Although we did not bring home the championship, we had a great time participating in the four Sportsfest events — dodgeball, volleyball, tug-o-war, and the "beach relay."  We're putting the other 160 teams on notice, though...next year we're going to DOMINATE.

In addition to Telephony Partners' staff, we had a number of agents and carrier representatives that participated on our team.  Qwest, Netwolves, Apex Staffing, and IT Authorities all showed up to participate.  You can check out the photos we posted from the event, too.

We're going to get started earlier preparing and recruiting next year, so come January or February of 2009 look for your invitation.

     The Deal

                                                  April 2008 Newsletter

In This Issue Qwest names TPLLC Top Partner 2007 XO Communications and Telephony Partners host cocktails TPLLC Website Updated Qwest Training Webinar: Selling WAN Services Quick Links Register Now More About Us Featured Article Linked In? Join the Telecommunications Professionals Network - view Max Edwards' profile and click on the TPN logo Max's LinkedIn Profile   Featured Blog Post CEO Josh Anderson continues his look at the process that VARs face when integrating services into their sales cycle.   SPIF MADNESS!!! For all of April, Telephony Partners offers Agents 100% pass-through of SPIFs. Here are some of the hotter deals to get you going - Double Whammy SPIF Bundle NEW Office Connect/Office Connect Pro with NEW Qwest Switched or Dedicated LD and earn a minimum of $600. Just use the Qwest  Referrel Program Mid Markets Desk for processing and sign customers to a 24-month QTA with a minimum LD spend of $1000. Quick Cash Use the Qwest Referrel Program to process orders for:  NEW Office Connect/Connect Pro Internet Port Promotion NEW Hosted VoIP Smart Connect Promotion NEW Integrated Access Office Productivity Promotion NEW Integrated Access Security Promotion ..and earn a $400 SPIF per circuit. Learn more about these and other Qwest SPIFs at  Q.Partner.   Featured Article Bandwidth Bucks A SPIF for every qualifying IP Flex, IP Flex w/VPN, and SIP Service sale (dedicated internet-only deals not included) MRC from $600-$999 pays $300 SPIF MRC from $1,000-$1,499 pays $750 SPIF MRC from $1,500-$2,499 pays $1,000 SPIF MRC $2,500 and up pays $1,500 SPIF   Featured Article Feel Free Promotion Offer your new customers/locations their first month of service FREE and receive an additional $400 per T-1 as part of Deltacom's Feel Free Promotion.   Featured Article Up to 200% MRR All new facility orders are eligible. Earn 25% on all orders $450 to $750 scaled all the way up to 200% for orders $10,001 and up. This is a fantastic opportunity to put more $$$ in your pocket.

Hello and Welcome - You are reading the very first installment of the Telephony Partners newsletter. We look forward to keeping you abreast of everything going on around the office and around the industry, and we always invite your feedback. We are commemorating the first month of the newsletter with an unbeatable promotion for our agents: SPIF MADNESS. We are offering 100% pass-through of SPIFs to all of our agents for the month of April. A great way for us to give back to our great agents and to try and get through a month that is, well, not everyone's favorite. Take the sting out of tax time with some extra cash - be sure to take a look at the SPIF offers from a variety of carriers listed in this newsletter. Along with SPIF and promotions news, we hope to bring you updates about our training and mentor programs, news about the evolving technological terrain where we all do business, as well as insights from our staff and our agents. Don't hesitate to send me an email if you think you have a newsworthy item that should be included in future editions of the TPLLC Newsletter. Have a fantastic month.   Qwest Names TPLLC Top Florida Business Partner of 2007 Qwest announced Telephony Partners' designation as Qwest's 2007 Top Florida Partner at a recent awards meeting in Orlando. CEO Josh Anderson and Agent Manager Rick Valderrama were on hand (pictured at right with Qwest's David Rider and Gene Elmore) and were recognized in front of Qwest's top Florida sales professionals and given a statuette to commemorate the honor. "Qwest has always been a leader in the independent sales channel, and we have been fortunate to work extensively with them in Florida and throughout the nation," said Josh Anderson. "Their integrated approach to the channel, allowing direct reps and our agents to work together on deals and effectively share leads and industry knowledge, is more progressive and supportive of our business than any other carrier out there. We are very pleased to be named Qwest's Top Florida Business Partners 2007."  Telephony Partners is the carrier's Number One Master Agent in Florida and a Qwest Premier Business Partner. Josh has sat on the Qwest Advisory Council and we are a regular attendee of Qwest's annual Q.Marketplace event for Business Partners.   XO Communications and Telephony Partners team up for cocktails at 717 South Peter Davis - Channel manager for XO Communications here in the Florida region - and the Telephony Partners team got together for a meet and greet with agents at the award-winning restaurant 717 South. Agents were treated to a short presentation of XO's capabilities (Ethernet over copper folks - don't overlook this product), drank some fancy cocktails and ate some of the better food being served up in South Tampa.   A conversation between Peter, RAD-INFO's Peter Radizeski, and Josh about the hurdles faced by VARs looking to integrate carrier services into their sales cycle sparked some interesting dialogue and spawned a podcast that Peter Radizeski hosts on his site (Peter was primed to talk Master Agents, chairing a round table about them a few weeks later at the Channel Partners conference.) While the cocktails and excellent finger food are long gone, the podcast can still be downloaded here.   TelephonyPartners.com gets a facelift It had been a while, and frankly we were ready to put our best foot forward for our agents, carrier partners, and prospective agents. The redesign of our site is complete. Josh, Rick and Ed have continued their blogging, and now you can see the most recent additions to blog content on the front page of the site. Additionally, we have added a Testimonials page where agents can share their success stories working with Telephony Partners for the rest of the world to read. For those interested in pressing issues, our Press Release page will give details on the events we share with industry media. As always, a community area is available for our partners to share their thoughts, check out photos, and give feedback to the news items and industry goings-on we blog about.     Qwest Training Webinar: Selling WAN Services Qwest is hosting a webinar at Phone+ designed to teach the fundamentals of selling WAN services in our technologically evolving environment. It is called "Beyond Price: How to sell next-generation WANS" and will help agents (among other things): Assess the growing demand for WAN services and the migration from legacy to next-generation networks Understand the impact of extending next-generation enterprise applications across the WAN Discover how MPLS network offerings support the new IT architecture The Webinar is April 2nd at 2PM EDT. You must pre-register here to attend.   I hope you enjoyed our first installment of the Telephony Partners Newsletter, and I encourage you to take advantage of our SPIF Madness in the month of April. Here's to a great month for all Telephony Partners Agents. Sincerely,  Max Edwards Telephony Partners, LLC medwards@telephonypartners.com

