Jul/Aug 19 - ChannelVision Magazine

Telesystem has introduced a new way for busi- nesses to combine all of their key communications channels, including voice, SMS, email and chat, into a single, highly scalable cloud platform. The new contact center as a service (CCaaS) solution enables customers to reach out on their preferred channel. It also streamlines operations, management and administration, lowering the total cost of ownership, said the company. What’s more, Telesystem’s Omni Channel Contact Center allows businesses to utilize advanced features, such as interactive voice response (IVR), automatic call distribution (ACD) and outbound campaigns, for a price comparable to that of a traditional voice-only contact center. The cloud-based contact center is switch agnos- tic and can be layered on top of existing infrastructures and configured with concurrent licenses for a lower total cost of ownership. FirstLight Acquires Todd Cable Construction FirstLight has acquired Todd Cable Construction in a transaction that will create a business unit focused on turnkey construction services. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. “Unlike our prior acquisitions, which were typical- ly focused on purchasing existing fiber assets, this transaction dramatically broadens FirstLight’s ca- pabilities to build new fiber by bringing construction talent in house,” said Kurt Van Wagenen, president and CEO of FirstLight. “Over the years, we have cultivated a strong relationship with Todd Cable and have come to depend on their capabilities to meet our customers’ delivery timelines. Now as part of FirstLight, we can work more closely to better control this aspect of service delivery.” BCN Names Partner Sales Director Phil Haage recently joined BCN’s team of partner sales directors and will be supporting partners across the BCN Master Agent portfolio. Haage, who is based in Chicago, will report to Michael Ginsburg, BCN vice president of sales. Haage spent many of his more than 20 years in telecom in sales engineering and sales positions at XO Communications. Most recently he was a man- aging client partner with Verizon Business Markets. C3 Launches BroadWorks Powered Hosted PBX, UCaaS and CCaaS Platforms Telesystem Launches Omni Channel CCaaS Cloud Computing Concepts (C3) recently announced the general availability of its Cisco BroadWorks-based Hosted PBX, UCaaS and CCaaS platforms. Cisco BroadWorks is a globally deployed carrier-grade soft- ware platform designed and optimized for performance, scale and reliability, said the companies. It currently powers 25 of the world’s 30 largest service providers, and its comprehensive list of features includes a myriad of call control functions, instant mes- saging and presence, HD audio and video calling, desktop and file sharing, conferencing and a wide variety of mobility solutions. “After nearly a year in development, followed by a very suc- cessful soft launch, we are incredibly excited to introduce our new collaboration suite,” commented Rick Mancinelli, CEO of C3. “Our experienced engineering, provisioning, implementa- tion and training teams are standing by to ensure your next voice deployment is both successful and worry free.” TBI Adds Coresite, NetFortris to Vendor Portfolio Master agent TBI announced the addition of data center net- work operator Coresite and network aggregator NetFortris to its stable of underlying providers, providing partners with new sets of solutions but also additional resources for end-user engagement. “Adding Coresite and NetFortis will give our partners imme- diate access to solutions that enable them to add value to the business processes of their end clients,” said TBI senior director of sales, Marco Sanchez. “We are in the age of customer experi- ence (CX), and aligning with vendors that allow you to manage and maintain workloads in a more effective manner, while giving the ability to plug in existing public cloud environments, allows the client to optimize their environment and offload the burden of some responsibility and knowledge from the IT department. Along with that, NetFortis can take all the various vendors and put in on one platform along with UCaaS, security and SD-WAN, which helps give clients peace of mind with billing, along with less work in managing and maintaining the IT staff.” DC BLOX Opens Birmingham Data Center DC BLOX has announced the opening of its fourth data cen- ter facility, this one in Birmingham, Ala. The first phase of the facility, now customer ready, delivers up to 5MW of power, 18,000 square feet of white space and 13,000 square feet of office space, featuring conference rooms, demo space, hoteling cubes and workstations. This is DC BLOX’s flag- ship facility and is capable of expanding to more than 200,000 square feet with more than 60MW of critical IT load to serve as a technology and innovation hub for the surrounding area. icymi 54 Channel Vision | July - August, 2019