News

BelAir Builds Partnerships

The wireless equipment maker is talking to VARs, OEMs, and, of course, ISPs. Yes, there's a platinum/gold/silver partnership program, but there's more, too.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [February 6, 2006]

Kanata, Ontario-based BelAir Networks (based in the high tech Ottawa suburb that's also home to the Ottawa Senators hockey team) has changed the focus of the company, says Jim Freeze, vice president of marketing and alliances. Now, the company is targeting specific vertical markets: municipal wireless, hospitality (i.e. hotels), and venues (i.e. sports arenas).

"Our market timing was good," he says. "We won quite a number of very high profile opportunities over the past year."

Municipal
In municipal wireless, he cites three big cities:

• London, England, where the ISP is hotspot specialist The Cloud.
• Minneapolis, Minnesota, where the ISP is US Internet.
• Toronto, where the ISP is Toronto Hydro Telecom (THT).

The Toronto deployment received considerable publicity recently as it became clear that the network offers 5 Mbps to each user. Furthermore, a study of the performance of metro Wi-Fi networks by Novarum (a company that includes Phil Belanger, former vice president of marketing at BelAir) ranked the Toronto deployment number one in Wi-Fi performance and number three overall.

"In these municipal deployments," says Freeze, "we're compared head to head with the competition and we love that because we always win." Or so he says. As the Novarum study shows, deployments are using several different architectures (though not too many).

OEMs
In the Toronto network, BelAir is the OEM for Siemens' Wireless Mesh@vantage Network solution brand name.

Other announced OEM partnerships include Fujitsu and Alcatel-Lucent. Freeze says additional partners will be announced soon.

VARs
As BelAir focuses its marketing efforts on specific verticals, it is getting to know the VARs in those verticals. "In the past, we have not done as good a job on VARs [as we would have liked]," says Freeze.

So that's going to change. BelAir started with an invitation only roadshow beginning in San Jose at the Wireless Communications Association (WCA) Symposium on January 17, 2007. The company is eager to meet VARs with skills in its favorite verticals (municipal, hospitality, and venue).

It's helped by a new success story in venues: the unwiring of the Miami Dolphins' stadium, just in time for the Super Bowl (see the Wi-Fi Planet article, The Dolphins' Wireless Point-of-Sale).

The new reseller program has platinum, gold, and silver levels, and provides more than the usual benefits:

• discounts
• access to a partner portal
• lead generation (for the higher tiers)
• rebates (for the highest tiers)

So what's the difference between a rebate and a discount? "In addition to the discount off our gear, we give cash rebates quarterly to partners who hit their targets," explains Freeze.

So when BelAir talks to a potential partner, a potential member of the program, the team comes armed with notes on recent deals by the VAR. "We show them how much cash they would have received just from deals over the past quarter," says Freeze.

BelAir is looking for expertise in specific verticals, so you can be a small shop if you're in the right place or industry.

Freeze promises to tell people up front if they won't qualify. "There are folks, to be honest, who don't qualify today, but we think they might qualify in two to four months. Anyone can call us! We're not opposed to having conversations! We'll be honest about whether they qualify or night."

—End