Birch establishes enterprise solutions channel to target multi-site businesses

Birch Communications may be known as a CLEC serving small to medium-sized businesses, but the launch of its Enterprise Solutions shows that it wants to get a piece of the lucrative multi-site business market. 

The new unit will be led by Paul Masters, previously the president of Ernest Communications, which was purchased by Birch in June. He will work out of Birch's office in Norcross, Ga.

The CLEC also introduced Birch Gold Elite Teams, a set of account management representatives that will focus on serving and managing these larger customers. They will also be located in both its Norcross and Macon operations centers.

Complementing these new service elements, Birch has developed and deployed a new Web-based customer account portal tool called eConsole, which will allow larger customers to view and modify their account information, add trouble tickets and confirm new orders.

Expanding into larger business accounts makes sense for Birch. Having built its network and service presence through a mix organic efforts and acquisitions of other providers like Ernest, it can provide services to business customers in all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and into Canada. 

Although Ernest and Lightyear were the latest acquisitions it closed, the CLEC will likely pursue more deals to expand its footprint to serve more large business customers. Earlier this month it increased its senior credit capacity to $175 million, which it will use to expand its IP network and seek what it says are "accretive acquisitions."

For more:
- see the release

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