Applications

Propel Courts Large Service Providers

Following big customer wins in Brazil, Australia, and South Africa, Propel snags AT&T Worldnet as its newest customer.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [March 22, 2004]

At ISP-Planet, we always quiz vendors on whether they are willing and able to serve the small ISPs that constitute such a key part of the ISP business. Talking to people at San Jose, Calif.-based Propel and Morristown, N.J.-based AT&T Worldnet reminds us that large ISPs also need special attention.

Tom Newman, product manager for the AT&T Worldnet accelerator, began testing dialup accelerators just like any other ISP would. "I looked at about seven or eight. I downloaded them onto my own computer at home, and did simple stopwatch studies on my own."

Based on those tests, and examinations of the ability of the company to serve WorldNet, Newman narrowed the field to about three. But Newman is not the sole proprietor of his ISP, so didn't have to figure out how to narrow the field further.

"Then I got AT&T Labs to test it," he says. "They were very very impressed with Propel."

AT&T is offering acceleration to all dialup users who are paying at least $14.95 per month (for others, acceleration is another incentive to upgrade).

Frank Guerrero, Propel vice president of marketing, says that Propel's personnel are key to a sale like this one. "We do not just throw a piece of software over the fence and say, 'let us know if it works.' Our engineers conference with theirs, and our sales folks talk to theirs."

Guerrero says AT&T looked at the entire Propel organization, not just its software. "AT&T did a very thorough examination of our premises and how we manage our data center. In some cases, we're not the lowest cost solution. That's not why they chose us."

For a large sale, Propel can be very aggressive on price, going below $2 per user per year and possibly even below $1 per user per year for its largest customers.

But in some parts of the world, ISPs do not charge a flat monthly fee. Propel adjusts its pricing model accordingly, working with ISPs where incomes are lower (and therefore prices are lower too), where users pay per minute, or where the ISP is free but earns money as an affiliate of the phone company, getting a commission on minutes sold.

Whatever the pricing model, Propel does argue that in the long term its product is the cheapest. "Total cost of ownership (TCO) is our story," says Guerrero. "We allow you to deploy with less servers, which is less initial cost, but also makes it less expensive over time."

He adds that the company is constantly improving its software. "We do also run a data center and we learn from that. We learn about integration, reporting, and monitoring."

The data center enables Propel to offer a hosted service in addition to enabling ISPs to operate the accelerator themselves. This can be valuable to large ISPs, Guerrero says. "Time to market for these folks is important," he notes, especially if they're running television ads that specifically mention acceleration.

Propel can bring the hosted service to market fast, in four to six weeks, as little as thirty days. "Our network engineers," Guerrero jokes, "say, gee, not another one, as they have to get out all the servers."

"But it's a big competitive advantage," he adds.

ISPs eventually deploy the Propel software within their own network. "We maintain it as long as they like and when they're ready to cut the umbilical cord, they can."

Guerrero has been with the company for five months, and is proud of all the recent customer wins, not just AT&T Worldnet. The company is also courting the RBOCs, and it's looking abroad. "In Brazil, we signed what I think is the largest ISP in South America, with over 11 million subscribers, and the grand majority of them will stay on dialup for some time."

In fact, as Propel looks to the future, it sees an end to dialup in the United States. The company is therefore seeking customers in nations where the transition to broadband will be much slower.

The company is also building relationships that will allow it to offer more than acceleration. It recently partnered with Guelph, Ontario-based Net Sweeper to add content filtering. Guerrero says there will be more partnerships in the future.

At AT&T Worldnet, Newman is happy to not have to keep up with the technology himself. "It's the vendor's business to stay on top of this," he tells us. "If there's a new tweak, it's their responsibility. I'm sure they're working on it now, and we'll be privileged to have it when it comes."

Guerrero says the Propel work process is actually very simple. "We have a little acronym about how were work here. It's GSD, which stands for Get Stuff Done (Stuff being a euphemism)." It must be just like working at an ISP.

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