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AireSpring Awarded Its First U.S. Telephony Patent
AireSpring has proudly announced that it was awarded its first U.S. patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for Toll Free Redundancy. Patent no. US 10,116,803 B1 was awarded for "System and Method of Rerouting a Toll Free Telephony Call in the Event of the Failure to Connect to the Target Telephony Station." The newly granted patent reinforces AireSpring’s standing as a telephony and cloud communications technology leader. This AireSpring patent acknowledges inventor (Eric) Arno Vigen, AireSpring’s Chief Financial Officer, who currently has 12 patents pending in fields from nanotechnology and energy to chemical engineering and related software. "We are immensely proud to announce the issuance of AireSpring’s first U.S. patent," stated Avi Lonstein, AireSpring CEO. "We believe it represents our fully committed position and deep history of innovation in toll-free telephony," he continued. "AireSpring has long relied on the expertise of our in-house team of dedicated professionals who are original thinkers, inventors and engineers, driven to create value for our partners and customers, as we evolve and grow to meet the future technological demands of the industry." AireSpring’s Mission Critical Toll-Free Services offer unparalleled network reliability and resiliency, together with advanced tools for managing voice traffic at a lower cost than with any other carrier. |
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AireSpring Wins INTERNET TELEPHONY Friend of the Channel Award AireSpring Honored for their Innovative Programs and
AireSpring was proud to be named winner of the 2018 INTERNET TELEPHONY Friend of the Channel Award, presented by INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine. The award recognizes vendors judged to have unique attributes that help drive channel success, and AireSpring was specifically acknowledged as the "Most Supportive" vendor within this crowded field. AireSpring is 100% channel-focused, selling exclusively through master agencies, independent sales agents, VARs and MSPs, and we are entirely dedicated to helping our partners succeed. "We pride ourselves in providing white glove concierge service, superior back office tools for real-time quotes and order tracking, and one of the broadest and most competitively priced product lines in the channel," stated Ron McNab, AireSpring’s senior vice president of channel sales. "Additionally, we help our partners keep their knowledge skills up-to-date through monthly webinar trainings," added McNab. "My team and I don’t just manage from behind our computers, we are on the road weekly, meeting face-to face with our channel partners to hear what they have to say and to help them succeed in any way possible. AireSpring remains a channel-driven organization, and is firmly committed to offering our channel partners award-winning products along with industry-leading evergreen commissions and SPIFFS." The Friend of the Channel Award joins AireSpring's expanding collection of channel-focused industry awards, including: the Channel Maker Next-Gen Solution Provider Award 2018, the Telarus Partner Choice Top National Channel Manager Award for Charles Lomond [AireSpring National Director Channel Sales], the Telecom Association's 2017-2018 Partners Choice Awards and many others. |
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AireSpring Wins AT&T Market Mover
AireSpring was recognized at the AT&T Fusion Event, with the Market Mover Total Sales Revenue award for 2018. We were thrilled to be named yet again as a top solution provider and sales volume leader and we greatly appreciate the strong partnership we share with AT&T. This award celebrates AireSpring as a leading solution provider that has led the channel in producing valuable sales revenue. It further underscores the relationship we enjoy with the AT&T Partner Exchange as a Platinum Elite Solution Provider. The AT&T Fusion event offered an opportunity for networking, learning and recognition activities, along with the chance to exchange ideas and information with key industry leaders and solution providers. "As a founding partner with AT&T from the inception of the Partner Exchange, we have enjoyed an extremely strong relationship with the stellar AT&T team," stated AireSpring CEO, Avi Lonstein. "We are pleased to be recognized with the AT&T Market Mover Total Sales Revenue Award once again, as we continue to create additional, robust connectivity options and develop cloud solutions that best meet our customers' needs." For more information about AireSpring AT&T Platinum Elite Partner Solutions, please contact your AireSpring Channel Manager. |
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Wrap Up the Year with White Glove Service and Something Extra from AireSpring
Reach out to your AireSpring Channel Manager today or call us at 888.389.2899. |
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SD-WAN Your Way to Exciting Prizes! AireSpring’s JEOPAIREDY is back by popular demand – join us as we celebrate another record-breaking year filled with innovations, awards and shared success. This year we’ve taken our game to a whole new level, adding an SD-Wan spin! Strut your SD-WAN stuff and win great prizes while learning more about AireSpring's award-winning Platinum SD-WAN solution. You could be celebrating your success by wrapping up the year with rewards like:
Here's an advance tip: take a look at this new AireSpring video, the Top 6 Reasons to Choose AireSpring's Platinum SD-WAN, to get a jump on your competition and "up your SD-WAN game!" Be prepared for your customers’ future demands with full access to all of AireSpring's combined capabilities, solutions and expanded support.
