Proxyconn says that when its product is tested, the company wins on speed. But when we talked to Proxyconn's ISP customers, we learned that's not why they bought the product.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [April 15, 2004]

Irvine, Calif.-based Proxyconn is in what may be the most competitive software industry at the moment, where several companies, each with a truly different technology, compete for ISP customers (in contrast with the anti-spam market, where many of the hundreds of available products are based on similar fundamental technology and algorithms).

Uzi Yair, Proxyconn's CEO, says that while competition is fierce, these are great times to be an accelerator company. "The market is moving extremely fast. It's a question not of whether to deploy acceleration but which vendor to choose. Soon, every ISP will have to have acceleration as a part of basic service. The big guys have already done that."

The company is improving both its technology and its marketing message. "Unfortunately, the big guys never got to test us when they made their choice," says Yair. "When people test us, we win. We encourage every ISP to test for themselves."

Yair says that Proxyconn has the speed advantage, and also has an advantage in two other areas. The first point he makes is that the company's image compression technology does not lower image quality (again, test this for yourself).

His second point is that the company offers both hosted and non-hosted acceleration, which is becoming a trend in this market. ISPs are finding that they can roll out a service immediately, but have the accelerator host it, and if they choose to stay with that vendor, they can insource the product, installing servers on their own network.

The accelerator industry is growing worldwide. Says Yair, "we're not targeting a specific area. It's worldwide right now. Besides North America, we've had sales recently in Portugal, Egypt, Thailand, and India. We're also doing promotions on the Internet and at trade shows like ISPCON."

The market's so good, the company can rely on banner ads and trade shows for its marketing campaign. Says Caradoc Ehrenhalt, Proxyconn's ISP Program Manager, "just in the last few hours today, we closed five ISPs."

Ehrenhalt thinks that superbowl ads by AOL were very effective in raising the profile of ISP acceleration among ISP owners. "ISPs also tell us customers call in and say, 'we want dialup acceleration,' so the ads did have an impact on the demand for dialup acceleration."

A golden opportunity
Terisa Enstad, manager of Internet Divisions for Wall, S.D.-based Golden West, has a valuable perspective. The company she works for is a co-operative of independent phone companies, rural ILECs. The Internet Division was founded as an independent ISP, Rapidnet, in 1995, but now it works as the back end for the 19 member ILECs of the cooperative.

She says that most of the member ISPs, who charge between $17 and $21 per month, use acceleration to reduce churn and keep customers loyal, although a few do charge for the service. "For example, if people commit for a year, you might give them the accelerator," she says.

The company tested several accelerators and settled on Proxyconn's hosted service, which tested as fastest. Because the cooperative's areas are not contiguous, and because the members vary in size, the cooperative needed a solution that would not tax the resources of its smallest member.

The deployment will change when the cooperative starts the own-branding process. Larger members, with perhaps 10,000 customers, will customize the software with their own look and feel, while smaller members, with as few as 300 customers, will make no changes. For now, all are using un-branded service.

"The goal was to make it easy for end users (and easy for us too)," says Enstad. Even on older Windows 95 and Windows 98 machines, the outsourced solution causes no problems.

Golden West subsidiary Golden West Technologies provides outsourced technical support. Enstad says, "the tech support folks prefer Proxyconn over the competition. Other software has more features but is more complicated. The configuration for Proxyconn is easier."

But the bottom line consideration for Enstad was her experience working with the people at Proxyconn. "We did get a sales call, but not a hard sell call. They asked us what we needed, and so far their support has been phenomenal. They're the ones who spent time with me and answered my questions. And then, of course, the service really worked."

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