Stripe 21 is making great gains with its Cisco powered SIP-ISDN hybrid service, according to Managing Director Stephen North.
North found a new direction in 2002 when he realised the potential of his team's ability to deploy Quality of Service over broadband as a Cisco managed service. He then established Stripe 21 in 2006 with a vision to bring a more robust outlook on the use of bandwidth and disrupt the status quo. "We saw this as essential for the replacement of ISDN services with SIP because ISDN has always been delivered as a managed service with guaranteed QoS," he explained. "Therefore any replacement must also be a managed service with the same guarantees, but better and cheaper. When BT launched Datastream in 2002 it enabled us to packet switch VoIP over broadband. This launched the Cisco powered Quality of Service portfolio we have today."
New investment in 2008 from Barclays under the DTI scheme and private equity investment enabled Stripe 21 to double its revenue consistently quarter on quarter for the next eight consecutive quarters, and key to this growth is its channel strategy. "The channel is the way forward for us," added North. "I predict significant growth in our QoS guaranteed voice services via the reseller channel. This includes hosted PBX, ISDN, SIP and hybrid services. Wide Area Networks are also a significant growth area, while our hybrid service delivers both ISDN and SIP ports to the end user, representing an easy win for the reseller channel. Resellers can increase margin by 40 per cent just by ordering new ISDN services from our online portal. We aim to develop key partnerships and offer personal support to our resellers and their clients."
The Stripe 21 management team launched their converged IP services business on the back of BT's 21CN. Through its reseller base Stripe 21 supplies voice, data and Internet services to many household name blue chip companies. The firm has seen particular success in the media and recruitment sectors where low costs and high availability are mandatory, and is increasingly sought after by call centres with FSA compliance requirements. "We can deliver multiple guaranteed services over a single connection," noted North. "Delivering multiple services over a single connection is a great way to save money."
The name Stripe 21 comes from a combination of clever planning and the imagination of an eight year old boy. One component of the name derives from RIPE NCC (the global Internet registry for Internet routable IP addresses that all ISPs belong to), and the combination of numbers and letters also meant that North could register various URLs without compromising the name. He added: "When I started the company I asked my son to come up with a name. I pointed out we have Orange Mobile, Purple IP and Pink Telecom, and he replied, 'You should call it Stripey dad!'. I thought that's not a bad idea."
North habitually follows a policy of involving others in making big decisions. The company's culture favours open communication between all levels with an open forum every month and a broad agenda. "We also hold a monthly technical forum where we structure and formulate new services and set out plans to upgrade existing clients," commented North. "These meetings also help us to maintain our standards and we hold separate strategy meetings for the tech' team where they agree targets and deadlines that are realistic and achievable."
Stripe 21's white label services enable channel partners to migrate to a revenue-based business model rather than an isolated one-off hardware margin. "We can deliver ISDN, SIP or our new hybrid service to enable savings of up to 40 per cent on legacy ISDN, but with no PABX upgrade and no compromise on quality," added North.
Despite such enabling technology North highlighted that many end users have ended up with Internet-based voice services that are not guaranteed and are as reliable as Skype, Vonage and any other Internet-based VoIP service. "These are excellent products with a valid place in the market but they are absolutely not a replacement for the quality, security and reliability of ISDN," he said. "This can become a nightmare for resellers and end users, but a Quality of Service guarantee solves this problem. Our Cisco managed service is also widely deployed under white label to many major hosted PABX suppliers. Some installations exceed 100 SIP extensions per site on ADSL with excellent quality, security and reliability."
The customer benefit is a lower cost of ownership as many traditional telco services are delivered over the converged IP infrastructure, reducing overall costs, explained North. "Many dealers and resellers have clients who would benefit from this technology which is more secure, faster and cheaper than upgrading legacy equipment and services," he added. "The purpose of Stripe 21 is to leverage IP technology to drive down connectivity costs and provide the channel with a financial case for change. This enables RoI proposals and strategies to help increase sales for core channel partner products."
Much is made of the adoption of cheaper SIP connectivity and it has its place in the market, believes North. "But SIP providers have to guarantee up to 30 concurrent calls on a single connection to provide a realistic challenge to ISDN," he added. "Customers expect a fully managed service with a QoS guarantee. Resellers can now migrate their clients to a secure, reliable, fully managed ISDN30e service and slip in simultaneous SIP connectivity. The service future proofs customers for easy migration to SIP as the service is ready and waiting, putting the margin back into ISDN line rental for resellers."•