Broadband Solutions - A New Kind of Provider

By: Timothy Ruberti and Ted Ruberti, Executive Directors, Evolving Edge

Evolving Edge Communications is a Broadband Solution Provider in the New York Tri-State area. Serving the small and medium-sized business market, we are a full-service solution provider offering high-speed, dedicated data solutions, including DSL, Point-to-Point and Wireless. But what's different about Evolving Edge is that we have organized ourselves as a virtual entity. This is an entirely new business model for ASPs like Evolving Edge, one that allows us to focus exclusively on our customers needs.

We are a growing organization that has combined the resources of multiple companies, enabling us to do things we could not have done otherwise. Although Evolving Edge could provide an entire solution to the customer using in-house resources, we have chosen to partner with companies like NorthPoint Communications and Quadrix Solutions to provide the best possible solution. In other words, the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. NorthPoint is a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) that provides high speed Internet access via Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technology, and Quadrix Solutions is a systems integrator that specializes in hosting complex Internet services.

Evolving Edge made an informed decision not to handle everything in-house. Instead of being a jack-of-all trades, we chose to be the master of providing customer-oriented solutions. We deliver customized, value-added, turnkey communication solutions to solve our customers' specific business needs, while our partners address the technology issues.

Quadrix Solutions took the lead in formulating Evolving Edge's' eStrategy, advising us on the technologies upon which we could build the future of our business. Their input was invaluable throughout the start-up period, during which Quadrix designed our network architecture, developed applications used to support our present broadband strategies and fabricated our back office support system that manages the networks, systems and applications that enable Evolving Edge to conduct business on the Internet.

We have partnered with NorthPoint to expand our services and footprint without changing our infrastructure. A single high-speed connection to the NorthPoint regional hub allows Evolving Edge to offer a range of dedicated data services to businesses throughout the New York metropolitan area. And, using NorthPoint, we can enter new geographical markets with minimal or no physical presence in order to establish critical mass. This substantially reduces our time-to-market for deploying new services. With NorthPoint, Evolving Edge gets a pay-as-we-grow approach to expansion that eliminates the need for heavy capital investment and lets us center our attention on value-added services, not infrastructure development.

Evolving Edge has a Director of Technology in-house, who works with our partners to ensure that we are providing top-notch DSL access and have the best servers, configured for optimum performance. Together, our Director of Technology and our partners are continually evaluating the best technology, to maximize the efficiencies in our network.

Using a time-tested methodology, the team at Quadrix Solutions drove the orderly evolution of the Evolving Edge network architecture. By outsourcing the design and ongoing support of our systems and network infrastructure to Quadrix Solutions, we have been able to develop a premier sales and marketing organization. We spend a good deal of time training our sales force so that they are technically proficient and clearly understand how the technology solutions we deliver can best benefit the customer.

We have found that instead of internally focusing on evaluating, securing and deploying the technology to implement the solutions that we offer our customers, it was more cost-effective and advisable to hire Quadrix Solutions. After all, Quadrix Solutions does this for a living. Its employees live and breathe in the advances of new technology. Unlike other consulting firms we've worked with, we don't have to explain our technology needs to Quadrix Solutions. And, since they are always ahead of the technology curve, we don't need to perform extensive research. Instead, we've concentrated our research on market trends and customer needs.

As a result, Quadrix Solutions provides the support and technical expertise necessary for Evolving Edge to be competitive in emerging markets such as Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), Voice Over IP (VoIP) and Application Hosting, which are expanding rapidly and represent a vast source of new revenue for Evolving Edge.

Our customers are very receptive to VoIP because it is quite cost-effective and the union of voice traffic and Internet transport enables new applications, including streaming audio and video. For many of our customers, VPNs enable remote secure access via the Internet at reduced costs, which vastly improves our customers' ability to access their most important asset: information.

Unlike other participants in the data services market, Evolving Edge guarantees line speeds and network reliability, which enables businesses to connect remote offices and telecommuters securely and efficiently. However, by outsourcing the technology element of our business, we have set Evolving Edge apart from the competition. Quadrix Solutions ensures that we have the technology infrastructure to offer services like VPN solutions, web/server hosting and e-commerce development, so that we can focus on the needs of our customers and make them more productive via integrated voice/data services on our broadband network.

Most of our customers do not have the time to focus on their technology needs. As a result, Evolving Edge diligently attempts to develop complete solutions and educate our customers about the advantages that technology can deliver. We offer "plain vanilla" DSL access, but the value to the customer, in terms of cost and functionality, is a bundled solution set. Customers need more than just a DSL connection to be more productive and efficient.

Most of our customers do not have an in-house IT staff, so our arrangement with Quadrix Solutions enables us to deliver 24x7 quality Internet services that address the unique business needs of our customers This is in stark contrast to traditional ISPs, which often underestimate the importance of addressing the specific needs customers beyond providing an Internet connection.

Quadrix Solutions developed the toolset that we use to manage our core network equipment and the systems that our customers use to maintain their autonomy. Now, our customers have the flexibility and convenience of directly configuring a virtual circuit for a DSL connection or implementing web site and email changes. In essence, Quadrix Solutions has delivered a turnkey eBusiness solution to Evolving Edge, speeding time-to-market for deploying value-added services.

Speed is the most critical component to an eBusiness. The customer centric management at Quadrix Solutions enables Evolving Edge to develop interactive solutions for our customers in real time. Many times, Quadrix Solutions recommends solutions that save us money, which we have then invested in our next growth phase. This has accelerated the introduction of several products and services, enabling us to reinforce and build strong customer relationships and increase customer satisfaction and retention.