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AireSpring Awarded Communications Solutions Product of the Year 2017
AirePBX includes all the basic and advanced features users rely on, plus these special features:
AireSpring is recognized for its market-leading, fully managed connectivity and service-based model that includes "white glove service" installation. A trained technician is dispatched to the customer site to perform professional on-site installation and testing of IP phones, routers and switches. With Managed Connectivity, AirePBX customers enjoy end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS), as well as AireSpring's free 24/7/365 network maintenance and monitoring by the Network Operations Team (NOC). "It is a great honor to be distinguished with the 2017 Communications Solutions Product of the Year Award," said Daniel Lonstein, Chief Operating Officer of AireSpring. "As a result of being the first national provider to offer a white glove installation service and support program, as well as Managed Connectivity to ensure QoS, we are proud to have AirePBX recognized for its innovation in the industry." For more information about AirePBX please go to our websites (airespring.com or agentSTAR.net) or contact your channel manager. AireSpring Introduces New Training Series: AireU Technical Certification Training for Partners
What: AirePBX Certification Training Date: Wednesday, September 13, 2017 FREE for AireSpring Channel Partners Bonus: Receive a $25 Amazon Gift Card and a Certificate of Completion, once you complete the course and pass the test.
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AireSpring's AirePBX Cloud Business Phone System has been named a 2017 Communications Solutions Product of the Year. AirePBX is an innovative UCaaS solution with advanced features, configurable to business needs.
AireSpring is premiering a new program, AireU, offering in-depth online product training to our valued partners in a special series of webinars. Each month, agents will be able to get training and certification on our top products and services, and become the subject matter experts that clients need.
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Look Like A Genius with QuoteSpring!
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More and more businesses are turning to IP networks for their communications needs, requiring changes to traditional voice and data infrastructures. One of the main challenges organizations face is how to connect their company’s IP-based communications to an external Internet Telephony Service Provider (ITSP). SIP Trunking has become the most popular method for connecting your office environment to the world at large.
Do you understand this technology well enough to advise your largest and most valued customers on the best solution and SIP provider that’s right for them? If you answered no or maybe, you need to join AireSpring Solutions Engineer, Chuck Long, for a SIP Trunking Briefing on Thursday, September 21, 2017 from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM.
Before most businesses were aware of SIP Trunking, AireSpring pioneered and launched one of the largest native SIP networks from the ground up. The concept of SIP Trunking may sound simple enough but the execution can be very complicated and you need to choose your partners wisely. So join us for this very informative webinar technology briefing and learn more about:
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MicroCorp One-on-One Hyatt Regency, Atlanta, GA Sept. 10-11, 2017 |
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Five Star Telecom Annual Agent Summit Lambeau Field, Green Bay, WI Sept. 13, 2017 |
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Carrier Xchange Sept. 18-20, 2017 |
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Telarus TIC-Los Angeles |
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Channel Partners Evolution 2017 Sept. 25-28, 2017 |
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Welcome to the latest edition in our series of profiles, shining the spotlight on AireSpring’s amazing partners. This month, we’re speaking with Chad Midtlien, President of Five Star Telecom, Inc. Chad, please tell us a bit about your background, how you started your career in telecom, and the history of your firm.
When they were bought out by Five Star Telecom, I moved over there in the late 1980s. Five Star was founded in 1973 by Steven and Cheryl Morey. I first worked for them in technical services on a vast variety of systems, including Key Systems, PBX Systems, Closed Circuit Video Systems and Security Systems. As our company expanded, my role evolved from technician to service manager and eventually to sales manager and partner. The experiences and knowledge I gained during this time have allowed me to articulate the benefits of technology for customers and their businesses. Along the way, I’ve seen these technologies evolve from the Y2K boom days to the adoption of premise-based VoIP/IP phone systems taking over the PBX space. I think the next milestones will be the hosted UCaaS space where we’re seeing cloud-based apps really come along. So how long have you been partnering with AireSpring? We have been working with AireSpring since 2013. Our AireSpring support team, both sales and technical, are great to work with and extremely responsive to our requests. I was at first referred to AireSpring by another industry colleague, and had heard that the company was very flexible and agile. Plus, I heard Daniel Lonstein speak at a Channel Partners show, talking about SIP technology and adoption rates, with customers migrating away from PRIs. I was so impressed with his knowledge and technical expertise at that time in the SIP arena, it really encouraged me to engage AireSpring as a carrier.
