Pop Goes the Price Quote

Posted: 12/2003

Pop Goes the Price Quote

Global Internetworking Inc., a
five-year-old facilitiesneutral wholesale carrier specializing in off-net
provisioning, launched in October the next generation of Pop2Pop.com, its online
pricing and quote management solution that provides real-time price quotes for
private line, Ethernet and IP services from anywhere to anywhere in the United
States.

In the previous six months, 30 carriers and service providers
beta tested version 2.0, generating about 10,000 real-time price quotes with an
aggregate contract value of more than $500 million. The service now is available
to qualified carriers and service providers that complete the online
registration form at www.pop2pop.com.

Feature enhancements in Version 2.0 include real-time pricing
for OC12 and OC48 services, IP ports and loops and building-to-building
Ethernet, as well as enhanced quote management functionality.

Quotes, queried from a database including 1,400 facilities-
based carriers and 540,000 facilities, are delivered in no more than four
seconds, says Todd Vecchio, Global Internetworkings executive vice president
of sales. He says the tool analyzes options based on cost, network efficiency
and diversity. In fact, he says, it will return all the possible routes.

Vecchio
says feedback from the beta test has been positive. Carriers are telling us that 50 percent to 70 percent of
the time, the quote they receive in seconds from Pop2Pop is more competitive
than quotes they often wait days to receive.

Ken Rea, senior vice president of sales for Yipes Enterprise
Services, says, Access to real-time quotes can shorten my sales cycles and
they allow my sales team to be more responsive to Yipes prospects and customers.
With Pop2Pop, we spend less time analyzing pricing scenarios and more time
selling.

Once an order is priced using Pop2Pop, Global Internetworking
provides turnkey, end-to-end provisioning and maintenance. We have ordered
several circuits from Global Internetworking via Pop2Pop and been very impressed
with Globals hands on approach to provisioning and maintenance, says Gene Sandridge of ValleyNet, a member of DDR Broadband
Networks LLC.

In addition to providing real-time price quotes, Pop2Pop.com
Version 2.0 provides users with secure, online quote management functionality
specifically designed for users that generate multiple price quotes each day.
Now a pricing analyst, provisioning manager or sales rep use Pop2Pop.com to
maintain a secure, searchable online database of all their quote requests,
explains Vecchio. Pop2pop allows customers to download quote requests to their
desktops so they can create custom reports and share information with their
co-workers.