Integra Separates Enterprise, Midmarket-Targeted Businesses

Integra, the CLEC based in Vancouver, Washington, has formed two new business units: one to serve enterprise customers, the other with the goal of meeting midmarket customers’ needs.

The first, Electric Lightwave, will serve not only the biggest customers in enterprise markets, but also the company’s government, education and wholesale carrier customers. It will focus on expanding and using Integra’s fiber assets. The second unit, known as Integra Business, targets the midmarket, focusing on what the company says is “delivering a highly differentiated, end-to-end experience.”

Both Electric Lightwave and Integra Business will maintain their own sales and customer-support organizations, tailored for their specific customer segments. Customers of each will have access to the company’s complete portfolio of products and services, as well as Integra’s long-haul and metro fiber assets throughout the western U.S.

“The market for high-bandwidth communication services is not one-size-fits-all, and with that in mind, we continue to evolve our sales and service models to deliver dedicated and personalized service …” said Robert Guth, interim CEO of Integra. “The creation of these dedicated business units advances our ongoing objective to extend the availability and use of our advanced network infrastructure.”

Further, Guth says that the new business units will help speed up growth of the company’s network of 3,000 fiber-fed, on-net buildings by taking investment decision-making opportunities closer to the customer.

Integra has been going through a significant transition over the past couple of years, focusing less on the SMB market and turning more of its attention toward larger accounts. Notable are a pair of acquisitions in 2014: World Communications Inc. (WCI), a voice, data and colocation aggregator headquartered in Seattle; and phone systems provider ProTel Networks, one of the largest Mitel dealers in the U.S. Both companies sold through channel partners. The company also is building its relationships with VARs to sell its cloud and hosted IT services, something that some of its fellow CLECs have been slow to do.

Despite the growth, Integra says it is redoubling its commitment to local, flexible resources – and the new business segments should help it further that goal.

Earlier this year, the company named Tom Gorey its new channel chief, asking him to continue to get Integra’s partners up to speed on the shift. Dan Stoll, Integra’s former senior vice president of strategy and development, takes the reins as president of Electric Lightwave. The head of Integra Business is expected to be announced soon.

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