Consolidated Communications today announced the launch of BusinessOne, a new bundle of broadband and voice services for the SMB segment. A primary goal of the new offering is to differentiate the telco’s business broadband service from growing competitive cable business service offers.
BusinessOne offers two flavors – BusinessOne Premier and BusinessOne Basic. The Premier version offers symmetrical bandwidth of up to 200 Mbps, while the Basic version offers asymmetrical speed with download top speed of up to 100 Mbps.
Both data services can be bundled with either traditional voice or hosted IP voice services. On the BusinessOne website, Consolidated calls out competing offers from cable companies, asking “Tired of cable solutions that share bandwidth and slow your business down?”
Cable companies have been quite aggressive in pursuing the SMB segment and are seeing some success. Comcast recently revamped their hosted IP voice product to better target the SMB segment, for example. Traditional telcos like Consolidated have been responding and putting much more emphasis on business services.
One area where telcos can offer some differentiation is in symmetrical broadband, an attribute that cable companies have difficulty in matching.
“The BusinessOne Premier solution offers symmetrical upload and download speeds to ensure smooth workflow and high productivity,” Consolidated promotes on their website. “BusinessOne Premier is ideal for medical and dental offices; graphic design firms; financial trading offices; and other businesses that need high download and upload speeds.”
Consolidated’s SMB pitch on their BusinessOne website also includes offers for :
- Managed Wifi – easy wifi network management and control.
- Email and Collaboration – business class email services for up to 300 users, Skype for Business.
- Microsoft Productivity Tools – Office 365, PowerPoint and more.
- Cloud Backup – both On-site and Off-site backup options.
- Web Presence – domain management, online presence, web storage and transfer.
- Video – offers a wide range of service options.
