GlobalPOPs offers more depth of coverage than most other wholesalers, with a number of different service options for its ISP customers including month to month contracts.

by Jeff Goldman [May 3, 2006]

Global POPs was started in 2002 by Ad-Base Systems, a technology company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. While the wholesaler was recently incorporated as an independent entity, it remains a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ad-Base, which also runs a variety of other companies, from ISPs to support providers.

Corey Potts, GlobalPOPs' Vice President of Sales, says a key strength of his company's offering is the fact that, as a result of the relationships they've developed, they offer far deeper coverage than most competing providers. "Most people are doing business with just the Level 3s and Qwests out there," he says. "We've found a lot of rural CLECs to do business with."

Global POPs Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Voice: (866) 999-GPOP E-mail: sales@globalpops.com

As a result, according to GlobalPOPs Vice President Pat Sherlock, the company now boasts over 9,000 POPs nationwide. "That's published, out of over 75,000," he says. "Where I have eight POPs in the same city, we only publish the top two or three. Usually, when you hear somebody list their POP count, they're listing that 25,000 to 75,000 number—but we have the most covered rate centers in the United States."

The company's current objective, Potts says, is to migrate as much of the access as possible onto GlobalPOPs' own facilities. The company currently has 14 states lit, and plans to double that in time for ISPCON in mid-May. "At that point, I believe, just short of Level 3, we'll have the largest facilities-based network of any provider," he says. "Short of Level 3, but soon to pass them."

It's a shift of focus, Sherlock says, away from managed modem relationships with other carriers. "We've worked with the opposite of a 'build it and they will come' business strategy," he says. "We've gotten the business, and we're now rolling everything onto our own facilities to improve performance for customers, and also to cut customers' costs."

Service options
In addition to the company's Global Ports offering for nationwide access, a new Tiered Port option is targeted at region-specific providers. "If a customer is just doing, say, Seattle, Seattle for us is a Tier 0 location, so we can sell $19 ports to these customers in lieu of the $35 Global Port," Potts says.

And that Tiered Port customer, Potts says, then automatically gets access to all of the company's other Tier 0 locations—currently numbering 2,300, he says, and soon to double. "We also turn up two test ports for them in each tier," he says. "So let's say they have one or two customers that travel to Hawaii: even though they're not purchasing that tier, their customers will still be able to gain access there on a limited basis."

A new Premium Bundle offering provides a full suite of services for $6.99 per user per month, covering everything except for billing—dialup access, accelerator, filtering, newsgroups, custom portal, hosted e-mail, a brandable dialer, and technical support. "As long as the ISP can handle their own billing, we've got everything else handled," Potts says.

All of GlobalPOPs' agreements are month-to-month. "That allows our customers the flexibility to change port counts through the year as they need to," Sherlock says. "With most of our competition, they have to sign a year-long contract to purchase a set level of services—and anybody who's done anything in this industry knows summertime usage isn't anywhere near what December, January and February usage is."

GlobalPOPs targets both aggregators and medium to large ISPs, though Sherlock says even small ISPs should give the company a call. "If they call us directly and we feel that their needs might be better served by one of our aggregator partners, we may put them in touch with somebody that can help them build their business—but there's no set minimum below which they shouldn't bother calling us," he says.

Back office functionality
Initial turn-up, Sherlock says, usually takes 24 to 48 hours—and once everything's set up, additional services can be provisioned instantly using GlobalPOPs' back office system. "If they need to add additional services, like an additional realm, they're able to do the data entry on that themselves," he says. "It literally happens as fast as they can type."

Customers can also open tickets directly through the back office, and get a call back from a human within 15 minutes (usually within seven)—and Sherlock says GlobalPOPs is able to resolve seven out of eight tickets themselves, without having to go to the upstream provider. "That's why a lot of providers like us, and partner with us," he says.

Justin Steele is General Manager of the San Diego-based ISP Internet Express, which uses GlobalPOPs for the vast majority of its dialup access. The company currently uses O1 Communications for some local California access, but Steele says they're considering switching those areas to GlobalPOPs as well.

When Internet Express faced a problem with users getting access without being billed, Steele says, GlobalPOPs helped the ISP resolve the issue. "They didn't have to do that," he says. "They could have made more money by allowing the abuse to continue, but they're a good company—they're more interested in helping their partners succeed in the marketplace."

The quality of GlobalPOPs' service and support, Steele says, makes them particularly attractive to Internet Express—as does the depth of their coverage. "When there's a problem with one provider, they always seem to have about five other numbers in the same area," he says. "They provide us with reasonable coverage, with a very reasonable cost structure involved."

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Online resources:
	Wholesale Dialup Directory
	Wholesale Dialup Quick Reference Chart

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