ISPs want a box that's easy to deploy and manage and not overly expensive. Sutus offers an option you should look at.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [November 4, 2008]

A year ago, when I last talked to Vancouver, Canada-based VoIP equipment maker Sutus, the company had just prototyped its first device. Now, things are different. The company has hired a new CEO, and its products are far past the prototype stage.

Mike Donnell, the company's new CEO, says he joined the company because he was favorably impressed by its technology. "Sutus is extremely well positioned," he says. "The key thing that attracted me to Sutus was a strong belief that in order to capitalize on the opportunities that VoIP offers, companies will need an edge device to address QoS issues. Interoperability will be a critical challenge, but the device will enable a whole suite of services and functionality that are ideal for the SMB."

Sutus, Donnell says, makes provisioning easy, that drives down costs. "When I was learning about Sutus, I had the company send me a box. I said, 'if it self installs, I want to see that.' I plugged it in and plugged in the phone and what's really amazing is that the phone self-provisioned through the BC 200. I've got a wireless phone at home and this was simpler. You plug the Polycomm phone into a LAN port and the BC 200 discovers it. You answer a real simple set of questions in the setup UI. It's a 30 minute process, maybe 45 minutes if you're less tech savvy."

Once the device is installed, the service provider can offer services. These services are nothing too complicated, and the service provider should not be challenged. They're basic services like data backup and recovery.

The company is interested in adding a monitoring service that will allow the service provider to receive an alert when the customer is experiencing congestion or poor service. The service provider could offer an additional SIP trunk or more bandwidth to the customer.

"It's a basic idea from retail," says Donnell. "It's like asking, 'would you like fries with that.' The goal is to sell more."

For service providers, the company is developing a new tool, currently called Fleet Management (see screen shot above), says Jon Paul Janze, Sutus product director. The system will connect to the ISP's OSS systems, its billing and user authentication systems.

CBeyond
Here's a sample business partner: CBeyond, a VoIP provider best known in the industry for its sales force.

"CBeyond is selling a package of services that includes data and voice," says Donnell. "It's like a data and voice CLEC. It offers small business customers a package of voice minutes and data bandwidth, and it can bundle in extras like cellular service or hosted Exchange. CBeyond goes to a small business and offers to cut costs with VoIP. Some businesses can use their existing phone system, but others have a PBX that's bursting at the seams. With Sutus, they have the ability to sell the small business a phone system themselves instead of calling in a telephone VAR."

Avoiding the ILEC is also key. Donnell points out that if CBeyond's customer retains an old phone system, CBeyond will need to have an ILEC representative and a telephone VAR on site at the same time so that the customer doesn't lose phone service.

In contrast, "with Sutus, they could set up the box and port the phone numbers over at whatever time is convenient. They install sooner, lower support costs, and improve sales productivity."

Once it's installed, the box continues to save CBeyond money, says Janze. "The service provider can manage the box remotely from a call center. It doesn't require an on site visit, dramatically reducing the costs of supporting a small business customer."

Pricing and availability
The Sutus Business Central 200 (data sheet: .pdf) is available now from Sutus' channel partners.

Pricing depends upon the number of users supported. A box supporting up to 9 users is listed at $3,995, and one supporting 10 and more is listed at over $5,495.

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