Across The Telecom Spectrum: 6 Moves That Made Waves In The Channel In August

Wheeling And Dealing

The telecom industry doubled down on acquisitions, new offerings, and executive moves in August. Verizon picked up a new CIO, and AT&T rolled out a new tool for service provider customers. During summer's final month, competitive local exchange carriers, or CLECs, also made waves with new partnerships and expanded product portfolios.

Here are six newsworthy things that happened in the telecom industry last month that solution providers should know.

Verizon Nabs Former EMC Executive As CIO

Vic Bhagat (pictured), EMC's former executive vice president and CIO, joined Verizon Enterprise Solutions at the beginning of August as the carrier's new CIO.

In his new role, the 30-year IT veteran will head up Verizon's technology strategy and align the carrier's IT team with corporate objectives. Bhagat’s team will design and deliver the next generation of integrated enterprise communications solutions, according to the Basking Ridge, N.J.-based carrier.

AT&T Releases Ethernet Services Qualification Tool

AT&T released a tool in August that can help its wholesale customers -- service providers -- check the availability of Ethernet-based services by address. The new tool cuts down the time to complete a manual process - which, historically, took service providers hours or days to complete - to just minutes, the Dallas-based carrier told CRN.

The latest tool, which is customizable for AT&T wholesale customers, allows service providers to qualify new customers quickly by finding and evaluating the speed of next-generation, Ethernet-based services for their customers in near real-time. The tool will let service providers better assist customers looking to move to new technologies, AT&T said.

BullsEye Telecom Grows Channel Program, Intros New Commissions Incentives

BullsEye Telecom, a Southfield, Mich.-based telecommunications service provider, enhanced its channel program last month with improved quoting tools, marketing support, and field sales support for partners conducting onsite meetings. The provider also opened a Success Center in Boston recently in an effort to expand partner support on the East Coast, according to BullsEye.

BullsEye also rolled out several new commission options for partners selling its hosted VoIP and POTS solutions. The new compensation options include upfront and residual payment options, as well as upfront and residual incentives per line, the provider said.

EarthLink, VeloCloud Announce SD-WAN Partnership

Following in the footsteps of fellow telecom providers, such as Vonage, IT services and telecommunications provider EarthLink named VeloCloud one its SD-WAN partners.

Atlanta-based EarthLink said VeloCloud's cloud-based SD-WAN technology will support network agility and access to cloud services, data centers and enterprise applications for EarthLink customers.

In partnership with VeloCloud, EarthLink will launch its SD-WAN offering this fall, the company said.

Intelisys Announces Executive Move Following Acquisition News

August was a busy month for Petaluma, Calif.-based master agent Intelisys, a company that announced it would be acquired by IT distributor ScanSource for $83.6 million.

Last month, J.R. Cook, Intelisys' former senior vice president of business development, took on the master agent's West Region, a particularly challenging area for Intelisys, the company said. In his new role, Cook is responsible for leading and adding new, strategic hires to the West Coast team, and supporting sales partners out west, Intelisys said.

Adtran Expands Hardware Options For Managed ProCloud Subscription Services

Telecommunications networking equipment vendor Adtran added a slew of Gigabit routers, IP business gateways and session border controllers to its ProCloud Subscription Services, a network-as-a-service offering that combines hardware and software in a monthly subscription, or "rental" price.

The latest products will give partners and end customers access to a greater range of carrier-grade networking and telecommunications equipment, in addition to managed voice and data services, the Huntsville, Ala.-based company said.