TDS Telecom, via a partnership with IP-based provider Bandwidth, is expanding the geographic reach of its VoIP product set and launching a national Remote Teleworker product, to satisfy multisite national enterprise customers.
A key reason for the partnership is to provide the kind of reach large enterprise customers need, particularly in areas outside of TDS Telecom's CLEC and ILEC footprints.
Remote Teleworker product is the first of several services TDS will offer businesses as part of an out of dial tone territory effort.
"Our customers asking for if we could service our work at home employees and small branch offices so it was definitely our customers driving it," said Stephanie Ballweg, manager of Commercial Product Management for TDS, in an interview with FierceTelecom. "In order to launch our Remote Teleworker solution we needed these services from Bandwidth."
The telco said it will be able to connect a mix of corporate headquarters, smaller branch offices and remote employees who work out of their homes.
Bandwidth will automate the entire number-selection, -provisioning and -management process. A set of flexible APIs will also enable TDS to integrate the number-management process into its existing service infrastructure.
"We knew we had to get numbers ourselves or partner with someone and along with that comes to 911," Ballweg said. "What we liked about Bandwidth is the brought both services to us."
Ballweg added that another advantage of working with Bandwidth was that they were an "established CLEC so we not have to pave that way ourselves."
Managed IP services continue to be a growth engine for TDS Telecom.
In the first quarter, TDS Telecom added 3,400 new managed IP connections. Likewise, the company's One Neck IT Solutions subsidiary, which provides managed IT services and colocation, reported that revenues rose 77 percent in the quarter, to $63.1 million.
While it could not reveal the exact details, TDS said that it will be building other new products through its relationship with Bandwidth later this year.
For more:
- see the release
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Updated article on June 12 with quotes from Stephanie Ballweg of TDS Telecom.