AirBridge Group brings RingCentral to far north Queensland

Cairns-based AirBridge Group has partnered with unified communications vendor RingCentral, bringing the vendor to far north Queensland.

AirBridge said it is the first RingCentral partner that services customers north of Brisbane and into far north Queensland, including many remote communities.

The partnership kicked off with a deployment of cloud communications kit at property developer MiHaven, when flooding from a burst pipe took the life of the company’s legacy hosted IP telephony service.

AirBridge brought RingCentral’s solution and paired it with Yealink headset to replace the communications, now also allowing MiHaven staff to work from home as the COVID-19 pandemic started to affect workplace setups.

MiHaven director James Mort said, “We wanted a communications system that would stand the test of time, and wasn’t based on fixed line communication. With RingCentral, if we have to move or add new locations or work from home, we don’t have to worry about it anymore,”

AirBridge chief executive Doug Stephens told CRN that the company first linked up with the vendor at a previous CRN Pipeline in Sydney.

“We never thought we’d be a telephony house and we didn’t want to be pigeonholed into one of those businesses. That’s not who we are because we’re a holistic communications provider,” Stephens said.

“When I met RingCentral, I loved their enthusiasm that they spoke with the product. When we had their gear installed in our office they were able to deliver telephony services within a 48-hour turnaround from contract signing to getting a dial tone.”

Stephens added that adding RingCentral has strengthened AirBridge’s ability to deliver cloud communication solutions as there are more choices for connectivity.

“RingCentral is an important piece of the puzzle, delivering unified communications anywhere there is an internet connection. Now, we are no longer reliant on specialist
telecommunications services to deliver high quality messaging, voice and video,” he said.

RingCentral APAC director of partner sales Ben Swanson said AirBridge has had “incredible success with its connectivity solutions particularly in areas where comms for businesses and communities can be challenging.

“They are a perfect partner for RingCentral, as they provide the connectivity needed to support cloud-based communications and productivity solutions like ours,” he said.