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2017 Directory
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Channel
Vision
LSI Prepares for Telesystem
Transition
By
Tara
Seals
PROFILE
Line Systems is getting ready for
a banner 2017, including a brand
change to Telesystem to reflect an
organizational structure that’s been
developing since 2014.
LSI, which was founded in 1999, is
headquartered outside of Philadelphia,
in West Chester, Pa. It began life as
a regional Verizon wholesale partner
– a role it kept until 2007, when it
diversified into other areas, providing
voice and data services to business
customers with its own infrastructure,
and evolved into a facilities-based
CLEC. The resulting changes being
welcomed by their incumbent base,
channel and new clients resulted in an
average subscriber lifecycle of more
than eight years. Most recently, LSI
has added cloud services and SD-WAN
while updating its hosted PBX and SIP
trunking product lines.
In 2014, Ohio-based Block
Communications Inc. (BCI) and its
Telesystem subsidiary agreed to acquire
LSI, signifying yet another change for
the company. “This [acquisition] is
putting more investment and more bet
into the area of our fastest-growing
division,” said Allan Block, chairman
of Block Communications, at the time
of the buy. “It just seems like that
makes sense. We’ve done a good job in
what we’ve done so far in commercial
broadband telecommunications. This
was an attractive company that has
a record that is equal to Telesystem’s
growth, serving a much bigger market.”
Now, going forward, LSI will be
combined with Telesystem and use the
Telesystem brand, starting sometime
after July 2017. Telesystem serves
commercial customers primarily
in north-central and northwestern
Ohio, as well as southeast Michigan.
Together they currently service 30,000
locations across 39 states, Puerto Rico
and five international destinations.
Warren Reyburn, executive vice
president at LSI, said that the value
proposition for the combination of
the companies is based on the ability
to expand nationally for greater
DID and final-mile coverage, playing
off the combined strength and
relationships of each party.
“We have expanded in personnel,
operating software and infrastructure
– the acquisition gave us a growth
engine,” he said. “We are expanding
Ethernet aggressively in the DelMarVa
region (the Mid-Atlantic coast of
Delaware, Maryland and Virginia), and
we’re building out our data center
presence in Atlanta. The group in Ohio
has forecast pushing its marketplace
further into Michigan and Cleveland,
backed by a private fiber topology
and network reach, secured over
their 22 years as a CLEC. We are
both capitalizing on our combined
experience and entrepreneurial spirit.”
LSI also has a deep channel
partner strategy: More than 90
percent of “new-logo” MRC is
derived from the partner community.
LSI’s commitment to the indirect
community will only further grow
and diversify as it evolves under the
Telesystem brand.
“The channel is the most aggressive
way to get into new markets, address
new products and react to changes in
the market,” Reyburn said. “We find
that there is much more flexibility in
the channel model.”
LSI’s channel program started off
catering to interconnects and regional
partners with an analog aggregation
product in the Mid-Atlantic and in New
York. Since then, it has engaged more
ISPs, managed service providers and
wholesale partners, making its
backbone available to other carriers.
“Our product sets have diversified
and we’ve expanded, while many of
our partners have seen exponential
growth in back-office and OSS
capabilities, so they can command
more of the available revenue
streams,” Reyburn said.
As far as partners are concerned,
the common brand initiative will
increase their reach geographically,
and the new Telesystem will continue
to add to its portfolio, beefing up
features and functionality for existing
services. For 2017, priorities include
further national network expansion
and geo-diversity objectives
through continual plant and NNI-
enabled deployments, a unified
communications-based deployment in
Q1 2017, updating its hosted PBX,
and focusing on SD-WAN offerings.
Lastly, Reyburn stressed that
the company will maintain its
program principles from a channel
perspective. “We are not sacrificing
our identity, which is rooted in a
culture of accountability and client
focus. If anything we have found
common principles within Telesystem
whereby customer, partner and
employee experiences are listed
among our key result indicators,” said
Reyburn. “We offer partners a carrier
alternative without sacrificing support
considerations or personnel touch
points. Our 17 years in business have
taught us to grow responsibly with
a primary focus on supporting the
needs of our partners and ultimately
our end users.”