plans to launch in late November.

   To draw in more high-end customers, Integra has added a number of new products to its portfolio including wavelength service, hosted voice, cloud firewall, SIP trunking and cloud services. Instead of turning its sales people loose as it did in the past, Integra has reorganized its sales force around target customer markets including government, enterprise, wholesale, small business and more, said O’Hara. 

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