Two Partner to Provide Security to Small Business

A security provider and a CLEC will announce a partnership tomorrow that will show how two companies can work together to benefit each other and their customers.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [August 16, 2006]

Richmond, Va.-based CLEC Cavalier Telephone and Milford, Conn.-based security service provider Perimeter Internetworking will announce tomorrow that the companies are partnering to provide Perimeter's security services, developed for the financial industry, to small business customers.

Clark Easterling, now vice president of product marketing at Perimeter (formerly vice president of product marketing at Nuvox, also a Perimeter partner), says, "we are offering services that small businesses need and don't have, priced to what they can afford, and the avenue to reach them is through the NSPs."

Brad Miller, CEO of Perimeter, says that in return, the NSP provides the level 1 support, while Perimeter provides levels 2 and 3. "The NSP is an intermediary," he says.

Raise ARPU
ISP-Planet and many other industry commentators advise ISPs and CLECs to increase average revenue per user (ARPU) by offering more services to their customers. That's clearly the goal for the CLEC in this partnership.

In a press release, Andy Lobred, Cavalier Telephone's vice president of product management and marketing, says, "through our partnership with Perimeter Internetworking, we are going to take the inherent features of our networking capabilities, our voice expertise, our fast data services, and our value added services like web conferencing, the customer portal, and web voicemail, and layer security features on top of that for a highly comprehensive and compelling suite of services. This increases customer satisfaction while providing us with a new competitive advantage and a new revenue stream."

Broaden your customer base
Perimeter gains by offering its products to a wider customer base. Asked whether Perimeter's small business security products are a cut rate version of the financial products, Miller explains why they're not. "It would be more expensive for us to create something completely different. What we built is already working."

The one difference is in the user interface. The average small business does not have the same level of technical expertise as a bank branch. Bank branches have an IT staff and security procedures designed by industry regulators. Bank branches keep asking Perimeter for more data and granularity, whereas small business customers want a simpler interface.

"It's the same engines doing the work, but we have to target it to a different audience," explains Miller. "It's the same engine, but a different dashboard, if you will."

The service
Perimeter Internetworking builds its own Gateway Platforms (right) and the ISP connects to them to obtain the security service. Asked whether ISPs resist routing their internet traffic through another company's equipment, Miller says the market understands that there are pros and cons to every architecture.

"The con is that our architecture requires the rerouting of traffic, and sometimes that does make telecoms a little nervous," he says. "The pros are: reduced capital investment because one big platform is less expensive than lots of little ones, speed of deployment is faster because you don't have to deploy a box, and greater range of services. Speed to market is about the same, a non issue."

Asked what services can be offered in the internet cloud that cannot be offered on CPE, Miller says there are many, and points to two important services. Obviously, you cannot offer remote data backup through an on premises device. Another key service is encrypted e-mail, where the e-mail is sent to a neutral location and a message passed to the recipient, who clicks on a web interface to obtain the e-mail.

But for those who still hesitate, Perimeter does offer CPE-based security, using a FortiGate 60 for the CPE. Why did the company choose Fortinet? "It comes down to price and value," Miller explains. "We explored the market and felt that at that time, and also today (although some competitors are catching up), Fortinet was ahead. In our minds, Fortinet was a pioneer of the multipurpose appliance and saw early on the benefit of offering multiple services through one platform."

The future
So, what's next? The immediate plan for Perimeter Internetworking is to offer more services to small business customers. The company offers over 50 services to its banking customers, Easterling says, and is offering 5 to 7 to its small business customers.

So there's plenty of potential, but offering new services takes work, says Miller. "It's not just a flick of the wrist and a re-labeling of a service."

There's no question that every business needs security. "Small businesses are doing e-commerce and are handling some of the same sensitive financial data that banks use," says Easterling. "They are getting social security numbers. And they face the same attacks."

— End