CoreTel's network provides thorough coverage in the Mid-Atlantic region, and offers additional services that include a full voice over IP product line.

by Jeff Goldman [May 5, 2004]

CoreTel was founded in 1997 to provide managed modem services to ISPs. The company now serves about 60 ISPs with coverage in ten Mid-Atlantic LATAs, including all of Delaware and Maryland, as well as New York City, Washington D.C., northern Virginia, much of Pennsylvania, and part of West Virginia.

Bret Mingo, Coretel's CEO, says that by targeting ISPs in those areas, the company is able to offer them a degree of density in their local area that they might not otherwise be able to access. "Density is an important part of profitability for small and medium size ISPs," Mingo says. "They need the ability to have a lot of coverage area in one POP."

CoreTel (215) 753-9225 sales@coretel.net

Aside from one aggregator, which accesses CoreTel's network, every one of the company's customers is a local or regional ISP in the eastern United States. "We target local ISPs, and offer pricing and a product line that compares favorably to them running their own managed modems in their most dense areas," Mingo says.

Instant VoIP
The company's newest offering is a VoIP product line that allows ISPs to manage VoIP services just as they would data services. "What we've done is taken the philosophy of the managed modem service and applied it to VoIP," Mingo says. "Voice over IP services are a product, a building block on which an ISP can add their own features, their own voicemail servers, those sorts of things."

The aim is to give ISPs a significant range of offerings beyond simple Internet access. "So far, we've had a couple of ISPs that have started making the transition from ISP to ITSP [Internet Telephony Service Provider], and our focus this summer will be to enable more of our current ISPs, as well as additional ISPs, to become ITSPs, to give them a way into the voice over IP business," Mingo says.

Key to CoreTel's VoIP offering is an automated provisioning tool that allows an ISP to assign a phone number instantly to any IP-aware VoIP device on the Internet. A demo of the system can be accessed at CoreTel's web site. "It significantly shortens the cycle necessary to provision," Mingo says.

Pricing and flexibility
CoreTel's pricing, like every other aspect of its services, is targeted to the needs of local ISPs. "Most managed modem providers are aggregators, and charge a per-hour rate that is effective for additional coverage areas but does not compare well to the density that a local ISP would have in their primary coverage area," Mingo says. "We make it more attractive than running your own modem pools."

Pricing for the services is negotiable, and can be arranged in a number of different ways. Pricing structure, contract lengths, and minimums are all flexible. "Ultimately, we're a small business, just like our customers," Mingo says. "We understand that profitability is key, especially now. We're very responsive to our small business customers' needs."

The most important thing for ISPs to keep in mind, Mingo says, is the growing need to cultivate additional sources of revenue. "Voice over IP is a very viable business right now, and it will continue to grow very fast over the next couple of years," he says. "I think it's a very realistic and exciting opportunity for ISPs to expand their business into another recurring revenue model."

Exponential growth
Bob Russell is President of Delmarva Online, a local ISP serving Maryland and Delaware that has been working with CoreTel for the past three years. The key selling point for CoreTel's services, Russell says, was price. "I couldn't touch the price per unit," he says. "I couldn't even come close. And the quality was actually better than what I was getting buying from the LEC myself."

After five years of running its own network, outsourcing to CoreTel enabled Delmarva Online to grow exponentially. "It was a changing experience for our company," Russell says. "When we started with them, we had about 8,000 customers, and just by having our cost basis right, we now have over 40,000 customers."

Working with the company, he adds, has been a pleasant experience. "We just have fewer problems, and the problems that do arise are remedied much more rapidly," Russell says. "They're a very flexible group that understands the business, and they're nice guys. They've done a great job for us."

— End

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