AireSpring has a vast portfolio of services that our customers can take advantage of. Very few carriers offer the breadth of services AireSpring has available. I like the fact that there is traditional voice and data, UCaaS, SIP, plus Cloud Connectivity and Business Continuity. Many of our customers use these services, along with AireSpring's SD-WAN and wireless. As a master agent, we see lots of challenges from many carriers in the quoting and contracting portion of the sales process. It’s hard at times to get correct pricing and contracts in a timely fashion from them. It’s no secret, the longer the deal stays on the street, the better the chances are you will lose the deal. AireSpring’s QuoteSpring quoting tool allows us to get accurate pricing for our customers immediately. The system provides pricing and up-to-date product brochures on the services being quoted, and it lets you generate the contracts for customers to sign. We try to be as educated and as self-supporting as possible, and this system really enables that. We do create the quotes for agents ourselves, rather than relying on channel managers for that, so we’re always very active in QuoteSpring. The faster timeline just enhances our ability to provide accurate pricing quickly. Some carriers don’t have anything close to the AireSpring tool set. We’ve even engaged a number of times with Mike Chase [AireSpring’s Principal Solutions Architect], including getting him on calls with customers. What would you say is the secret to success in this industry, being a successful master agent, VAR, MSP, etc.? Our secret to success continues to be the ability to deliver the services and technologies businesses need. As the industry and technologies change, you need to stay relevant to your customers. Having the correct carriers like AireSpring in your portfolio increases your ability to retain the customers you have today and expand services to new customers going forward. Also, as a master agent, even though we’re not as big as some, keeping a smaller number of sub-agents means we can stay very engaged with them. Beyond that, we focus on staying relevant and watch for whatever the next big trend will be. You have to make sure your deliverables and the carriers in your portfolio help clients run their businesses better. We have a lot of loyal clients who stay with Five Star because we pride ourselves on staying current and educated on relevant and new technologies and keeping the best-of-breed suppliers in our portfolio. As an example of our approach, we are hosting a Carrier Agents Services Summit conference, which is coming up in September. It’s an exclusive educational event designed to bring our agents up-to-speed on all the cutting edge technologies and trends. We invite our sub-agents and best partner suppliers. AireSpring is a sponsor and will have a presence there. The more educated an agent is the better equipped he/she is to support their customers as they strive to make the right, strategic choices for their technology portfolio and network topology.
Looking ahead, the big concern is SD-WAN. I think it has two sides to it: one is “the plumbing,” the circuits, buildout and connectivity, which are getting easier for quoting purposes. The other side is implementation, which gets harder, because it’s a product that connects to lots of different touch points within a company’s structure. The orchestration and mix is the challenge.
Migrating customers to SD-WAN from current systems is both a challenge and an opportunity. Customers may ask for redundancy and sometimes request a second or even a third circuit. Their cost is becoming less, which creates a bigger challenge for us to expand our business, at the same time as we continue to try to grow MRC for clients. However, I believe it can be a win-win, you can grow opportunities for your clients at the same time and grow your own business. Not all sub-agents are aware of these details, and will need to be more aggressive in this space, as we now have new competitors entering who are approaching SD-WAN from the network, security or firewall standpoint, for example. Tell us about what you do in your free time and your interests outside of telecom.
