WEB EXTRA: TELUS builds value-added focus

Another carrier thinking along the lines of value-added services, although not one that first comes to mind when thinking of wholesalers, is TELUS in Canada, in which Verizon once held an interest.

TELUS began a major transformation six years ago when Darren Entwistle, president and CEO, came from Cable & Wireless in the U.K. to take the helm. In addition to conducting an acquisition spree of his own--which included an ILEC in Quebec, wireless provider Clearnet, PSINet, two IT firms, a Web-hosting company and the country’s biggest conferencing company--Entwistle created a business unit strategy to drive the company’s focus. One of those four units is carrier services, or wholesale. The group itself is called the Partner Solutions Business.

“From day one, Entwistle recognized that the carrier business was important for TELUS. So we now have a proactive approach to becoming the creative partner of choice [in Canada] for carriers globally,” said Brent Allison, vice president of TELUS' Partner Solutions.

He said one of the reasons TELUS makes a good wholesale partner for companies globally and particularly in the U.S. is that it does not go outside its borders to compete for multinational corporations. “We rely on our carrier relationships to manage the [part of] the business in Canada,” Allison said.

In the end, Allison said, that makes carriers more willing to have conversations about a more broad set of requirements, meaning value-added services. For instance, in an arrangement worth about $65 million with a large school board in Canada, TELUS provides managed services for back-office support. He said that gives TELUS the kind of proof-points it needs to offer the same kinds of service to service-provider partners looking to do business in Canada, presumably ISP partners.

The group is growing, but not through traditional wholesale services such as transport. Traditional services are suffering the same maladies in Canada as elsewhere. “At the end of the day we do have volume increase still occurring, but there is still significant price erosion,” Allison said.

Instead, TELUS is promoting its operator services and call center alternatives. It also promotes what it calls e-tools, the portals and processes that make it easy to do inter-carrier business.

It is even promoting the intellectual property it gained from its six-year business transformation. But perhaps the most important thing TELUS is promoting is an idea.

“We believe there should be a premium paid for IP services,” Allison said. “The benefits we all accrue in the flexibility and the opportunity it creates to drive efficiency and create new ways to do business deserves a premium. It is sad that some in our industry think the opposite.”

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