reseller channel: FastLign Accelerates VoIP Entry

By Paula Bernier

Given high broadband penetration and relatively low cost of IP network infrastructure, its never been easier to become a telephone company. At the same time, launching VoIP services can be rather tricky considering time-to-market pressures, equipment and software integration required and the time it takes to get the right network services partners in place, says Kevin Nethercott, president and COO of hosted PBX/telephony software supplier LignUp.

Responding to these challenges, LignUp has forged alliances with master reseller CentricVoice Inc.; carrier Level 3 Communications Inc.; session border controller supplier NexTone; billing system and provisioning front-end provider Rodopi Software; certification lab and systems integrator tekVizion; and managed services provider VoIP Logic Inc. to create the FastLign Alliance.

Nethercott founded U.S.-based LignUp about a year ago after having established and run 9-year-old Japanese software and tollbypass company SkyWave. As we launched into the U.S., what immediately became evident with our first handful of customers is Boy, this is a painful experience, says Nethercott. Not only do [new VoIP providers] have to get our software, but they have to integrate it with all of the other hardware their SBCs and billing, provisioning. Then they have to go and put it in the network.

To address those challenges, FastLign was born. FastLign aids companies such as regional LECs, development and business management companies, ISPs and others that tend to be less technically capable than the early VoIP adopters.

Companies that want to get into VoIP quickly and with the least amount of pain can get service through an ASP, he says, but that doesnt give them ownership of the services. Now, he says, they can get VoIP service up and running through FastLign, which leverages a structured alliance of partner companies to create a standardized, certified architecture and ownership of the software licenses.

Nethercott adds FastLign members do more than pledge that their products interoperate. Rather, they do preintegration and then take the solution to tekVizion labs to certify that interoperability. (tekVizion also will offer other professional services through the alliance.) VoIP Logic provides managed services, including an around-theclock network operations center, provisioning and billing. And CentricVoice acts as a distributor of Level 3 services. If Im a mid-tier service provider, I cant have a direct relationship with Level 3, which only deals [directly] with large service providers. So we can extend 100 percent of Level 3s services to smaller players with [CentricVoice], Nethercott says.

The hosted version of the FastLign offer was set to launch in October with two early access partners and is slated for general availablity by Jan. 1, 2006. A version of FastLign that allows service providers to host the service at their own data centers is expected to be announced officially later this year.

LignUp declined to provide pricing for the services, which at the onset of FastLign will be billed through three separate bills one for the software licenses, one from VoIP Logic and one from CentricVoice.

Existing LignUp customers include Alianza, IP Telesis and Livingston Telephone (LivTel).