THE

ULTIMATERESELLER GUIDE TO

BONDED INTERNET

Delight your customers and grow your revenues

Presented by

CONTENTS

Introduction 3

What is bonded internet? 4

Building your bonded internet strategy 5

Improve the customer experience 6

Monetising bonded internet 7

Verticals 8

Portfolio enhancement 9

Bonded internet testimonials 10

Qualification questions 11

The tech 12

Options 13

Bonded internet Q&A 14

Comms365 Partner Programme 15

Contact 16

The Ultimate Reseller Guide to Bonded Internet has beendeveloped and is presented to you by Comms365 Limited.

Copyright © Comms365 Limited, 2019

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INTRODUCTION

As a Channel Reseller, VAR or MSP, you want to growyour business while delivering excellent experiencesthat wow your customers.

This Guide provides exclusive insights into how youcan take advantage of bonded internet solutions todifferentiate your company from the competition,develop your existing customer base, find newopportunities and ultimately grow your revenues.

This Guide is presented by Comms365, an innovativenetwork services company with over 10 years ofexperience helping businesses solve internetconnectivity challenges both direct and through ourestablished Partner Programme.

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CONTACT

01234 865880 www.comms365.comsales@comms365.comSouth House 3, Bond Avenue, Milton Keynes, MK1 1SW

WHAT IS BONDED INTERNET?

Simply put, bonded internet when two or moreinternet connections are combined to produce afaster, more resilient internet connection.

Bonding multiple connections together combinestheir throughput and bandwidth to provide:

Read more about the benefits of bonded internethere or skip to page 12 for a more detailed technicalexplanation.

More reliable connectivity

Faster download and upload speeds

Improved internet performance

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Automatic failover onto a static IP

QoS (Quality of Service)

Your bonded internet strategy is a step-by-step planto introduce a bonded internet solution to yourproduct portfolio.

This Guide includes all the background research andinformation you’ll need in order to decide whether abonded internet solution should be the next step foryour business.

Once you’ve decided bonded internet is right for you,the essential next steps to developing your successfulbonded internet strategy include:

BUILDING YOUR BONDED INTERNET STRATEGY

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1. Shortlist and select bonded internet partnersupplier

2. Map out new verticals

3. Identify cross-selling opportunities

4. Financials and commercialisation

5. Mobilise marketing team

6. Train sales team

7. Produce sales collateral

8. Plan marketing campaign

9. Implementation and launch

10. Incentivise Sales Team

11. Ongoing review

Comms365 Partners benefit from a dedicatedAccount Manager to help every step of the way. Tostart discussing your journey to success or to booka consultation, contact us now.

IMPROVE THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Despite rapid advances with technology, internetconnectivity still causes problems for yourcustomers.

20% of UK businesses have an internet connectionthat is slower than 10Mbps, and only 16.1% have aconnection that can deliver 100Mbps or more1.

Our own research demonstrates that only 25% ofsurveyed resellers felt that their customers would ratetheir mobile data connectivity as always on with highspeed connectivity, while the remaining 75% indicatedthat there is room for improvement.

Fixed line connectivity faired better, but 33% ofresellers surveyed still felt that their customers wouldrate their connectivity as having poor performance orbeing too expensive.

In addition, customers who experience fixed linedelays and those who operate in locations wherethere is no fixed line connectivity infrastructure need asolution.

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You can solve these problems for your customerswith bonded internet by:

✓ Bonding multiple 4G connections to increasespeed and bandwidth

✓ Bonding multiple fixed line and/or 4G connectionsto provide improved internet performance whichcan be more cost effective than expensive fibreto the premises solutions

✓ Provide fast, resilient bonded internet to siteswithout traditional fixed line connectivity on atemporary or permanent basis

1 “E-commerce and ICT activity, UK: 2017”, Office for National Statistics, November 2019

As well as providing much needed solutions to yourcustomers, bonded internet provides RoI and opensup a range of new revenue opportunities.

MONETISING BONDED INTERNET

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As a Comms365 partner, your dedicated AccountManager will help you get started and provideassistance with ongoing opportunities.

New Verticals

As detailed overleaf, a bonded internet solution opensup opportunities in a range of sectors to enable you tobranch out and start generating new revenue streams.

