‘Techco’ Provider US Signal Courting Partners To Expand Reach Of Strategic Services

‘I would view us as a Goldilocks kind of company were we can be kind of boutique. We can somewhat customize our solutions so when we’re looking at pairing up with a potential MSP, agent or channel partner, we want to figure out a way to work together where it’s beneficial for both,’ says Daniel Eskew, SVP of sales for US Signal.

Daniel Eskew, senior vice president of sales for US Signal

US Signal, a data center services, cloud and connectivity company, has undergone some big changes in the last six months, including an acquisition and new leadership.

The company was acquired by global infrastructure investment firm Igneo Infrastructure Partners in February. US Signal in March named Daniel Watts as its new CEO. Now, US Signal is focused on expanding the reach of its portfolio of networking and networking-adjacent services with the help of partners.

“[It’s about] developing our products and continuing to be innovative with how we provide services to our customers so we can gain more wallet share from the existing customers that we have,” Daniel Eskew, senior vice president of sales for US Signal, told CRN. “We’re really trying to find our ideal market.”

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Grand Rapids, Mich.-based US Signal considers itself a “techco,” given its strength in both telco and tech. Eskew said. The company operates a 9,500-route mile fiber network and eight data centers across nine states in the upper Midwest. US Signal’s products are powered by its own network with PCI and HIPAA-compliant infrastructure, a main differentiator for the company, he said.

On the security services side, US Signal offers remote management and monitoring, web application firewall, DDoS mitigation and bot and patch management. The company also offers managed XDR, security staff augmentation, threat detection and response and managed endpoint detection and response through its SOC services.

Eskew described the company as having an entrepreneurial spirit. US Signal wants to work with new and existing partners to figure out how to best fit the rapidly evolving needs of customers with its vast portfolio of offerings, he added.

“We want to be as flexible as we can. I would view us as a Goldilocks kind of company were we can be kind of boutique. We can somewhat customize our solutions so when we’re looking at pairing up with a potential MSP, agent or channel partner, we want to figure out a way to work together where it’s beneficial for both,” he said.

ACE Technology Group, a Phoenixville, Pa.-based MSP and US Signal partner, specializes in data center and cloud hosting services for SMB customers. The firm has been working with US Signal for the last two years to help its clients with their backup, remote desktop and application needs.

ACE has its own cloud environment, but the company didn’t want to have to maintain infrastructure anymore. This is where US Signal came in, said Chris Shank, founder and owner of ACE Technology Group.

Competing solutions, like that of TierPoint and Microsoft Azure, are often too complicated and aren’t priced for small businesses, he said. “US Signal is just a more pleasurable experience from the user perspective for a small business than other platforms,” he added.

US Signal has a very strong and communicative support team. Perhaps most importantly, the provider is enthusiastic about working with MSPs, Shank said. “They want to work with us. They deliberately put together a model that makes it palatable for an MSP like myself to do business with them and it’s done in a way where I can bill my client and make some margin.”

US Signal does about 15-20 percent of its business through its MSP and agent partner channels today.

While there haven’t been any recent changes to the company’s channel program, Eskew and his team are evaluating the resources it’s offering to partners.

“We’re looking at how to enhance the channel offerings and seeing in what kind of strategic ways we partner with the MSP community, for example, where we might be offering some kind of service, whether that’s a white label or an offering that they can use to provide more services to their customers that they have,” he said. “Overall, we want to find ways to broaden what that looks like.”