I interviewed Integra in Austin last year. Like quite a few interviews I do, I just can't find the time to write up the blog. It may seem like I do this blogging thing full time, but my bills still get paid doing consulting to ISP-CLEC-VOIP-MSO companies and being a telecom agent. It makes for a lot of juggling and long hours.
Integra Telecom is a CLEC in 11 Western states, including: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah and Washington - bringing in about $700M in revenue, in part due to the acquisition of Electric Lightwave and Escheleon Telecom. The parts I like are the 5,000-mile long-haul fiber network and the 3,000-mile metro network that feeds about 1,900 buildings. Now with Kevin O'Hara as CEO, Integra is re-branding itself as a "fiber-based, business-grade networking, communications and cloud solutions provider." That's right: from CLEC to Cloud provider.
Integra Telecom is going the UC&C route by "providing network-wide availability of hosted Microsoft Communication Services, which includes Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Outlook 2010, Microsoft Lync, Microsoft SharePoint, enhanced encryption and other valuable features," according to the pr.
At ITEXPO West in 2011, they "introduced a cloud security services suite of managed, networked-based security products for companies that rely on the Internet for their business and need to protect their network from unauthorized and malicious access and content. The first available product is Cloud Firewall Service, a network-based unified threat prevention service that provides secure inbound and outbound Internet access without the need for on-premise equipment or additional staff," according to the pr. That service keeps them in the hunt with Netwolves, EarthLink and others who have rolled out a managed firewall service. Security is supposed to be the buzz word this year. We'll see.
To me, it's all about On-Net. Whether I am talking about EarthLink or Integra or WIND or XO or TWT or L3, it is all about LIT Buildings! Why? You already spent the capital to put fiber there, so get deep into that building. Then layer on services. Big pipes will need security since everyone is getting hacked.
Did I mention that Integra Telecom is channel friendly? (Though they haven't joined TCA yet.
