INCOMPAS 2016 News: INDATEL, Great Plains, XKL, GSA

By Bruce Christian

LIT Networks Joins INDATEL Family

INDATEL has grown into a nationwide network characterized by 28 statewide facility-based member/owners and affiliates.  LIT Networks is one of the latest facility-based affiliates to join the INDATEL family.

“We are very pleased to have LIT Networks on-board and certainly supports a core strategic initiative to expand the footprint and grow the base,” said Max Huffman INDATEL’s chief operating officer.

LIT Networks is based in Virginia and presents another relevant demand opportunity for INDATEL to expand its portfolio of services by anchoring an East Coast aggregation PoP in Ashburn, Va. This will allow deployment of the INDATEL Rural Ethernet eXchange (REX) scalable, low-latency wholesale Ethernet access to rural and urban areas utilizing industry standard ENNIs.

Through INDATEL’s network, which is comprised of many authorized service providers, one can operate via a single source for quotes, orders, service delivery, network operations and billing. These capabilities offer carriers and systems integrators a national point of contact to serve rural and urban-based enterprise customers.

In addition, INDATEL provides high-quality, aggregated priced content delivery network (CDN) peering and transit IP services.

INDATEL has national aggregation PoPs at Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Seattle and Minneapolis.

LIT Networks is a partnership of seven regional fiber networks from Virginia to Georgia that provides seamless optical transport to major peering points and data centers in the Southeast. This unique partnership of regional networks offers a high level of diversity for customers looking to connect to corporate hubs, U.S. carriers, international carriers and wireless tower sites.

This fiber network uses a common transport platform that increases the value of its member networks by extending their ability to reach unserved and underserved markets. LIT Networks has more than 2,500 buildings and more than 200 towers on-net.

INDATEL is a nationwide network that provides fiber connectivity to rural and urban America. It excels in delivering reliable broadband connectivity via fiber optic network routes nationally.

Uniquely positioned to provide broadband telecommunications services to many places other carriers cannot go, the INDATEL network represents more than 90,000 fiber optic route miles of middle-mile network and hundreds of thousands of last-mile fiber optic facilities via its members and a fast-growing base of affiliates.

The INDATEL network serves more than 5,000 communities and more than 40,000 fiber-serviceable on-net and near-net buildings.

For more information go to www.indatelservices.com or www.indatel.com.

Great Plains Communications Completes Acquisition of Pinpoint

Great Plains Communications, the largest privately owned Nebraska telecommunications company, has completed its acquisition of Pinpoint Network Solutions and the Pinpoint Broadband business units of its regional fiber company, Pinpoint Holdings.

The Pinpoint acquisition adds 1,200 fiber miles, including 135 additional miles in the greater Omaha, Neb., metro area, to the current 6,000-plus mile Great Plains Communications fiber optic network that encompasses the state of Nebraska, extending into Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

“These additional fiber assets will further establish Great Plains Communications as a strong, Nebraska-based provider for both enterprise and carrier customers seeking diverse route options, access to additional commercial buildings, and true redundancy on this newly expanded network that is monitored 24x7x365 from our network operations center,” said Todd Foje, CEO of Great Plains Communications.

The acquisition was announced in December and was officially completed in February.

Pinpoint Holdings Chairman and President J. Richard Shoemaker said, “With the formal acquisition process complete, both companies look to ensure that customers experience a seamless migration and are able to start taking advantage of the opportunities this newly created, powerful network will provide. The acquisition completion also allows Pinpoint Holdings to refocus on other Nebraska opportunities.”

Clients have been notified of the acquisition completion by Great Plains Communications and meetings with these companies are underway. Foje said, “We are excited to bring these new clients and employees on board and look forward to a bright future with all of them.”

Pinpoint Broadband Inc. is a provider of telecom backbone service to carriers and enterprise companies in the Midwest. Services include dedicated Internet access, Ethernet transport and colocation services. Pinpoint Broadband has a presence in the leading carrier hotels in the United States, including 600 Federal, 350 Cermak, 1623 Farnam, Denver Gas and Electric, among others.

Great Plains Communications service offering include the more than 6,000-mile regional fiber network with community access rings, last-mile and middle-mile solutions. With a 105-year history of providing reliable and innovative solutions, Great Plains Communications has a progressive approach to accommodating the needs of all regional and national telecommunications carriers, LECs, ISPs, wireless carriers and other service providers utilizing superior custom engineering and custom build strategies.

