Telstra's U.S. Network Expansion Helps Agents Go Global

Telstra wants to provide more to U.S. agents and their customers.

The Australia-based carrier launched new points of presence (PoPs) this year in Atlanta, Dallas, Denver and Seattle. Telstra’s Cardi Prinzi, senior vice president of the Americas, tells Channel Partners that the company already had PoPs in New York, Los Angeles, San Jose, Washington, D.C. and Chicago.

Telstra’s Cardi Prinzi

“The real focus is for customers to get connectivity and access into the Asia-Pacific region, so they can reach those markets or reach those locations that have traditionally been a little bit more difficult for them … ” Prinzi said. “That’s the real purpose: so we can get customers in places like Dallas or Atlanta or in even markets that are reasonably close to those.”

Prinzi says the expansion has helped Telstra agents that don’t reside in the major geographical markets. There’s now a “lower-cost solution” that can help businesses become more global.

“We’re starting to see much more of a play on, ‘How do we leverage U.S. locations for some of the customers, so that they can use that as a bridge to get over to the Asia-Pacific region?’ So we’re definitely seeing an uptick in activity from agents, who are starting to see a lot more sales coming in,” he said.

And it certainly goes the other way. Telstra already has strong presence in Asia with 45 PoPs in China, but Asia-Pacific customers may take advantage of the U.S. network expansion.

“China’s been a big story, because even if a customer has just one or two sites in China, we can help them connect those sites via MPLS back into their U.S. locations,” Prinzi said.

He says U.S. regions like the Southeast and Midwest have joined more traditional areas like the Bay Area and New York in producing new customers. And partners have played a critical role in the growth.

“The United States is a big geographic place, and we don’t have the size of the sales organization in the United States to really cover everywhere with a direct sales force,” Prinzi said. “So we leverage the agents throughout the U.S..”

Prinzi says getting customers connected to Telstra’s network via VPN or MPLS opens up several opportunities. Those customers can join the Telstra Programmable Network (TPN), which makes it easier for them to set up shop in the cloud.

Telstra also offers SD-WAN, which uses MPLS and/or internet connectivity, as a strong fit with TPN. The carrier partners with Cisco – another company with a large Australian presence – to use its Meraki offering. He reports that Meraki is gaining favor with customers in the upper midmarket. Telstra also partners with VMware/VeloCloud.

Prinzi says Telstra has been giving cloud service providers “access to eyeballs” in Asia Pacific. He says Asia having about half of the world’s internet traffic makes for a tantalizing opportunity. The company last week expanded its “Always On” service to undersea cable routes connecting Hong Kong to Singapore and Japan.

“There’s a ton of increase in demand in the Asia-Pacific region, so really our goal is to help agents help their customers either grow their business in [Asia] or expand their business [there],” he said.