that with their data customers. They have a distinct video and the other is our PacketCable solution to the MSO community. data customer base. They have the brand. They don’t have One is centralized, the other is decentralized. One is fully to go with what I call the shotgun approach to marketing, managed end-to-end while the other has a ‘best-effort’ quality wherein you market to everyone on prime time TV. Instead, of service. Both solutions are agnostic across multiple types of they can market to their customers who they know have networks and devices.” high-speed data connections. And they have last-mile access “We decided never to compete with our partners,” says into the home. Such a provider could be a cable company, Span, “meaning that if we had a direct consumer offering that RBOC or an ISP.” we were advertising or had stocked in a retail store in the same

“Weoftenthinkthatthe MSOs[Multiple System Operators] area as one of the cable operators, then we’d be both com-and branded service providers don’t necessarily have adequate peting for the same customers. Together, we’re more success-knowledge of how to do VoIP domestically and internation- ful. When you enter the retail environment, it’s all about shelf ally,” says Span. “But they do know how to sell and handle space. To differentiate your product on that shelf is a major customer service. They just need our solution.” challenge. So we prefer to deal with a level above that. It’s a

“We actually have two different unique offerings for broad- sort of distribution model, since it’s not really a storefront. We band service providers,” says Span. “One is the SIP solution, sell to those providers with whom customers have an existing