A new ICE age begins

Believing it will be a cold day in hell before competitive carriers implement their own unified communications services, eGIX launched its ICE instant communications unified messaging service this week to help carriers seize the day.

The eGIX ICE platform includes a full set of managed services for unified messaging designed to help carriers implement, support and market enhanced services.

“Carriers are very good at selling commodity products like dialtone, wireless, DSL or Internet access, but that doesn't set them apart from their competitors,” said James Kinnett, executive vice president of operations at eGIX. “We believe you have to get a product to market that people will understand, pay for and use.”

With that in mind, eGIX developed ICE as a simpler version of unified messaging. “We believe in the extremely complex and cool bells and whistles that are coming, but they don't pay the light bill,” Kinnett said.

eGIX set out to remove the barriers to entry for its CLEC target market by marrying a single Web-based front end to an internally developed service provisioning system. Carrier customers use this interface for real-time ordering and activation, exchanging trouble tickets and creating and pulling customized reports.

The company's goal is to manage the service from end to end. It has developed relationships with equipment and software providers such as ADC/Centigram, Priority Call Management, Cisco Systems and Sarcom to supply the solutions that run across eGIX's 23-state network or in conjunction with a carrier customer's network.

Under eGIX's arrangements, the service provider outsources to eGIX the entire unified messaging service. “Our job is to help carriers understand the products, help them understand what it takes to support [the service] and understand that we will do that all for them,” Kinnett said.

eGIX in a nutshell

Headquarters: Indianapolis, Ind.
Founded in 1988 as Voice-Net
Provided	One Number “follow me” services, enhanced messaging, FAX services, long distance 800 numbers, e-mail for business and individual subscribers
July 1998	Acquired American Messaging Centers
Sept. 1999	Acquired VMI East and Manhattan Voice Mail
June 2000	Renamed as eGIX and transformed into complete unified communications service targeting the carrier space. Added managed services
Feb. 2001	Launched ICE unified messaging service
Strategic partners	ADC/Centigram Communications Priority Call Management Cisco Systems Sarcom

One industry analyst said eGIX has the right model for a complex service like unified messaging. “It's a solid model. It's not new; it's just a service bureau, but the service bureau is important to companies who have tried to integrate their own boxes,” said Megan Gurley, analyst for The Yankee Group.

In addition to managing the implementation and support of the service, eGIX provides a high degree of customer support and marketing. The company provides 24 by 7 secondary support to back up its customers' call centers.

“The products are new. They are challenging. They can be a little cumbersome for the call center because it's not just dialtone. And it can certainly be confusing for the customer, so we have to make sure they don't get frustrated and cancel,” Kinnett said.

The challenge for eGIX will be to provide that level of service as its customer base increases. “When you talk about real-time voice communications, the big issues are customer service related. If you want to play in this game you have to staff up and be prepared. And it has to be more than a pager by someone's bed. There has to be [customers],” Gurley said.

Kinnett said the customer service issue won't pose a problem because of the automation built into the system and because of all the data that is pushed to the Web site.

However, before a company can begin supporting customers, it has to find them. That is why eGIX has included marketing support in the ICE offering. It is the same approach some billing companies have taken with electronic bill presentation and payment, where they actively help promote understanding and adoption of the service through joint marketing campaigns.

“eGIX has a good platform. One thing they do well is to [provide] marketing expertise, which is very important. Some companies in this space have been slow to realize that, but it is eGIX's biggest differentiator,” Gurley said.