Bundling Products

As well as being a standalone solution, bondedinternet is the ultimate solution for bundling withproducts in your existing portfolio to upsell and todifferentiate your offering from competitors.

See page 9 for a suggested list of products andsolutions that bonded internet can be easily bundledwith.

Identify Customers in Relevant Verticals

Introducing a bonded internet solution is a goodopportunity to re-examine your existing customerbase to identify cross-selling opportunities:

• Are they in any of the relevant verticals?

• Do they have an existing complementary productsfrom your current portfolio?

• Find a useful list of qualifying questions on page 11

VERTICALS

Vertical Bonded internet use case

Offices

✓ Office moves – provide connectivitywhilst waiting for a fixed line connection.

✓ Marginal connectivity – Improve internetperformance in locations where there ispoor fixed line connectivity.

✓ Resilience - Provide reliability and QoS tosupport essential Cloud and UC traffic.

Construction &

Infrastructure

✓ No fixed line connectivity – provide fast,reliable connectivity at sites where nofixed line infrastructure exists on atemporary or permanent basis

Retail✓ Resilience - Provide additional reliability

to support EPoS and access to backoffice systems.

Distribution &

Warehouses

✓ Pre-ethernet solution – for new siteswhich are waiting for fixed lineinstallation.

✓ Boost internet performance – provideadditional bandwidth to supportincreased activity at peak times due toseasonal demand.

Events

✓ Temporary connectivity - Provide atemporary, high speed connection using4G connectivity for live streaming ofevents and to support eventcommunications.

If you’re looking to secure new business, bondedinternet solutions open up opportunities in newverticals.

In our experience, bonded internet solutions haveapplications in the following verticals and use casescenarios. Once you get started, you may even findnew uses for bonded internet solutions.

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You can read more detailed bonded internet usecases and testimonials here.

Product Bonded internet upsell

UC & VoIP

✓ The additional resilience and QoS thatbonded internet provides is the perfectbolt-on to your existing UC & VoIPsolutions, reducing the chance ofdowntime or unreliable performance.

Cloud✓ A bonded internet solution provides

increased reliability and QoS to supportaccess to your cloud solutions.

4G internet✓ When a single 4G connection won’t meet

your customers’ needs, you’ll be able tooffer a bonded solution which is fasterand more resilient.

Fixed line internet

✓ While your customers wait for their fixedline, you’ll be able to provide them with areliable bonded 4G solution they canutilise prior to their fixed line installation.

Internet security

✓ Routed through Comms365’s secure,carrier-grade core network, bondedinternet provides a secure internetconnection and has an upgrade path toSD-WAN.

PORTFOLIO ENHANCEMENT

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Providing resilience, QoS and enhanced internetperformance, a Comms365 bonded internet solutionopens up opportunities in new verticals.

A number of our current partners have successfullyintegrated bonded internet into their portfolios as botha standalone option and to create innovative newproduct bundles.

Read more about the opportunity that bondedinternet presents to resellers, as well as somecomments from our existing partners here.

BONDED INTERNET TESTIMONIALS

“There was really nothing else on the market likeContinuum; it really was ultra-fast deployment forour customers…we have now deployed well over50 across Europe, and we’ve hit the £1 millionthreshold with you guys…And it’s not just that, you provide such a greatresponsive service as well. Any time that ourcustomers have got questions on the technologyor the software, you’ve got a full team of supportexperts and they always have the answer...”

“Not only did we need a solution that would workeffectively in different environments, but a teamwho fully understood our requirements.Comms365 ticked all the boxes.”

“…not only did we require a connection to bedeployed rapidly in an environment with noconnectivity, it was imperative that the connectionremained fast and stable at all times. Throughoutthe peak periods we experienced no outages andthe internet connection held up excellently…”

“We would not have been able to open our newoffice in time, which would have resulted in a lot ofexpensive overheads and us letting down ourcustomers and staff.”

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via

Customer testimonialRead More >

Partner testimonialWatch Video >

Customer testimonial

Partner testimonial Read More >

QUALIFYING QUESTIONS

This list of qualifying questions, which can betailored to specific verticals or your existingcustomer base, will help you uncover potentialbonded internet opportunities.

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Q: Do you need internet access for a site where nofixed line connectivity currently exists?Yes: You can provide a 4G bonded internet solution.

