Chris Nichols remembers purchasing her first fax machine and thinking it would revolutionize her business.
Last year, Nichols bid out telephone services for her 500-employee company with hopes of having one provider that could handle faxing, excellent reception for 50 cellular telephones, mobile tracing, radio phones for nearly 60 drives, landlines and Voice over Internet Protocol [VoIP], heavy broadband width, security, high quality and service with seamlessly between locations in Baton Rouge and Hattiesburg, Miss.
And she wanted it all on one bill.
What previously involved little more than deciding the brand of a new machine became one of Nichols’ top decisions for Medical Management Options.
“Technology is fabulous for us,” she says. “It probably helps us be twice as productive since I got in this business in the early 1990s.”
Nichols had no problems receiving bids, and she got what she was looking for. She chose AT&T, which is one of the major players in the Capital Region.
From decision to installation, Nichols estimates her company will have invested a year in the transition. When it’s finished, Medical Management Options—which provides behavioral health care services throughout Louisiana—will have one carrier to go along with integrated telecommunications and reliable service.
“We’ve got to make sure we’re serving our client population quickly and efficiently,” she says. “Without that, we don’t have a client operation.”
In a brutally competitive industry, carriers are honing their competitive edges for a bigger share of the Capital Region market, which has remained relatively stable economically.
For example, Cox Communications has been gaining customers since introducing VoIP service three years ago. And smaller competitors, like Monroe-based CenturyTel, have been maneuvering to grow market share.
When the St. Martin Parish school system bid out its telephone service three years ago, it chose Cox—and cut its phone costs in half.
“Any time you free up money, it gives you more avenues to go in other directions,” says Todd Meche, St. Martin’s network manager. “Also, being able to provide a fiber backbone for our schools is really good, and we wouldn’t have been able to do what we’re doing now without it.”
In addition to serving 17 schools and three business offices, Meche says the system recently added 48 phone lines for a call-out system that automatically notifies parents about a child’s grades, tardiness or absences. Cox configured the routers, helps monitor system failures in real time and provides prompt assistance.
For larger customers, AT&T spokeswoman Sue Sperry says it’s not apples to apples when it comes to choosing a carrier. Increasingly, this decision is being based on the providers who best solve problems—which is why AT&T is focusing on services such as asset tracking [GPS] and mobile time management.
“The telephone has become an entirely new frontier of services,” she says. “It’s not just picking up the receiver any more. It’s all about being unfettered, on the go and paperless.”
Business is remaining especially strong on the wireless side for all providers, but landlines aren’t completely going the way of the dodo. Cell phones and data are increasing as businesses text, Twitter and e-mail—pushing carriers to invest heavily in networks to meet the demand.
AT&T, for example, plans to spend $17 billion in wired and wireless networks nationwide. In Louisiana, 3G is being expanded along the Interstate 10/12 corridor, and 60 new sites are planned—including at least four in Baton Rouge.
While AT&T remains the area’s predominant telephone service provider, Leigh King of Cox Business Service says his company has been steadily gaining customers.
Cox, which serves 15% of area businesses, emphasizes service quality to attract new small- to medium-sized businesses that typically don’t have accounting or IT departments and want everything on one bill. The company’s latest offerings include metro Ethernet, which allows larger businesses to connect multiple offices to the same network.
Bundled services—voice, video and data—continues to be a hot trend in attracting growth, particularly since King says Cox can undersell AT&T by as much as 20%.
“Our economy in Louisiana has been a little bit stronger and more resilient than some others with Cox systems,” he says, “so we still see our small- to medium-sized businesses experiencing some growth, simplifying communications needs with one provider and want more aggressive rates to cut operating expenses.”
Meanwhile, CenturyTel is an emerging player in the Capital Region.
Expanding its fiber network as been a growth engine for the company, which is expected to substantially broaden its customer base through the pending $5.8 billion acquisition of larger peer Embarq. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter, pending regulatory approvals.
The combined company would have about 8 million lines spanning 33 states. CenturyTel’s service areas are mainly in the South and the Midwest, in a swath from Louisiana to Minnesota. It also provides service in Colorado and the Northwest. CenturyTel also gained some business customers through an earlier purchase of a network in the Capital Region.
“Cable is a big competitor for us because we serve mostly rural areas, although that will change with Embarq,” spokeswoman Annmarie Sartor says. “Cable companies are also entrenched in rural markets on a global level, and they offer broadband, too.”
CenturyTel has focused on providing different technologies in its bundle, including a dedicated phone line, a network with stronger two-way communication and broadband to more rural communities. The company also has partnered with Dish Network to include video in its bundle.
Meanwhile, Medical Management Options’ Nichols welcomes the competition that brought better prices than she expected for the services she wanted—but more so the technology that also is making her company more competitive.
“As soon as we get this one done, we’ll be looking at something else,” she says. “Things just go that fast.”
