ATLANTIC-ACM Delivers Metro Carrier Excellence Awards

Research firm ATLANTIC-ACM announced its 2007 U.S. Metro Carrier Excellence Awards at the COMPTEL PLUS Convention + Expo.

The awards are based on the results of ATLANTIC-ACMs 2007 Metro Carrier Report Card, which evaluates the performance of metro carriers by their wholesale and business customers and is based on more than 3,000 individual carrier evaluations.

Customers rated carriers according to seven service characteristics, including brand (reputation), sales representatives (knowledge, credibility, integrity, responsiveness, consultative ability and responsiveness), provisioning (installation and timeliness), network (reliability and SLAs), customer service (responsiveness, expertise, problem resolution, efficiency), billing (accuracy, dispute resolution, flexibility and timeliness) and overall.

They also rated the quality and price/value of products, including local voice, integrated access, VoIP, local private line-DS1/DS3, local private line-OCx, IP VPN, IP/MPLS, DIA, Ethernet, SONET and metro wavelengths.

Winners included:

• AT&T: RBOC/ILEC wholesale brand, network performance, IP VPN, local voice, transport DSx- OCx, metro Ethernet, SONET, metro wavelengths;
• Qwest: RBOC/ILEC wholesale sales representatives, customer service and DIA
• Embarq: RBOC/ILEC wholesale SLAs, provisioning and integrated access/PRI
• CenturyTel: RBOC/ILEC wholesale billing
• Verizon: RBOC/ILEC: wholesale VoIP
• Time Warner Telecom: Wholesale metro Ethernet and SONET
• PAETEC: CLEC brand, network performance, sales reps, customer service, SLAs, provisioning, billing, wholesale local voice, local transport DSx and DIA
• XO: Wholesale integrated access/PRI and VoIP
• Level 3: wholesale metro wavelengths and transport OCx
• Neon: Metro/regional fiber provider brand, network performances, sales representatives, customer service, SLAs and provisioning
• FPL Fibernet: Metro/regional fiber provider billing and wholesale local transport DSx-OCx

Ed Morché, senior vice president of offer management, Level 3; Fedor Smith, director of strategy, Atlantic-ACM; Tom Marx, vice president of national sales, Time Warner Telecom; Mike Yancey, director of wholesale voice products, Verizon Business; Sherm Henderson, chairman, COMPTEL; Kathryn Morrissey, president of wholesale, AT&T; Jerry James, president, COMPTEL; Judy Reed Smith, CEO, Atlantic-ACM; Bill Cheek, president of wholesale markets, Embarq; Carmen Perez, president, FPL Fibernet; Roland Thorton, executive vice president of wholesale markets, Qwest; Chris Bantoft, executive vice president of alternate channels, PAETEC; and Kurt VanWagenen, CEO, NEON Communications.