Do you have OneFlex customers who are having trouble understanding how to maneuver through
the OneFlex end user portal? There’s a Webinar that will help your customers use the portal to
its fullest advantage. It’s important that you also attend this webinar so you can discuss it with
your customer.

The Webinars are scheduled through June at 10:30 a.m. MDT on the second Thursday of each
month as follows:

• April 10
• May 8
• June 12

To attend this Webinar, you and your customers must register at Qwest.com
(https://qwestconferencing.qwest.com/confmgr/index.jsp).

If you or your customer misses the Webinar, the recorded session is available for playback
after the conclusion of the Webinar at the following link:
(https://qwestconferencing.qwest.com/confmgr/public_stored_docs.jsp?docType=recordings).

At a recent agent event hosted by Telephony Partners and XO Communications, a discussion between Pete Davis of XO, Peter Radizeski of RAD-INFO, and our CEO Josh Anderson about the current landscape of master agents and their recruiting practices caused Pete Davis to comment, "You should be podcasting this."

Well, Peter Radizeski knows a good suggestion when he hears one, and as a contributer to Phone + and moderator of a round table of master agents at the upcoming Channel Partners conference, he knows good timely content. In this podcast, Peter and Josh talk about different master agent models and attitudes towards expansion and new agent recruitment. Their discussion runs about half an hour and can be downloaded here - 

http://www.virtual-cio.com/podcast/Josh-MasterAgency.mp3

If you enjoy hearing this content over the Web, we encourage you to come out in person to our next agent event (which has the the added bonus of drinks and finger food) and join the discussion.

PAETEC values you as a channel partner and invites you and your sub-agents to attend any or all of our Agent trainings in March.  Every Wednesday will highlight a specific PAETEC product or service. Be sure to mark your calendars and invite your team.

No pre-registration required!

March Webinar Series (All times are Eastern Standard):

• Wednesday, March 5^th – 1:00 pm –  2:00 pm –  Data Back-up & Recovery and Dedicated Server
• Wednesday, March 12^th – 1:00 pm –  2:00 pm –  Products and Services 
• Wednesday, March 19^th  – 1:00 pm –  2:00 pm –  Network Performance Reporting 
• Wednesday, March 26^th – 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm – PAETEC Online A-Z 

The Wednesday webinar series begins on March 5^th with Data Back-up & Recovery and Dedicated Server.  Data Backup & Recovery has professional tools to let you confidently back-up and restore your servers to a secure, offsite location.  Dedicated Server is for businesses that don't have the internal resources to host applications such as a Microsoft Exchange Server, or Web site, PAETEC offers our Dedicated Server service - a robust selection of servers with monitoring and management options for a complete third-party solution.

