Agents: The Skys the Limit

Posted: 2/2004

Agents: The Skys the Limit
By Cara Polinski

As satellite technology matures and stands toe-to-toe with terrestrial services, channel partners increasingly are interested in adding satellite solutions to their portfolios. Broad Sky Networks formed in 2003 as a 100 percent channel-focused broadband and mobile office solutions provider. Broad Sky aimed to be the satellite service aggregator for master agents and resellers providing satellite solutions for clients from the low to the high end.

To avoid the exclusivity clauses, coverage limitations and lack of redundancy that come with working with a single service provider, Broad Sky is working with six satellite companies enabling agents and resellers to mix and match services to meet their clients needs in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, Mexico and South America. The company expects to broaden this coverage with new agreements for Europe, Africa and the Middle East in the first quarter of 2004. Broad Sky displays its confidence in its satellite services by tackling the market with aggressive SLAs and a 30-day satisfaction guarantee.

Broad Skys channel partners program is structured to support larger master agents and data VARs. Subagents and smaller VARs usually are referred directly to master agencies, says Mike Mudd, president of Broad Sky.

We want to get the master agents to want to work with us, and by having a program that is more lucrative for their subs to work through them, it is going to give them incentive to want to work through us, Mudd explains. Broad Sky also provides competitive reseller pricing to managed service providers seeking to offer a complete network solution.

Broad Sky provides its partners with extensive sales support, including RFP responses and joint sales calls. Partners have access to the Partner Extranet, where they can investigate order status, and retrieve sales and training tools and presentations. The company is involved in ongoing training for partners in-house support, sales support and engineering through conference calls, Webinars and so on.

Broad Sky also touts its attractive commissions. It actually pays more than terrestrial services and with new low-Earth orbit providers coming online in 2004, well be able to support our partners with next generation services that dont have the latency issues associated with current Geo Synchronous services, says Mudd.

In November, Broad Sky announced one of its first partnerships to sell broadband satellite services nationwide through agents with AB&T Telecom, a division of AB&T Sales Corp. The master agencys 150-plus agents offer Broad Skys services to business users in the small, medium and large sectors, as well as individual telecommuting users desiring a business-class service. AB&Ts channel program offers both branded and private-label service options.

AB&T President Emmet Tydings says the advantage of going with a master agency such as AB&T is the simplification of account management. Our company has aggregated the best-of-breed in offering broadband satellite solutions so the agent/VAR doesnt have to go out and sort through the mess of providers or deal with large companies such as Hughes that can be impossible to structure a solution with, Tydings says. Weve waited three years for an opportunity like this to come forward for satellite broadband services.

Agents for AB&T also have access to an extranet providing sales tools such as order forms, white papers, network maps and loop qualifiers. AB&T says its commission-based revenue typically runs from the high single digits to the mid-teens; and markups range from the midteens to the mid-twenties. Many organizations are realizing that Internet connectivity and e-mail are more mission-critical than having their phone system, if they want redundancy. And thats another huge market for these agents and for Broad Sky, says Mudd. [AB&T] is an ideal partner because their agents are highly focused in this space  thats the real win for us. Broad Sky is actively pursuing a number of master agencies.