The hunting culture here in Wisconsin is deep, and there are a lot of family traditions built around it. My wife Vicki and our children Alex, Abby and Travis really enjoy that, sharing winter gatherings at our hunting cabin with family and friends, especially at Thanksgiving time. I’m also a big sports fan, especially of the Wisconsin Badgers and the Green Bay Packers. Chad, thank you for taking time to talk with us and share your insights. |
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At AireSpring, we know that it is our dedication to customer service that sets us apart, and customer service begins with great employees. Here is your chance to get to know the AireSpring team that oversees your orders and delivers great service every day. This month we are talking with Ralph Romero, Vice President of Customer Relations. Ralph, can you tell us about your professional background and your career path in the telecom industry? I was always very entrepreneurial, even as a kid—starting with my own paper route, and inspired by my parents who built several successful businesses. I got my professional start coming right out of college. Having studied telecommunications mangement, I was recruited by AT&T as a manager, to launch their DSL division. Everyone on the team was a veteran and here I was, a young guy, fresh out of college coming to manage them. Being a people person and understanding the lingo of tech, I could comprehend their views and quickly earned their respect. Once I discovered the number of orders they were able to manually process daily, I quickly automated their system and soon they were able to vastly increase the volume of orders processed per day. Taking it fast forward, I rose in the ranks to become a global level spokesman for AT&T, speaking about technology and telephony, and the early days of managed professional services. I went off to work for several startups in Silicon Valley, and then for Telekenex, who had just weathered the storm of the dotcom recession. I quickly took their team of 3 and grew it into a national and then global presence. During my 8 years at Telekenex as Director of the Operations team, I got to meet lots of big influencers in Silicon Valley and found wonderful mentors who coached me, like then-COO & Owner of Telekenex, and the NetFortris CTO. We did some work for the biggest Silicon Valley VC, Kleiner Perkins, and I was fortunate to receive a commendation from their founder, John Doerr. These leaders taught me the value of great people and showed me that true customer service means taking care of your people, so they take care of your customers. I left for a short period about the time that Telepacific was going to buy Telekenex. I landed in air defense and transportation, where I worked for Cubic, which became a public company as far back as 1959. I was their Director of Customer Operations, and helped launch the Clipper Card, a contactless payment method for the Bay Area Rapid Transit system. That didn't last too long, because when Telepacific learned that I had left Telekenex, they approached me to help them launch their suite of hosted PBX products and managed services, as Director of Managed Services. I joined them and took on over 100 employees on the Field Operations team. What do you enjoy most about working at AireSpring? When Avi [Lonstein, CEO of AireSpring] approached me, I saw that he was really sincere about wanting to become one of the top providers in the nation. I knew they already offered a solid suite of services, but he wanted to do whatever it took to be the best service provider in the business. I could see that people here have passion, commitment, and dedication, from Daniel [Lonstein, COO of AireSpring] who is deeply involved in the company, all the way down. That passion and commitment is something you can’t teach, but when people have it, as they do here, it shows. I was born and raised in San Francisco and I love the Bay Area, but I was willing to come here [and relocate to Southern California] thanks to Avi’s and Daniel’s support, plus the team and everyone on the floor. They’ve all demonstrated that willingness to do whatever it takes to be the best. The market has already recognized AireSpring and they will see more and more of the kind of power we harness as a team. I see a team bond building and I feel we’re ready for anything—we have a “here we come” attitude. Avi has shown me that he wants the growth I see for the company, and he wants it done the right way, step by step. I really like that about everyone here, from the tech staff—which is second to none—to our project coordinators, all are people who truly care about our customers. Sometimes they email me at 3 or 4 a.m. I happen to be an early bird, so I’m already up in the morning, and my mind is already thinking about what I can do to prep for the day, and how to take care of people. I know they are our most important resource. You can have great ideas, great technology, or great engineers and great talent, but if you can meld all the elements together, then it comes down to execution. Well, people are executing here. When I came on board, rather than change things right away, I met with every person in my department one-on-one to find out what their concerns were. I told them, you don’t report to me, I report to you. I asked, “how can I make your job easier, how can I put you in a position to succeed?” I want to make sure that people enjoy what they do and at the same time, have a sense of urgency. I can see that people have a sense of being valued and they treat the customers the same way. It’s so competitive today…how do we distinguish ourselves? It’s by providing customer service. I learned along the way that we need to keep focused on understanding the customer, and approach them with a solution as to how you’re going to fix their problem. Customers really feel we have their best interests at heart. At AireSpring we are building the best possible managed service team ever. We know we can do it just as well as a bigger company, if not better. So the market better get ready, because we are coming!  What are some of your hobbies or interests outside the office? I have two daughters, 4 year-old Chantelle Angeli and 2 year-old Charlize Isabella. Together with my wife, Anita Angeli, they are my passion and my life. They keep my batteries going. My wife left a very important Silicon Valley position to take care of our daughters. So, my family and friends are a very big thing to me. I remember all the good things my parents taught me and hopefully instill them in Technology is my passion, keeping up on it and always playing with new systems, building tech systems with my iPhone, laptops, and iPads—those are my favorite tech toys. I love sports, and I’m still a huge San Francisco fan—including the 49ers, the Giants, and the Golden State Warriors. I’m so proud of what those teams have achieved now. Ralph, thank you for sharing your story with us!
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AireSpring is an award-winning provider of Managed Connectivity and Cloud Communications solutions providing fully managed and connected end-to-end, next-generation solutions for multi-location enterprise customers, including:
AireSpring's services are delivered over its revolutionary nationwide MPLS Mesh Network, providing customers a fully integrated, end-to-end solution from a single vendor.    |
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