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TELARUS INNOVATION CONFERENCE |
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IT EXPO |
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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 Tony Cheng, President and CEO, Netstar, Inc. Hello Tony, thank you for agreeing to speak with us today. To begin, please tell us a little about yourself and your professional background, and your firm, Netstar. I started in the telecom industry in 1992, working for Northwest Telco when it was just selling long distance. NW Telco was an alternative LD carrier at that time, competing with AT&T, MCI and Sprint. After NW Telco, I spent three years as a senior account rep with USLD, who was bought by LCI. Six months later, LCI was bought by Qwest, in 1998. When you roll up a bunch of companies in such a short time, mayhem is bound to happen. Customers were calling me to help them find the right options. Coupled with these requests and the deregulation spawning new carriers and offerings I saw the opportunity to be an agent/consultant and started Netstar in 1998.
broker of all the various services, you can't be a true consultant because you are restricted to only selling a particular product line to the customer, and it might not be the solution they need. I’ve always felt that if we are able to take care of a customer well, we can keep them forever. We have customers who have stayed with us for 20 years. Netstar has been blessed with a great team of people that excel in taking care of our customers and are consummate advocates for them. Our key differentiators are all related to providing good customer service. The primary differentiator is our speed to resolution on service issues, which requires knowing the right people at the supplier who can resolve the issues. The secondary one is providing unbiased product expertise. We need to know the best supplier to deliver on what the customer needs. What do you like about working with AireSpring? Chris Abbott [AireSpring National Channel Manager] is our AireSpring sensei. He is very responsive and knows the AireSpring product line, as well as the limitations of any technology as far as what can and can’t be done. I would say he is authoritative, and it is so important to work with someone who has that degree of confidence. It allows us to make decisions very quickly, and we never have to guess or distrust the information he gives us. He is a phenomenal partner advocate, as well as an advocate for the customer. We have never heard him use a phrase like "it is beyond my pay grade." I hear that all the time and it should never be used in business. It means someone is deflecting their responsibility. It’s like saying if you bring me revenue, I’ll never give you an excuse but if you bring me something that I’m not interested in or I'm unsure about, I’ll say it’s beyond my pay grade instead of making an effort to get you the data you need.
of experience, she can learn from them too and show them that respect. That’s what I call being a wonderful diplomat, she made him feel really good and she is humble enough to say "I can learn." I appreciate those kind of personalities at AireSpring. They come from people with a growth mindset, not a fixed mindset, and I know that comes from the top. Compared with other suppliers, AireSpring’s culture, as developed by the Lonstein brothers [Avi Lonstein, CEO; Daniel Lonstein, President & CRO; David Lonstein, Executive VP Product Management], focuses on providing an excellent customer experience. Some companies talk about it, but their installs are horrible and they can’t get any response from downline carriers. They don’t communicate with us at all, and we have to constantly chase them. So after a mediocre experience with two accounts at one supplier, we’re not going to do anything more with them. The AireSpring experience starts with the channel manager, moves to the project manager and then with the backing of the owners and this culture of customer service, it all comes together well. Similarly, I tell my people that our mantra is the pursuit of the best customer experience, the pursuit of excellence. What would you say is the secret to being a successful agent?
