McDougal's VoIP world

In less the two years, ISPhone has transitioned itself away from a pure business-grade VoIP focus, by building its own telecommunications network. Once a carrier license is approved for the vendor, this will allow ISPhone to offer a full gambit of telecommunications services across the provider’s products.

Gavin McDougal, managing director of ISPhone is also very vocal about the state of the local VoIP industry and is calling for those involved in the market to create a neutral industry group to help regulate and oversee the quality of services offered by providers and their resellers.

He believes there’s a broad raft of issues the group could set its
mind to including the growing number of cowboy operators working in the VoIP market. An industry group could go some way
to helping educate the market on what to look out for in an IP installation, said McDougal.

“The body would really be about giving VoIP providers in Australia a stronger voice. Right now VoIP comes under industry bodies such as ATUG and the Communications Alliance, with both bodies having a heavy Telstra presence,” said McDougall. “The actual players’ industry – whether it’s a manufacturer such as engine or an ISP such as Freshtel – should have a stronger voice about the industry they are in.”

Getting together competitors small and large will give them the opportunity to provide fair regulation policy, encourage ideas and not have regulations “dictated by Telstra”, said McDougal.

“The residential market is making a leap for the technology. In the corporate environment CTOs, CEOs and office managers are aware of the need to look at VoIP when replacing existing phone systems,” he said.

According to McDougal, if you look at the VoIP market in the United States, a similar trend occurred where people were going out and getting the products straight away, but were coming away confused about how it worked. It then hit a curve where people were educated about the products and services available in the market and how it can be utilised by the end-user.

“The hype regarding VoIP has fallen over – we have hit our own curve with the uptake of resellers, and channel partners are demanding VoIP products, driven by the end-user. Our larger partners are saying “can you help us set up a VoIP system?” said McDougal.

Global challenges

The changes within ISPhone have come at an opportune time for McDougal as he will celebrate his two-year anniversary with the local branch of ISPhone this month.

ISPhone Australasia is the Australian affiliate of ISPhone, Inc – a US-based VoIP network, established in 1997 and with customers around the world. Its specialty is providing complete VoIP solutions, managing VoIP networks, and transforming data systems into cost-effective, cutting-edge telecommunications tools.

“What we are introducing in Australia is based on years of experience we have gained in the US and global markets, but tailored to the unique needs of local channel partners,” said McDougal.

However when he brought the company down under, he had to change its channel strategy because of the differences within the telecommunications industry.

McDougal said the US is a big country and although ISPhone was working in regional areas where the population was settled within towns, in Australia the massive population centres along the coast. Another difference was the number of small SMB companies servicing other businesses with the same size SMB.

“In Australia you can get channel partners with few employers servicing businesses with the same size as itself or a company with 100 to 150 seats,” said McDougal.

“The first thing I did was jot down totally new solutions for channel partners. Partners here aren’t interested in a VoIP company that only provides switches. There’s more to it, resellers want switching, help in billing, being able to source the right hardware, sales and marketing.”

When he officially launched the company in February 2006, McDougal chose five partners who represented a cross-section of reseller types. The list included an ISP, systems integrator, IT consultant, hardware reseller and a satellite system integrator. He worked with them because they were different and had a varied relationship with customers.

“These resellers did a range of things including simple service to providing full technical services. Since then we have signed on another 70 resellers, who also represent all those different types of partners such as our five existing resellers,” said McDougal.

By the year’s end, ISPhone hopes to boost its resellers from 75 to 200.

“We provide a one-stop shop for all of our resellers’ VoIP needs. Over the next couple of months we are doing seminars to launch products and get the message out to resellers,” he said.