AT&T Channel Chief Randall Porter began leading the carrier’s indirect efforts in 2022. He’s spent more than 25 years serving in a variety of positions for AT&T with more than 10 years spent in the channel. That means he’s no stranger to the ever-evolving needs of partners.

Up until just recently, the Dallas-based carrier giant has had three distinct channel programs for its different kinds of partners: Apex, also known as Partner Exchange, Alliance Channel and ACC.

Now, AT&T has unified the three programs into one: AT&T Partner Solutions. The move was made to explicitly rely more heavily on the channel for expanded distribution.

AT&T has been on a mission to zero-in on what it does best – core connectivity and telecom services – and that singular focus created a big opportunity for the carrier’s partners to step in and lend a hand to business customers with their value-added services and managed services, Porter told CRN.

About a year into his appointment, Porter sat down with CRN to talk about how the carrier is growing Partner Solutions, the tooling and enablement that’s now available to partners, and why now was the time for the carrier to go big with partners.

Here are excerpts from the conversation.