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Opal’s soft launch of its market-disrupting business grade broadband at Christmas saw a phenomenal take up, with over 10,000 UK businesses signing up for the service in one month. Here, Andy Hollingworth, head of the reseller channel at Opal, explains why mobile dealers should get in on the action.
Organic growth is difficult in times of uncertainty, which is why Opal put on its thinking cap last year to work out how it could best support its exiting and potential partners by providing them with a product that would generate more cash from existing customers.
The result is business grade broadband, priced at £10 per month for ADSL2+ technology with network prioritisation at speeds of up to 24Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream, plus Business Builder packages on top so customers can tailor their services to suit them.
Mobile dealer money
So what is in it for the mobile dealer? Commission up front is the simple, short, and rather pleasing to hear answer. Hollingworth explains that the Opal business grade broadband offering is designed to give mobile dealers the
upfront commissions they deserve: “The mobile market is dominated by the strategy of mobile networks. In this period of uncertainty, the last thing mobile dealers needed to hear was that mobile networks are reducing their commissions from upfront, to revenue related.”
Hollingworth continues: “We are in a period of relative uncertainty in the UK, and for us, it’s important to offer something in price and quality of service that will be of help UK businesses over the next 12 to 24 months. The opportunity for the mobile dealer is to offer more services to the same customers, as organic growth is going to be difficult in these times. Offering something of value to customers is key.
Opal, which is the business to business division of The TalkTalk Group, is anticipating there will be huge demand for the broadband product, which is set to undercut BT and others with its aggressive pricing, giving those partnering with Opal good margins and revenue opportunities during this challenging economic environment.
Making business grade
What makes this product business grade is the network and the router; the product has the advantage of operating across the group’s proven and tested next generation network, which has more than 1.4 million existing broadband connections, allowing forward thinking partners to make the most of this network, as well as the security of a stable and resilient provider.
Also, the service utilises a high quality, business grade router that all customers are provided with as part of the deal, which costs Opal three times that of a regular router. This router enables customers to support multiple desktops or laptops and to take advantage of future services and products using exciting new technologies, that will be delivered by Opal over the coming year.
Opal will offer the business grade broadband either as a component-based product, also allowing resellers and systems integrators to build their own bundles, or as a ready built package with up front commissions.
Building business value
The retail-ready package includes an innovative range of Business Builders at £6 each per month, which can be added bycustomers to tweak their offerings to suit them. These include a Mobile Builder, which gives the customer 75 minutes of free calls to mobiles per month for an additional £6, and more call bundles, online trading, email and PC security options. This componentbased approach allows resellers, system integrators and data resellers to build their own compelling propositions.
Hollingworth comments: “For the mobile market, this is something very similar to what they have been used to selling. All dealers need to do is sell the access and the add-ons, and we give them the commission for the contracts and extra for each Business Builder. In terms of fulfilment, to make it simple for the mobile dealer to connect to the product Opal does all the work once the contracts are signed. Simple.”
“This is really just changing the way we at Opal sell our products. For the mobile market, this provides a value added service to add to their core product range. We are simply recognising the need for cash input into businesses,” Hollingworth concludes.
Opal has already signed four distributors of the broadband product for the mobile market. These are Avenir, DMSL UK, EBS UK and Hugh Symons.