altoHiway launches uncontended SDSL channel campaign

Leading business ISP, altoHiway, has launched one of the biggest SDSL channel programmes in the UK, offering significant margins for resellers and a marketing campaign in a box.

The new package from altoHiway is aimed at resellers looking to increase their SDSL customer base as 400 exchanges across the UK will be uncontended SDSL enabled by the end of June.

altoHiway is one of only a handful of ISPs that can offer uncontended SDSL to resellers and are keen to sign exclusive channel deals with resellers, particularly in the North West, North East and Scotland.

Chris Wood, Sales and Marketing Director of altoHiway, said: A third of the business community in major towns and conurbations in the UK have access to uncontended SDSL from Portsmouth to Leeds and Salford to Glasgow its a market that is just starting to open up.

The SDSL boom has been created by companies that have ADSL technology which has hit the limit of its upload capabilities and are now looking at making a step up to the next level. The improved upload performance of SDSL provides the ideal solution and supports more flexible working patterns.

VPN traffic and remote users are consuming evermore bandwidth, causing upload problems for ADSL. By switching to SDSL technology, companies can benefit from similar performance and flexibility to that of a leased line, but at a much lower price point.

The other opportunity for resellers is the thousands of companies currently using lower bandwidth leased lines, where SDSL is likely to offer the attractive combination of higher performance and significantly reduced costs.

All altoHiway uncontended SDSL circuits are backed up by a service level guarantee. This offers 99.5% availability backed up by four-hour response on faults and compensations should these thresholds not be met.

Uncontended SDSL is opening up new market potential for resellers who are pro-active in selling it to customers as it comes on stream on their local exchange.

Wood adds: ADSL is increasingly becoming a commodity, offering little potential to the channel. Margin for ADSL has been eroded to such a point that resellers are not making anything from sales opportunities. SDSL will not only benefit the customer as they make the next step up, but also the reseller over the lifetime of the connection.

Any reseller that joins the altoHiway channel programme will see an immediate impact on their bottom line because they will earn 10% margin for the life of an SDSL circuit with a minimum of 390 annually for a 2Mb uncontended connection.

Threshold margins rise to 15% with 10 connections which equates to a high annual return and 20% with 30 connections. With average industry margins of 50 per ADSL connection, it is a big difference in comparison.

As with any channel programme, vendor support is crucial and to this end altoHiway has created an exclusive reseller programme.

This latest price cut underlines altoHiways commitment to provide the best value to resellers and is backed up by their complete sales, marketing and support package designed to help channel partners sell SDSL solutions effectively and profitably. It even includes a free SDSL router for each customer, saving at least 200.00.

Wood comments: To maximise reseller benefits, altoHiway has established a virtual franchise channel programme for resellers.

Resellers signing up to the SDSL programme will receive a marketing campaign in a box containing a range of collaterals from posters and fliers to mailers, all of which will be addressed for the reseller and not altoHiway.

The programme is also backed by a heavily discounted telemarketing campaign that began earlier this year, enabling resellers to fully maximise sales opportunities.

In areas where we are supporting a reseller, we are not prospecting for opportunities and are actively assisting resellers with a discounted telemarketing campaign. The total cost of the reseller SDSL package is 500-1,000 per exchange which includes the 200-500 contact data from the telemarketing programme, which the reseller gets to keep.

SDSL packages available from altoHiway include:

NetSDSL Business Select 512K, 1Mb, 2Mb. Contention ratio: 10:1
NetSDSL Business Corporate 1Mb, 2Mb 1:1. Uncontended