Q: Do you need an internet access solution which isportable and can be used at different locations?Yes: You can offer a portable bonded solution.

Q: What is the cost per hour to your business if youdo not have internet access or experience anoutage?Cost: This will help you establish the RoI of a bondedinternet solution.

Q: Do you have a site which has marginalperformance on fixed line / 4G connections?Yes: Bonding multiple fixed lines and/or 4Gconnections improves performance.

Q: Do you have sites that are connected viabroadband and need additional resilience or Qualityof Service for SIP and Unified Communications?Yes: You can offer a bonded solution which providesboth additional resilience and QoS.

Q: Are you planning to move or acquire sites thatrequire a pre-ethernet solution?Yes: Bonded internet solutions can be used for thispurpose.

THE TECH

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Bonded internet uses software-defined networking(SDN) to combine multiple internet connections toform one, higher performance connection.

Multiple routers are connected to the bonding devicewhich combines the connections via software. Anymix of connectivity from any combination of networkproviders can be bonded.

The QoS (Quality of Service) feature allowscustomers to prioritise specified network applicationsto ensure high quality transmission of data.

For Comms365’s bonded internet solutions, the trafficis then routed to Comms365’s carrier-grade corenetwork, before being directed to the internet.

BONDER

OPTIONS

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SD-ONE

Continuum

Product options

• QoS available as standard to improve the customerexperience

• A range of 4G data packages are available toprovide the best suited solution for your customer

• Access to our data management portal gives youcontrol

• Fully managed service to ensure customer delight

Business options

• Aggregation of data to reduce charges fromoverusage

• Excellent commercials for swift RoI• Flexible contract terms to suit your modelling and

route to market

SD-ONE CONTINUUM

• Bonds up to three connections

• Up to 300Mbps• Suitable for permanent

solutions supporting 5-15 users

• Bonds up to six connections

• Up to 500Mbps• Suitable for temporary or

permanent solutions supporting 20-50 users

Comms365 offer two bonded internet solutions asdetailed in the comparison table below, along with arange of product and business options to suit yourneeds.

BONDED INTERNET Q&A

Q: My customer needs a reliable internet connection,but there is no fixed line, what should I do?A: A 4G bonded solution can provide a reliableconnection at remote or challenging sites.

Q: Can a bonded internet solution be used to supportVoIP traffic?A: Yes, bonded internet is ideal for this purpose andQoS is available on our bonded solutions.

Q: How many internet connections can a bondedinternet solution combine?A: Comms365’s SD-ONE solution can bond up to 3connections, and our Continuum solution can bondup to 6 per unit.

Q: What types of internet connection can be bondedusing a bonded solution?A: Any type and mix of connectivity from any providercan be bonded, including 4G.

Q: My customer needs a bonded internet solutionASAP, how long will it take?A: Our bonded solutions can be pre-configured anddelivered within 2-3 working days or sooner.

Q: My customer only needs a bonded solution for ashort period – will they need to purchase a unit?A: Rental options are available as a part of ourPartner Programme.

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Got more questions? Contact us on 01234 865880.Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook for ourregular Q&A Friday feature.

COMMS365 PARTNER PROGRAMME

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Download our Partner Brochure or contact us nowfor more information.

As a Comms365 partner offering bonded internetsolutions, we’ll work closely with you to identify newopportunities, strengthen your existing customerrelationships and develop new ways to solvecustomer challenges.

We work with our partners to incorporate ourproducts into their existing portfolio as quickly aspossible. We provide comprehensive training for bothSupport and Sales Teams. Partners can accesstechnical, marketing and sales resources to fullyenable them in their business engagements andstimulate the growth of new revenue streams.

CONTACT

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For regular updates, follow us:

To sign up to our monthly e-newsletter, emailmarketing@comms365.com.

Our other services:

4G SERVICESLEARN MORE >

BONDED INTERNETLEARN MORE >

SD-WANLEARN MORE >

IOTLEARN MORE >

ISP SERVICESLEARN MORE >

RENTAL SERVICESLEARN MORE >

To take the next step towards building your bondedinternet strategy, contact us now.

01234 865880 www.comms365.comsales@comms365.comSouth House 3, Bond Avenue, Milton Keynes, MK1 1SW

The Ultimate Reseller Guide to Bonded Internet – v1 (March 2019)