products, entertainment and services to your client. The agent is like the concierge who becomes the expert as to which supplier provides the best service in a particular vertical, whether it’s cloud, hosted voice or SD-WAN. You shouldn’t pretend to be the expert, customers will see through that right away. Instead, you should offer to bring in the partners that are experts in this area on a call. That is the process that creates success, because it fosters trust. The customer knows they can come to you as a resource, whether you know the answer or you track down the right answer, you'll provide them reliable information. Lastly, you need a desire to make money to achieve your goals! It takes time to build a book of business and to be successful. You also need an independent attitude and good timing as to when you enter the business. Once you are ready and you put in the work, gathering customers is rather simple. It just takes time and conversations. You can’t force the customer's decisions, so you do the work and be ready when they are. What is the "next big thing" you think agents should be aware of as we prepare for 2019? I think the mergers and acquisitions in the industry are a big factor, for better and for worse that will continue to affect the industry in 2019. The good part is the mayhem they create, so customers depend on us more, and we are more valuable to the customer. The bad thing is that the mayhem leaves suppliers so disoriented that they lose sight of providing good customer service. The other thing is I think the traditional agents in 2019 need to really get themselves inserted into opportunities or ask questions of customers about their cloud strategy, and this will circle around security services, disaster recovery or continuity, cloud services like AWS® Cloud Services, Microsoft® Azure, even Office 365 and other offerings. Customers are all looking for these things, so you should make it easier to have that conversation with them by getting paired up with an expert in advance. The great thing is that the revenue can be big in these areas. Another advantage is that once cloud services are up and working, the agent doesn’t have to remain involved to manage the technical issues. Things don't break all the time like they do in telecom, so you won't have customers calling you at all hours of the day and night. The cloud vendor can pretty much manage anything that comes up going forward. Customers now know when anything is not going well, they will be talking to the supplier, who will fix it, not to the agent. You can focus on adding more services and revenue, and you don’t have to spend time opening trouble tickets for customers. You have to take steps to ask the questions about cloud strategy and security strategy, and let them know you can be their concierge. If you aren’t talking to customers about this technology, someone else is going to and you will have missed an opportunity. What are some of your hobbies and interests outside of telecom? I have been married to my wife Mary Pat for 34 years. We have two wonderful grandchildren, a four-year-old and a two-year-old, both born on the same day two years apart. We love to spend time with them. They love going to the park. I am also an addicted golfer. During the summer, I think, eat and breathe golf. Shane [Shane Speakman, AireSpring Senior VP of Channel Strategy] is up here almost every summer, so I get to play some golf with him. I haven’t played with Ron [Ron McNab, AireSpring Senior VP of Channel Sales] yet, but hope to do that on the next Las Vegas trip. In winter I play pool or billiards in a league, and I do yoga to keep my body limber for my golf season. Everything leads to golf!
Tony, thank you for taking time to talk with us today. |
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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 another key member of the AireSpring team. This month we are talking with Rebecca Gutierrez, Project Coordinator. Hello Rebecca. To begin, please tell us about your professional background and how long you've been in the telecom industry. I have been in telecom over 20 years and I’m well versed in it, having worked at a LEC and several CLECs. That has allowed me to see the industry from different angles, first being part of the "Ma Bell" organization, then working with the other Baby Bells that came after the break-up. I went on to work for PAETEC just before they were bought out by Windstream. I was based here with PAETEC in Irvine, CA, as an account manager, then as a sales engineer. I was soon promoted to manager of sales engineering and moved to Chicago to take that position. When I saw that Windstream was taking over, I decided it was time for a change and I moved back to Southern California. I was hired at TelePacific Communications as a service delivery manager, then after one year, I noticed the opening at AireSpring and was fortunate enough to be hired. Tell us about your role at AireSpring and how long you’ve been with the company. I have been with AireSpring for a little over three years. After a sale is made and the contract signed, the order comes to a PC like me. I introduce myself to the new customer, explain my role and the AireSpring process, and ensure that everything moves forward as needed. I let the customer know I have their order, and tell them "I now jump" into the process, letting them know that if they have any issues, they should come to me, I am their single point of contact. A big part of my role is laying the groundwork for a long customer relationship, outlining the scope of what they can expect. Once this step is completed, I reach out to the carriers who deliver circuits and equipment, I ensure that all is delivered and in working order. It’s up to me to then give the carrier the thumbs up. I know that ultimately, I am the one responsible for making things come together, and I have to answer for everything. Besides wanting the process to run smoothly and be successful, I want AireSpring to succeed with every customer too. The challenge of managing all sides of input and all the players is very rewarding. I know how to talk with people to put them at ease. Many of our customers are nationwide and as they grow, they keep adding locations. That means we are working with the same people often for years, developing long-term relationships, which is another thing I really enjoy. Actually, I see my job as helping people. What do you enjoy most about working with AireSpring? I’ve done customer relations for a long time, "talking the talk," gathering all the information from the customer. What I really crave is the chance to see a job through end-to-end, and know it’s complete and I have done it well. I recognized that I would have that kind of job satisfaction here at AireSpring, where the white glove service and personal contact is our standard of care. I really enjoy talking with people, putting them at ease. It’s not just a job for me. I learned a phrase early on in my customer service career that I use often and rely on. I tell customers, "It is my pleasure," and the impact it has on people is amazing, because they know I mean it. I am not just ticking off tasks, I am fulfilling a personal and professional goal and I really enjoy it. I also love our new building. The company invested a lot in creating a comfortable, productive workspace for us. What are some of your hobbies or interests outside of the office?
I previously had a metaphysical book store, with speakers and authors doing appearances. I read quite a lot, especially in parapsychology, and I love having books around me. My daughter and I are also involved in the Native American community. She creates a beautiful line of inspirational jewelry that we sell in our booth at the local Native American PowWow, to offer rocks, crystals and dream catchers that she makes. Rebecca, 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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