When NuVox Communications needed to offer top quality security for the company's twenty-first century voice services, it went to its partner of four years and obtained a complete package.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [December 15, 2005]

Greenville, S.C.-based NuVox Communications is the sort of business that every ISP would like to be. The company offers business class Internet voice, long distance, webhosting, e-mail, and security.

The company, which calls itself an ICP (Integrated Communications Provider) specializes in the voice portion and partners for the security side with Milford, Conn.-based security specialist Perimeter Internetworking.

NuVox launched its newest security suite on November 7, 2005, and we connect with Clark Easterling, NuVox vice president of product marketing shortly after the launch. He's still pumped up from his company's teaching session for the marketing department.

"Our training had a hero theme. Each product had its own villain, and we gave away James Bond CDs and DVDs to our engineers, and then had the sales engineers go out and train our sales teams."

He reports immediate success. "We closed three deals last week, and had good, positive fun in the sales force."

The complete security package
NuVox's new security package incorporates anti-virus, anti-spam, anti-spyware, content filtering, and intrusion detection. Perimeter Internetworking places a collection of security services between the customer and the Internet (for more on the company's "security in the cloud" philosophy, see Outsource Security to the Cloud).

The package is available in two versions, which Easterling describes as push and pull. The "pull" version is client-based software, with customers scheduling their own updates. The "push" version is for more demanding operations. It delivers patches the moment they are available.

NuVox also offers a backup service. Asked about South Carolina weather, Easterling responds, "files are backed up at two hurricane 3 proof facilities in North Carolina and Connecticut and to a hurricane 5 proof facility in Miami called the NAP of the Americas."

Easterling notes that business demand for data backup has risen, especially with regulations such as Sarbanes Oxley that require companies to store several years' worth of e-mail.

In addition to generic content filtering, NuVox offers secure e-mail. Easterling says that people want to ensure that e-mails are not passed to third parties. "I can make sure that I'm the only one who received a particular e-mail, and I can send an e-mail where the recipient can only respond to the sender. We see demand for this is the banking and legal industries, where it replaces a courier who might charge $100 to deliver a package from point A to point B during a business day."

A beautiful partnership
Easterling admits that NuVox was acquired as a customer when Perimeter acquired Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Guarded Networks.

But he says that service has only improved. "I'll tell you and I tell other analysts and writers that our relationship with Perimeter is one of the best I've ever been involved with. I know that any issue will be resolved one way or the other, and that I don't have to make multiple phone calls."

He says the company does more than it's obliged to do. "When the hurricanes went through South Florida, people were calling us from their cell phones. They had no power at their house and would not be able to charge up the phones after talking to us."

Asked whether the partnership is a white label deal with the NuVox brand name appearing on services offered by Perimeter Internetworking, Easterling says that the opposite is true. "We're like Dell Computer. We don't shy away from other logos. We're pleased with our partnership."

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