01/05

Selling Motorola Canopy and other Complementary Technologies to the Telco/Utility Market space

Resellers across North America continue to do very well selling wireless broadband products to Wireless Internet Service Providers. As a distributor, we see certain trends in the industry that allow us to share opportunities outside of hotspot or broadband opportunities to our reseller community that they might not be considering. The last few trade shows and WOW events (Wonders of Wireless) I attended really opened my eyes to another market that is currently being underserved that has definite growth opportunities-utilities. Canopy’s Wireless Broadband platform combined with the rugged pen tablet/laptops offered by Itronix will bring ruggedization and real-time data transfer to the utility market space. The days of manual meter reading for your gas/water company are long gone:

Imagine a city worker hopping from neighborhood to neighborhood, filling out a hard copy checklist for each home within that community, reporting this information back to an admin, who then types it in to a database. This procedure creates hours of labor costs as well as a paper trail that needs to be maintained manually. Let’s rewind and implement wireless technology and ruggedized notebooks. The same city worker drives up to a neighborhood with a wireless enabled Itronix rugged pen tablet and a secure wireless access point. The same checklist can be integrated through software programming into the pen tablet, which is rugged enough to withstand several drops as well as any dust and water intrusions that are inevitable with this application. When the data is collected, it is transmitted wirelessly real-time to the access point sitting in their vehicle. This information is then transmitted via the world-wide-web (from Internet access provided by Canopy’s wireless broadband platform) to the city’s database, where information is updated within minutes. Where did the example city save money?:
-Man hours: By implementing the above technologies, the example city was able to eliminate the time for the city worker to manually fill out hard copy paperwork and the admin to type the information into the database
-Paper costs and Accounting: No more paper trail. Hundreds to thousands of dollars of paper can be saved using the above technology, the manual process of tracking, filing, and accounting for the paperwork is now eliminated

Telecommunications is also a vertical that we see as a growing market, specifically in rural settings. We often find that rural telcos are in need of extending their coverage area, going to places where it’s impossible to lay cables, etc. There have been many case studies and ROI studies done on this topic. Our current product offerings allow us to offer the reseller community wireless access with speeds from 1Mbs to 1.25Gbps. Our products can also support T1/E1 Multiplexing and other related services. The higher level of security that the newer wireless products support and offer has been turning over new opportunities. Any previous concerns of using a wireless network for Telco’s or utilities have been mostly conquered.

There are other benefits associated to these verticals, that is, additional technologies can be sold above and beyond what is mentioned above. This allows our resellers to offer and entire solution; therefore, increasing their bottom-line. Resellers can create secure access hotspots with Colubris, increased RF signal coverage through Wifi-Plus antennas or Maxrad, network security with Interlink, as well as regular and rugged mobile computing tablets and laptops with Fujitsu and Itronix that are mentioned above. To learn more about our pen tablets and laptops available feel free to contact Sam Marotta at samm@wavonline.com

Let’s not forget about installation and technical services. It’s these services that will differentiate you from your competition, making you a true value-add, and at the same time increasing your bottom line. WAV offers a variety of site survey, installation, pre-sale/post sale support products that can be marked up for additional margin. These services are a great margin-booster, and as previously mentioned, will make you stand out amongst your competitors vying for the business.

For more information on reselling WAV’s first class technologies and services to the Telco/Utilities vertical, contact your account manager or WAV directly at 800.678.2419.