Lumen Success Story
Lumen selects Alianza to power communications network transformation from the cloud.
Before Alianza: Seeking Modern Solutions for Legacy Tech
INDUSTRY
Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC)
VERTICAL
Broadband and VoIP Services
SOLUTIONS
Alianza’s Business Cloud Communications and Managed Specialty Lines
Company
With approximately 500,000 route fiber miles and serving customers in more than 60 countries, Lumen delivers the fastest, most secure platform for applications and data to give businesses and communities amazing experiences.
Key Challenges
Lumen Enterprise knew they needed to enhance their voice and cloud communications portfolio. The telecommunications industry is challenged with a lot of legacy technology in the voice space, and their customers are looking for a solution that suits their needs, provides modernized technology, and sets them up for future growth opportunities.
Due to “rapidly growing interest,” Scott Velting, Lumen’s VP of Product Management, was seeking a modern plain-old-telephone-system (POTS) replacement solution to address the needs of customers who use legacy copper lines for business-critical systems like elevators, alarms, and remote access modems.
Goals & Requirements
Lumen Enterprise knew they needed to enhance their voice and cloud communications portfolio. And sought a premier cloud-native, carrier-grade platform that addresses the critical needs of Lumen’s core voice products and customer segments. “[We] were familiar with Alianza from the work they were doing on the Mass Market side of our business. They were doing good work . . . and we were really interested in the ways that they were transforming the network, operational environment, and finding efficiencies.”
Due to, in part, how Alianza built and established their platform, the consumability of their APIs, and their innovation in the market, Lumen saw an opportunity for them to jointly address critical needs in their market and with their customer base.
Lumen needed a cloud communications solution offering with the following reasons:
User-friendly administration portal
POTS replacement
Robust, anywhere business communication functionality
High-quality, secure, next-generation voice
Operational simplification
Service and provisioning automation
Why Alianza Works for Lumen
Velting said their network transformation impacts them two-fold: by positioning their internal teams to do better, and enabling successful, digital-first, customer experiences. The Alianza platform is architected to allow providers centralized management of their platform and the customer base. Lumen found Alianza’s user-friendly interface and provisioning capabilities easy to use, which drove a lot of efficiencies within their own support staff.
“We operationally benefit from centralized management of the customer base through the [Alianza] portal . . . it really enables the customer — but also us — to manage the product and users very efficiently.”
Velting recognizes that telephone number porting in the industry is a challenging process for everybody. However, the “intuitive portals used to manage the Alianza platform makes it easier for employees to manage the experience, drive efficiencies, and it is a further proof point of the strategic alignment between our companies and the capabilities that Alianza brings to bear.”
As part of digitalizing the customer journey, Lumen is investing in an application marketplace to enable customers to easily engage with products through the Lumen platform, enabling them to learn, search, quote, and order — all without the legacy model of engaging the seller, waiting for a quote, arranging a face-to-face meeting, and then working through contract nuances.
Velting said Lumen is really excited about the partnership because of how Alianza “approach[es] a request and our needs on the platform, and the way they’ve structured it really, to facilitate, not just benefits for those customers who are looking for a simplified experience, but also . . . how we manage the customer base, how we manage the platform, and our critical needs. It really is a nice meshing of our strategies, and we continue to be excited about our partnership.”
Solution Components At a Glance
Alianza's Business Cloud Communications
BCC features remote deployment, seamless integrations, and modern calling features like auto-attendants, call groups, virtual fax, voicemail, and more. It’s a modern solution with predictable pricing for SMBs.
Advanced Provisioning
Within minutes of joining, an end user can get their own phone number, download the app, and sign in.
Scalability
Add an extension or direct numbers in minutes. Cloud voice margins scale in-step with your customers’ needs.
Increased Opportunities
“Alianza has afforded us many opportunities with their IP phone integration and Auto-Attendant."
Alianza's Managed Specialty Lines
Whether your customers simply need phone service or want to add enhanced features for mobility and collaboration, Business Cloud Communications does it all within three tiers of service.
Custom Installation
Local coordination ensures proper provisioning, installation, call control, and PSTN connectivity.
Countless Applications
Replace virtually any legacy POTS hardline that service business-critical systems.
Easy & Affordable
It’s all included – CPE, custom installation, provisioning, alert reporting, and monitoring.
Benefits of Alianza’s Cloud Model
Centralized Management. “We operationally benefit from centralized management of the customer base through the [Alianza] portal . . . it really enables the customer — but also us — to manage the product and users very efficiently.”
Automated Provisioning. Lumen found Alianza’s user-friendly interface and provisioning capabilities easy to use which drove a lot of efficiencies within their own staff.
Easy Porting of Numbers. API integrations allow Lumen to better control porting and number activation for customers, enhancing the onboarding experience.
Online Customer Ordering. Lumen customers can add an extension or direct number to their account within minutes, and users can configure a variety of settings to customize their call experience with ease through the Voice Portal.
Next-Generation Services. “Through Alianza’s platform, we are strengthening our portfolio of next-gen cloud services to enable the speed, scale, and agility the market demands.”
Robust API Capabilities. A single web interface is integrated into the Lumen’s operations and business support systems (OSS/BSS) for a seamless user experience.
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