An agreement announced today between ANPI and Indatel aims to “coordinate each organization’s infrastructure” with the goal of benefiting rural areas, the companies said in a press release.
Indatel is an alliance of regional and statewide fiber network operators that have interconnected their networks, reaching many rural markets nationwide. ANPI offers a hosted unified communications service that targets rural communications service providers.
Indatel recently opened a network point of presence (POP) in Chicago that serves as an interconnection point, enabling wholesale service provider customers to gain connectivity to the rural markets that Indatel reaches. In response to an email inquiry from Telecompetitor, Indatel Chief Operating Officer Max Huffman confirmed that ANPI’s offering will be delivered from the Indatel POP, where the two companies already are connected.
ANPI’s hosted UC offering enables rural service providers to provide UC services to their customers without a major upfront investment. The ANPI offering, which leverages agreements with Broadsoft and Sonus, is a turnkey cloud-delivered offering that includes an e-commerce engine that enables end users to order service through a website branded with the network operator’s own name.
According to today’s release, ANPI and Indatel in the future plan to “escalate quickly to joint planning on the offering of new technology, and possible joint efforts enhancing the rollout of hosted unified communications.”
Although ANPI’s efforts have focused on UC of late, the company’s traditional business is long-distance aggregation and transport and it is possible that future collaborations with Indatel will be related to that business. According to ANPI’s website, ANPI operates a nationwide IP network.
In today’s release Indatel President Scott Hoffman cited “coordinated marketing and product development” as a possible opportunity resulting from the ANPI agreement. The agreement also provides “an excellent opportunity for detailed discussions about call completion problems, rural economic development and numerous other crucial issues,” Hoffman added.