For more information go to www.gpcom.com.

XKL Announces Initiative to Provide Broadband Connectivity Nationwide

XKL LLC, a provider of fiber optic networking solutions, announced an initiative to provide broadband solutions to rural communities throughout the United States.

As the country continues to recognize the importance of Internet connectivity in underserved and low-income areas, XKL products are suited to provide high levels of broadband to schools and municipalities.

In March, the Obama administration announced its ConnectALL program, which promises to deliver quality broadband technology to all Americans, noting access to Internet connectivity is a “path to greater opportunity.”

To fund this initiative, the administration requested the Federal Communications Commission reform a previous, $1.5 billion-per-year phone subsidy program to a national broadband subsidy that ensures low-income Americans can access the Internet.

With broadband usage continuing to increase throughout the United States, and with efforts in place that only underscore that trend, a cost-effective solution that allows for substantial bandwidth flexibility is needed.

XKL products are built to sustain these broadband efforts, and the company’s adaptable network topologies are able to service multiple facilities with just 1RU appliances.

With 10-minute installation times and a simple, user-friendly interface, XKL solutions are ideal for organizations that do not have optical networking staff in place. Furthermore, XKL’s 10 channel, 10G appliances provide a flexible growth path that allow for ongoing increases in capacity.

“Founder and CEO Len Bosack engineered XKL products with the future in mind,” said Chad Lamb, director of engineering for XKL. “Every network begins at Layer 1 and XKL appliances have the capacity to achieve 10 years of uptime without having to take the system offline.

“Solutions that are built to last, plus a strategic pay-as-you-grow bandwidth solution, makes XKL products optimal for any organization, especially those without connectivity experience and with limited IT resources,” Lamb added.

“Connecting underserved regions is a priority for the United States, and XKL stands behind its products to assist in this effort,” XKL Direct of Business Development Joe DePetro added. “We are excited to work with rural dark fiber providers, as well as local telephone, cable and managed service providers to increase the amount of bandwidth they can supply to their customers.”

Privately owned and operated by Cisco Systems co-founder Bosack, XKL provides high capacity DWDM optical networking products for robust enterprise deployment, service providers, and seamless cloud migration. The company is headquartered in Kirkland, Wash.

For information, visit www.xkl.com.

GSA Optimizes VoIP Carrier Billing for 9 Percent Profit Increase

A new VoIP carrier was concerned that the tax set up originally in its billing engine was not reflective of its services and sought out GSA to review and optimize its taxation.

GSA’s regulatory review uncovered errors in the regulatory code set up in the carrier’s system, which allowed for reduced liabilities.

Additionally, GSA’s research identified overrides – rules that can be applied to products for special tax consideration – that were never applied to the carrier’s tax rating set up, which could have been a result of the carrier’s lack of understanding on overrides.

Regardless of the circumstances, the review uncovered the oversight and enabled the carrier to take advantage of the qualified exemptions.

Finally, GSA performed a tax optimization exercise for the carrier, reviewing customer invoices for truth-in-billing and taxation accuracy. GSA optimized the carrier’s invoices by applying e911 and federal recovery fees allowed by law and properly calculated. This enabled the carrier to recoup expense outlay for obligatory tax and regulatory compliance.

These changes resulted in a 29 percent reduction of tax burden on the carrier. Looking at it from a bottom line, GSA’s project increased the bottom line contribution/profit by 9 percent.

In an increasingly competitive market, this was a major boost to the carrier, which is feeling the competitive pressure.

GSA can do this for your company as well. If you have manual processes involved in your tax and regulatory reporting, or if you have older resources (advisors and systems), GSA can examine at your reporting methods to see if there are ways to improve your bottom line.

With more 14 years’ experience in the industry, GSA has performed regulatory reviews for telecommunications providers since its inception and is perhaps the most experienced with understanding guidelines surrounding federal and state regulatory and tax rules. Combined with its repositories of data on more than 24,000 jurisdictions, GSA’s professionals bring their expertise to all engagements.

For more information, go to www.gsaudits.com or call Karine Vosberg at 678-304-6469.