BIRCH TOUTS BEEFED-UP PORTFOLIO

Source on 10/10/14

By Kelly Teal

Birch Communications Inc.’s multiple acquisitions are coming together in the form of a beefed-up portfolio.

Over the past couple of years, the Georgia-based service provider has snapped up the assets of resellers Ernest Communications Inc. and Lightyear Network Solutions, among other, smaller companies, as well as all of Cbeyond Inc. Ernest gave Birch a multilocation-enterprise practice; Lightyear brought more network to the mix; and Cbeyond added cloud, IT, some mobile and more managed services.

Overall, those purchases have handed Birch the technology, footprint and capabilities to serve a range of organizations, from small startups and SMBs in all sectors to large and spread-out enterprises.

As a result, on Thursday, Birch announced its network and product lineup.

To the first point, Birch says its IP network now features 600 PoPs in 22 states and Washington, D.C., as well as Ethernet over Copper, MPLS and fiber capabilities. In sum, Birch now has access to 31,000 fiber route miles, 580 lit buildings and six data centers.

And, to the second point, here is the new Birch portfolio, which is broken down into four categories:

Birch Voice

  • BirchNet Value, BirchNet Basic, BirchNet Essentials: Basic telephone services
  • TotalCloud PBX: Hosted phone system
  • BirchMobile: Mobile services
  • Complex voice services: PRI, SIP, analog

BirchNetwork

  • BirchNet: Asymmetric DSL connectivity up to 24Mbps
  • BirchLink: Symmetric connectivity with up to 100Mbps upload and download speeds via T1, metro Ethernet, and fiber, plus MPLS and VPN
  • BirchMobile Data: Wireless continuity and mobile data services

BirchCloud

  • TotalCloud File Storage: Cloud file storage
  • TotalCloud Managed Hosting: Managed hosting and bare metal cloud services
  • TotalCloud Data Center: Data centers and application management and licensing
  • Hosted email

BirchIT Services

Managed, professional IT development, deployment and support services including remote monitoring; help desk support; and migration services.

Birch sells through the channel. Brad Smith serves as channel chief.