USConnect Case Study
Challenge
USConnect understands the challenges facing today’s rural local exchange carriers (RLECs) better than most. As a New Hampshire-based holding company representing seven rural telcos across the country, the company has seen the widespread effects as government funding has begun to dry up and telcos have struggled to achieve a return on their massive fiber investments.
“That’s why we’re always augmenting. We’re always trying to invent new ways to engage the customer,” said Maurine Curtin, SVP Information Systems for USConnect.
But spinning up new product lines on a tightening budget can be prohibitively expensive, leading USConnect to look into partnership opportunities that would make adding revenue streams more feasible.
Solution
“As a telephone provider, we’d say, ‘We stop at the exterior wall. We provide connectivity up to the optical network terminal and then we stop,” Curtin said. “Now we try to get inside, and say, ‘What does the rest of your network look like?’”
USConnect recognized that the Codero Partner Program could help its telco subsidiaries quickly and affordably add new services that reach within customers’ walls.
USConnect has started by building new offerings that leverage Codero storage and compute, including web site hosting and disaster recovery/backup services. They also provide security cameras, alarm systems, hosted voice and WiFi networks, and expect to add more services in the near future.
“With these new offerings, our companies are able to go deep inside the home and the business,” Curtin said. “We’re now in a much better position to serve our customers and to keep building on our infrastructure investments into the future.”
