Combine a development shop with a wholesale provider, and you get Velocity West. With a background in application development, the company offers an integrated back office system, dialer, and ISP portal.

by Jeff Goldman [May 7, 2003]

Many wholesale providers are created by ISPs that want to offer access to a larger audience, but Velocity West is cast from a different mold. According to Noel Morgan, Velocity West's President, the company was founded in 2001 as an offshoot of a development shop. "We developed applications for some clients, and discovered there was a market for our tools and technologies in the ISP space," Morgan said.

What started as an after-hours project for the development business is now a VISP that services over 165 ISPs with its own subscriber management system, dialer, and ISP portal. To catch up on its lack of experience in the ISP space, Velocity West started its own national ISP last summer, then sold it to one of its customers.

Velocity West Voice: (915) 690-9314 sales@velocitywest.com

The knowledge gained from that experience led the company to strengthen its offering by focusing on integration between systems. "Everything is integrated with the back office," Morgan said. "For example, if your credit card is expiring next month, our dialer can tell you that, take a new credit card when you log in, and update the back office in real time. Everything is tied together."

As a result, Morgan says, a number of ISPs come to Velocity West just for the technology. "What sets us apart from our competitors is the fact that, because we've developed everything, we can integrate whatever back end system they have with our system," he said. "We've integrated just about every way you can think of; we're not bound by any proprietary systems."

Focused on technology
The company's wholesale dialup offering combines access from Qwest, ICG, Level 3, and Allegiance Telecom. Customer agreements are flexible, and can include specific states or specific networks. Velocity West is also able to offer plans that don't charge for switching between networks. "We blend them all," Morgan said. "We've really found a lot of value in that."

The company runs its own call center, Call Resource, which both provides support for Velocity West customers and offers outsourced call center services to other ISPs.

In order to maintain direct control of its services, Velocity West runs its own network operations center. "We own and operate everything from the room itself to the servers, the software, everything," Morgan said. "We know our system; we don't have to rely on third party vendors to fix it when something goes wrong."

Morgan says Velocity West's ownership of the products, the NOC, and the direct relationships with carriers are a great asset for the company. "I think we're going to see a lot of cleanout in our space in the next twelve months, and the guys that have the direct contracts, the backing, and the know-how are going to be the guys left standing," he said.

Velocity West also plans to announce a prepaid offering within the next few weeks, a model that takes advantage of the company's ability to integrate systems dynamically. "You won't have to set up all the user names in advance—or pay for all the accounts—because everything's dynamic," Morgan said. "It's going to set us apart and put us into the leading edge of that technology."

Solid and stable
Cullen Canazares is one of three partners running Leapfrog Internet, a small ISP based in Breckenridge, Colorado. The company was founded just over two years ago, and began working with Velocity West about nine months into their operation. "We took a tour of their systems, and it was stronger than what we'd seen from a lot of the providers out there," Canazares said.

According to Canazares, Velocity West's subscriber management system was a strong selling point. "A lot of the systems we've seen out there with some of the wholesalers are just piecemealed together; they're clunky, and they're not very user friendly," Canazares said. "Velocity West's platform is solid, it's stable, it's quick, and it works at the end of the day."

With Leapfrog's previous provider, as many as 50 percent of customers who signed up using their web site's online signup script had to call the company's technical support in order to connect. "That means that 50 percent of the people can't get connected right away, and their experience is starting off on a bad foot already," Canazares said. "Now, we're up in the 85 to 90 percent range."

Ultimately, Canazares says, it's Velocity West's programming ability that sets it apart from the crowd. "We don't have any developers in house here; we're sales and marketing people—which is what most VISPs are," he said. "If we need something, they can turn it around in minutes—with no cost associated with it, because it's second nature for them. They're really easy to work with, and they get things done in a hurry."

— End

Related articles:
	[Sept. 20, 2002]	One ISP's Profitable Hot Spots
	[May 25, 2001]	Evaluating a Free Bundled Call Center
	[March 16, 2001]	Va-Va-VISP

Online resource:
	Wholesale Dialup Directory