Integra Telecom - Dudley Slater, President and CEO - Top 10 BSPs

One of the things that Integra Telecom--the fourth largest U.S. facilities-based CLEC--has always prided itself on in serving its SMB customer base is its locally-based service model. This means that if a customer calls in with an issue they'll be talking with a customer representative that more likely resides in the same area and time zone.
 
And this local service model is what Integra Telecom's co-founder and CEO Dudley Slater says is what makes it different than the swarm of other ILEC and cable competitors in its respective Western markets. 

"We believe we bring a unique service opportunity to customers in the form of our local service model that is highly responsive to what these small businesses want," he said. "What we're seeing is that the recurring demand that we have enjoyed for 10 years is continuing to be alive and well."

Hand in hand with the customer experience, Integra offers competitive service prices. Take Integra's Broadband Internet service--the new copper-based service can offer SMB customers service tiers of 5, 15 and 25 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 2 Mbps for $75 a month.

"We offer basically 10-25 Mbps of bandwidth, and that's a screaming deal for these small businesses that are becoming more and more IT-centric in their own networking needs," Slater said. "We're able to offer that because of the robust network we have built over the years in the form of metro fiber, and large data network investment is allowing us to give our customers these really fast data speeds at a really attractive price."

In addition to launching new services, Integra Telecom has made some strategic acquisitions of other competitive providers, including notably the former Electric Lightwave (acquired in 2006) and Eschelon Telecom (acquired in 2007).   
More recently, the CLEC has extended its broadband Internet service SMBs in other regions including Colorado and dedicated $5 million to expand its fiber network into four Arizona communities.