Our March 12^th training provides an overview of our Products & Services offering.  Our call will clearly define PAETEC’s products and services offerings.  In less then an hour, we’ll review the core PAETEC Products (PRI, MPLS, Internet and Dynamic IP) and Services (Toll Free, DTO, EFS, etc.) with associated benefits and applications.  This session will provide you and your team with an understanding of not only the products and services, but when to propose each application.

March 19^th will focus on Network Performance Reporting.  PAETEC's Network Performance Reporting (NPR) is an essential component of our solution for congestion monitoring, analysis, and control on enterprise data and IP networks. NPR will assure the delivery of IP traffic, improve application performance, and enhance performance of IP data services.

 On March 26^th, PAETEC Online A-Z will give you and your agency access to an infinite amount of customer, sales, and provisioning resources to master over the long Holiday Weekend.  PAETEC Online is PAETEC's online Agent portal. PAETEC Online gives you real time access to account details, commissions, upcoming events, marketing materials, proposals, account changes (account codes and toll free ring to) and the ability to generate new paperwork. These are just some of the great tools PAETEC Online offers our Agents and Customers.

To take advantage of these training classes, please follow the below instructions and be sure to join both the web and conference portions of the training class. The login information is the same for every class.

Instructions for joining this webinar:
1. Access the PAETEC Website by pointing your browser to: www.paetec.com/readybridge

2. Click on "Join a Conference".
3. You will be asked to enter a Phone Number and an Access Code:
a. Phone Number: 8005018979
b. Access Code: 1757576
c. After you enter the information, click "Submit".
4. You will then be asked to enter your Name, Email Address, Phone Number and Company. Enter the appropriate information. Click "Submit".
5. If the Chairperson has started the conference, you will be entered into the Web conference. If the Chairperson has not started the conference, you will be asked to wait for the Chairperson. Once the conference starts, your screen will display the discussion information.

To Join the Audio Conference Call:
1. Dial 800-501-8979.
2. When asked, enter the Access Code, 1757576.
3. You will be placed into the Audio Conference after the Chairperson starts the call.

We appreciate your commitment and look forward to working with you and your team this month. If you have any questions or need additional information, please contact Agent Development at agent.development@paetec.com.

Security Strategies for Converged Networks
February 28, 2007
1 p.m. ET

Register Now

This webcast will share critical information you need to plan and operate your converged network, such as:

• The impact of convergence on traffic control and how it affects older security technology
• How you can work with your service provider to improve security for your converged network
• Branch security considerations and areas businesses tend to overlook
• How to avoid IP addressing pitfalls when combining networks
• Why "private" is not always secure

Get your specific questions answered
Don't miss this opportunity to ask experts the questions that directly impact how you implement a secure, converged network.

Click here to learn more and register to attend.

Have colleagues who are interested in securing their converged networks? Please share this e-mail after you register.

Sincerely,
Qwest and Cisco

Acceris recently mailed letters to customers announcing that the services previously provided by Acceris would now be provided by First Communications.  No impact to customers or agents is anticipated, but further information will be posted as it becomes available.
 

Tax Statements for the 2006FY will be sent out this week.  Please let us know if you've had an address change or if you do not receive your statement.

Thanks for helping make 2006 a great year for TPLLC.

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) today closed its acquisition of BellSouth Corporation, creating a premier global communications company committed to driving convergence, continued innovation, and competition in the communications and entertainment market.

The transaction consolidates ownership and management of Cingular Wireless, the nation's leading provider of wireless voice and data services, and YELLOWPAGES.COM, a leading Internet Yellow Pages and local search site.

"AT&T will be an engine for innovation, competition, and growth for our customers at home and abroad," said AT&T Chairman and CEO Edward E. Whitacre Jr. "In the Southeast, we will build on BellSouth's excellent record of serving customers and communities. And we are ready to lead the way in a new era of integrated wireless services nationwide."

AT&T will immediately start to implement a carefully planned integration process to converge the AT&T, BellSouth, and Cingular wireless and wireline Internet Protocol (IP) networks, combine product portfolios and integrate customer care capabilities. The new company will be able to accelerate the introduction of innovative broadband services, such as IP-based services, while expanding the reach of broadband access in remote and rural locations in the traditional BellSouth region.

"AT&T, BellSouth, and Cingular have led in developing and deploying many of the communications services that customers depend on today, including broadband DSL and wireless technologies," said Whitacre. "Moving forward, AT&T will work to integrate these services for customers in the Southeast, across the country and around the world."

With the merger complete, AT&T enhances its U.S. leadership position in broadband, wireless services, voice services for consumers and businesses, and data services to Fortune 1000 companies.

