Sprint's size, reputation, and reliability serve as strong selling points for its customers, which range from the smallest affinity groups to the largest ISPs.

by Jeff Goldman [July 9, 2003]

Sprint's wholesale division has been offering dialup access since 1996. According to Eric Smith, Dial IP Product Manager for Sprint Data Services, America Online was one of the company's early customers. About a year and a half ago, Sprint added a virtual ISP offering in response to customer requests.

Most customers are initially attracted to Sprint, Smith says, because of the company's name and reputation. "Individuals come knocking on our door because of the fact that they know we can do it, we can do it well, and we can do it at a margin that allows them to go out and be profitable themselves," he said.

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And the company's long history is a solid asset. Sprint was founded as the Brown Telephone Company in 1899, offering local telephone service in Abilene, Kansas. "With the fact that Sprint has been in the business for as long as we have, the reliability speaks for itself," Smith said.

Targeting ISPs and affinity groups
Sprint's Wholesale Dial IP service provides close to 1,000 local access POPs nationwide. According to Smith, dialup access inherently offers a degree of reliability that no broadband technology can match-which is why Sprint continues to provide the offering. "The reliability is one of the reasons we're still in business," he said.

The price and availability of dialup access, Smith says, are two additional assets. "Even though we're wholesaling to our ISP customers, the price points at which we're able to provide it to them make the product a viable offering," he said. "That, along with the fact that dial is available in the majority of areas: there's always a dial tone somewhere."

For affinity groups seeking a new revenue source, a complete package like the Sprint Wholesale Virtual ISP offering is an alternate solution. "These groups are not ISPs, and they don't have software development organizations," Smith said. "They're looking for a way to bring money in by offering a service that folks need anyway."

A variety of VISP packages are available, providing everything from installation CDs to customer billing. "We allow you to market the service under your letterhead, your icons and markings, and then resell it to your consumer base," Smith said. "You can offer Internet access to your target market and say, 'Not only are you buying the service, but you're also contributing to the success of the organization.'"

Smith notes, however, that the Virtual ISP service isn't generally targeted at ISP customers: most ISPs choose the Dial IP service instead. "What we seen from ISPs is that the majority of them already have their access client and their billing mechanisms in place," he said. "What they're coming to Sprint and some of our competitors for is just to be able to provide those local access numbers."

All customers great and small
For the past seven consecutive years, Sprint has had the fewest network outages of any major carrier as reported to the FCC. As a result, Smith says, customers may initially come to the company because of its reputation, but the ultimate selling point of the service is its reliability.

For an ISP, any network outage means additional costs. "ISPs come to us because they know Sprint has the network monitoring and network maintenance processes in place to guarantee reliable service," Smith said. "And that means there's not going to be an opportunity for cost overruns related to network outages."

And that's true for ISPs of any size. Sprint's recent shift to an SS7 infrastructure, Smith says, was completed in order to enable it to service all kinds of customers. "One of the reasons we went through the infrastructure updates was so that we could service all of the players in this market, not just the large ones," he said.

Upgrades like that, he adds, are a key aspect of Sprint's strategy. "We made that investment because Sprint wanted to be a player in this market," Smith said. "That's why Sprint took a step back and invested money into its network infrastructure-as a show of commitment to the customers that come to us for services."

— End

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