VoIP

Primus Thinks Big About VoIP

Meet a truly global VoIP provider and wholesaler.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [August 16, 2004]

McLean, Va.-based Primus Telecommunications is a big, global carrier, but nowhere is it an ILEC. Many of its customers are ILECs, but the company itself is a competitor, not the incumbent, in almost every nation in the world.

Based in the U.S., and listed on NASAQ under the PRTL symbol, the company has over $1 billion in annual revenue and a market cap of over $150 million, making it a Fortune 1000 company, but not a Fortune 100 company. It has 2,350 employees worldwide. It has two data centers in the U.S., two in Canada, one in England, and one in Australia.

It does not only sell wholesale. The company is the third largest ISP in Australia, and the fifth largest in both Canada and Brazil.

Its Lingo.com VoIP service retails in the U.S. for $19.99 per month for residences (with the first three months free in a current offer) and starts at $49.99 for businesses. Unfortunately, the voice service ranks dead last on Broadband Reports due to poor customer service.

John Melick, co-president of Primus, says larger ISPs will be interested in Primus because it offers products for all end users. "We have a full suite of VoIP products for the wholesale and retail segments—Lingo, Primus Enterprise VoIP, and PC to Phone—for consumers and small, medium, and large business applications. I don't believe there are many VoIP providers—if any at all—who have the full compliment of products that we offer to ISPs, other broadband providers and even other telcos."

He further notes that Primus offers what its smaller competitors cannot. "We can provide in language customer care and support, billing in a variety of different currencies, and credit card and collections capabilities in all of the major regions of the world."

Primus can deliver CPE directly to your customers, along with high quality documentation that includes color coded cables for the ATA. The company's network is SIP-based, but it can work with the other VoIP protocols. It can own-brand the service and provide marketing collateral.

So if you're thinking big about VoIP, if you're going multinational and multilingual, you have to consider Primus, which is thinking global about VoIP.

—End