In 2006, the AT&T Foundation provided more than $65 million in charitable contributions, ranking it among the top five largest corporate foundations in the country, in terms of annual giving. This year, Forbes magazine named the AT&T Foundation among the "25 Most Generous Corporate Foundations," ranking the company 11th on the magazine's list of top corporate donors.

In addition, nearly 350,000 AT&T employees and retirees serve their communities as members of AT&T Pioneers, the nation's largest company-sponsored volunteer organization.

Whitacre will continue to serve as chairman and CEO and as a member of the board of directors. Duane Ackerman will serve as chairman emeritus of BellSouth for the transition period following the merger.

Three members of the former BellSouth's board of directors have joined the AT&T board — Reuben V. Anderson, James H. Blanchard and James P. Kelly.

Reporting to Whitacre will be: Jim Cicconi, senior executive vice president - external and legislative affairs; Jim Ellis, senior executive vice president and general counsel; Karen Jennings, senior executive vice president - advertising and corporate communications; Jim Kahan, senior executive vice president - corporate development; Rick Lindner, senior executive vice president and chief financial officer; Forrest Miller, group president - strategic initiatives and human resources; Randall Stephenson, chief operating officer; and Ray Wilkins, group president.

Reporting to Chief Operating Officer Randall Stephenson will be: *** Anderson, group president - global business services, replacing Forrest Miller; Stan Sigman, president & CEO - wireless; John Stankey, senior executive vice president and chief technology officer; and Ralph de la Vega, group president - regional wireline operations.

AT&T's current regional wireline presidents will report to de la Vega, along with Rod Odom, who has been named president and CEO, AT&T Southeast. Previously, Odom was president - network services for BellSouth Corporation.

Additional executive appointments will be announced in the near future.

AT&T's corporate headquarters will remain in San Antonio. The new AT&T Southeast (formerly BellSouth Corporation) and Cingular will continue to be based in Atlanta.

In the coming days, AT&T will launch extensive new advertising, which will begin the transition of the BellSouth brand name to AT&T. AT&T will re-brand Cingular through a co-branded transition, which is scheduled to start in 2007. Details regarding the Cingular branding will be announced at a later date. YELLOWPAGES.COM will not undergo a name or Web site address change.

Merger Synergies and Financials
AT&T today affirmed the financial guidance it provided when the acquisition of BellSouth was announced in March 2006, including information on expected synergies. Specifically, AT&T expects that synergies from the combined operations will ramp quickly to reach an annual run rate exceeding $2 billion in 2008 and increasing to $3 billion in 2010. Merging AT&T, BellSouth, and Cingular Wireless is expected to yield a net present value of $18 billion in synergies.

Stockholders of the former BellSouth received 1.325 shares of AT&T common stock for each common share of BellSouth. Based on AT&T's closing stock price on Friday, Dec. 29, 2006, this exchange ratio equaled $47.37 per BellSouth common share.

In connection with the completion of the acquisition, BellSouth's common stock and debt securities will be immediately delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.

Approval Process
The completion of the BellSouth acquisition comes after an extensive review process, which included approval by or filings with 36 states, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), as well as with three foreign countries.

In order to receive bipartisan FCC approval, AT&T volunteered a number of commitments, including making broadband access increasingly affordable and available to consumers and supporting public safety.

AT&T has committed to making broadband services available through a combination of technologies to 100 percent of residential living units in its 22-state local- phone-service territory by the end of 2007. Additionally, AT&T will offer a stand-alone broadband service for $19.95, as well as other offers to encourage broadband adoption by those who do not currently subscribe.

AT&T plans to repatriate 3,000 jobs currently outsourced by BellSouth outside the United States, as well as to make its disaster-recovery capabilities available in order to facilitate the restoration of services in the former BellSouth region, in the event of a hurricane or other natural disaster.

"These commitments reflect our long history of providing consumers and businesses with the most advanced and affordable communications services," said Whitacre. "We can't wait to show people what the new AT&T can do."

Welcome to the new Telephony Partners website, specially designed to cultivate the community our agents have helped to create.  The site is based on Community Server, an award-winning collaboration platform comprised of a content management system, "blog" system, and forums.  The visual spruce-up of the base CS design was provided by Killer Creative.

Whether you are an existing agent, a carrier direct rep, or an end-user, we hope that you'll use this site to interact with other members of the Telephony Partners community.  Our agents and carriers represent a vast amount of experience and ability in a variety of fields.  Connect with them via the site's forums.

As you can see from this post, the site also hosts a bulletins section, which contains posts by Telephony Partners teammembers, agents, and carriers.  The individual bulletins on the site are a venue where site members can present useful information for the community.  If you're interested in authoring a bulletin, send us an email.

If you have any question, requests, or feedback, please do not hesitate to contact us.