Interview with Matt Phillips, CEO, SinglePipe Communications

We have seen companies like Level 3 trying to offer wholesale PBX. It did not really take off. What are the niches you have identified for your wholesale PBX offering?

We mostly serve small cable operators. Platform providers like Broadsoft and Sylantro do not have the reach and resources to serve all the small providers like these. They are focussed on larger carriers. On the other hand the small providers themselves do not have the resources to manage complex Class 5 feature set.

Some of the managed service providers now bring in their own proprietary BSS solution? You also have a BSS solution I guess.

BSS is critical to the success of our offering. Our BSS allows us to do all the backend stuff like number management, number porting, etc cost effectively. On the front end the system integrates with the cable operator provisioning systems including modem management modules.

In the cable space who do you compete with in the managed services offering? Net2phone used to be active in this space sometime back.

We are seeing some attrition of Net2phone customers. In fact two of the largest customers we have were former Net2Phone customers. There are a couple of competitors like Momentum Telecom. And of course you see Sprint to a certain degree. We also see NGT every now and then. Sprint obviously pushes termination side mostly.

Are there any elements of Packetcable in the offering you have, or is this SIP based?

We can do Packetcable but none of our operator customers want Packetcable. Our offering is SIP based and it gives a lot of flexibility.

The model you have, how far do you think you can realistically scale?

Our network and platforms are carrier grade. We are also a CLEC and that helps us scale the model well because I am not paying a third party provider for termination. We do not bring in and bear the cost of a CPE either, so that also helps in scaling up.

What kind of gross margins are we talking about in your business?

Upwards of 40%. It is a matter of getting scale.

Any traction you see for SIP trunking and advanced Voice 2.0 services?

SIP trunking: yes. Voice 2.0: not a lot right now. I think it is critical in the future. That is one reason why we use Broadsoft. It might become a critical differentiator three or four years from now.

There are a few providers using Asterisk providing PBX services. What is your perspective on using open source platforms for such services?

We debate all the time whether we should take Asterisk and develop a custom platform ourselves or stay with Broadsoft platform. And that is a question we will continue to battle. Today it is very important that we have a proven carrier grade scalable product that interoperable with a number of devices and network elements.