BellSouth In-Region Entry Includes Channel Strategy

By Khali Henderson

Following last week’s approval by the FCC of its first application to provide long-distance services in Georgia and Louisiana, BellSouth Corp. (www.bellsouthcorp.com) announced today that it has begun to provide such services to retail customers and also will be making them available for sell through its agent and reseller channels.

Chris Anderson, vice president of business markets marketing for BellSouth, told PHONE+ today that the former Bell company will be using both existing and new agents to sell long-distance services throughout the BellSouth region and beyond its territory. The company has signed up several hundred agents that have trained to sell the long-distance offers along with other products offered by the company including local and Internet services.

Anderson said the company is “excited” about using agents to sell its new bundle of services because they have the required experience, relationships and the knack for pulling together packaged solutions.

Traditionally telephony agents, VARs and application providers are among the companies existing and target agent base.

Anderson says that the existing agents have told them they are “excited to go back to customer with a complete solution set from one provider.” BellSouth’s reliability and stability, he says, also have been a big selling point for them.

Rex Adams, president of BellSouth Long Distance (www.bellsouthcorp.com/longdistance) says the long-distance unit will add its in-region services to those services it already offers for resale, including inbound and outbound voice, international voice and private line. Data services will be coming soon; the company is offering frame relay to resellers on a limited basis in Texas.

Adams says that BellSouth Long Distance’s primary initiatives have been to be the underlying carrier for its own wireless properties and to provide southeast termination to other carriers. That business, he says, earns the company between $300 million and $400 million a year.

Given the ongoing fiscal tightening and capex restraints, Adams says that BellSouth will the an attractive partner for resellers in its region. “Other carriers may continue to build out metro-to-metro, but we are going to have the best economics,” he says.

The long-distance affiliate has seven switches including two in southern Florida, and one each in Charlotte, N.C.; New Orleans; Atlanta, New York City; Los Angeles and London. Two more are waiting to be turned up in Alpharetta, Ga.; and Jacksonville, Fla. The company is interconnected with its Latin American partners through Florida as well as 130 other foreign carriers for least-cost routed termination abroad. Adams says the company is leasing fiber in off-net areas.

The company would not reveal what portion of its long-distance business that it expects will come from resellers or agents, but Adams, says that the company has a mind to make every one of its channels as successful as possible. “Six months from now based on our return on investment, we will allocate resources accordingly,” he says.

He noted, however, that the company’s website and inbound call centers have already been “overwhelmed” with customer requests for service.

“Over the last six years [since the Telecommunications Act of 1996], analysts and press want to talk about who is winning and losing,” Adams says. “Who has lost is the customer. We can finally being to provide them what they want – service from one company.”