OUR STORY

Over 15 years of history.

While we’ve been in business since 2002, our company really began in 1994, when Josh Anderson left the University of Florida to found CDSI, an IT company that specialized in software-based PBX systems and custom IVR applications. When the CLEC market exploded in the late 90’s, CDSI became nearly as profitable doing carrier service consulting as selling IP-PBX systems. Things were off to a promising start.

It wasn't always smooth sailing.

It hasn’t been all rainbows and butterflies. The late 90’s were a wild time for the telecom industry, and as with any lucrative market, it attracted its share of shysters. Within a few years, CDSI had two separate master agents default on over $100,000 in monthly customer billings.

We knew there was a better way.

We decided that we would start a company that did things the right way — as a business focused on transparency and relationships. A company that respects and values its partner and client relationships. One they could trust.

It was time to build the company we would want to do business with.

So Telephony Partners started with a few core agents, an acquired Qwest Business Partner agreement that was on probation, and precious little time. We needed to build enough revenue to kick-start the business, and fast. CDSI was subsidizing operations, but we knew we'd have to stand on our own, sooner rather than later.

Solid vision, careful progress.

From the beginning, our vision of Telephony Partners was clear — unwavering principles and a commitment to be the most professional communications agency and consultancy in the industry. Looking back, all we did was adhere to a few simple simple rules: pay agents accurately and quickly, take a personal interest in every opportunity, and always be honest with clients and partners.

It's not over yet.

In the span of just a few years, we've come a long way. We developed proprietary technology to streamline the management of our indirect channel and expanded our business to include outsourced backoffice support for other agents. And we've added special project consulting and outsourced communications management for our business clients.

Since our humble start in 2002, we now have hundreds of partners working with us to offer solutions from dozens of carriers to thousands of clients. And we're proud to say that not only do we still have our original core agents working with us, we've had a lot of fun along the way.

Go Gators!
1994
Josh leaves UF to start CDSI
Telecom Act of 1996 is passed deregulating the industry
1996
1996
The H.323 voice over IP protocol was published by the ITU
GTE
CDSI becomes one of the first GTE Communications partners
1997
1999
CDSI sells its non-telecom IT client base to focus on telecom and unified communications
The first version of pure IP-MPLS is implemented
2000
Old Logo
2001
Negotiations begin for the acquisition of a dormant agency in South Florida
Telephony Partners is incorporated and the purchase of the South Florida agency is completed
2002
2006
Telephony Partners is promoted to a Qwest Premier Business Partner
Apple releases the iPhone
2007
Wiiiings
2008
The Telephony Partners team wins 2nd place in Red Bull’s Flugtag event in Tampa
Work begins on what will eventually become our partner portal
2010
Portal
2011
The partner portal is officially released