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Basingstoke-based distributor Tempura Communications is now more than a connectivity specialist – today they are adding value through applications for their connections
Tempura, established in 2002 and founded on the back of a business plan based upon distribution of the then finally viable proposition of internet connectivity from UUNet, have moved on, as Technical Director and company owner Matthew Light explains.
“Within three months of our start MCI went into Chapter 11 (insolvency) in the US and we had to quickly re-think our plans. We soon gained a distribution agreement with BT, to supply their lines, ISDN, analogue and leased circuits and also now have a great relationship with Easynet for LLU broadband. We have relationships with other ISPs too as many users want the resilience of having at least two broadband suppliers.”
Tempura is a service-based distributor with Light confirming that 80% of revenues are derived from the provision of services, including support services such as VoIP, audio conferencing and router configurations, internet
connections, web hosting and email provision.
Matthew Light, “With connectivity solutions such as broadband becoming more commoditised we felt it was important to offer applications to run over these network connections to protect our channel partners’ revenues. Applications such as CCTV, video conferencing and VoIP.
“Last year we investigated the VoIP market and set out to contact more than 100 VoIP vendors – a mission which led us to the door of London-based TelNG.
“We found TelNG to be a very focussed VoIP vendor; they had an Asterisk based hosted IP telephony offering as well as a CPE version based on the same technology called Contrex IP PBX that typically addresses the 10-100 user market. TelNG also developed their own customisation software for Asterisk-which provided the differentiation we sought.”
Today, as the TelNG PBX is launched, Tempura are in a great position as they are able to offer hosted and CPE versions of the same product. In fact, Tempura are actually making the Contrex appliances for TelNG through their own manufacturing facility in Bristol.
“This enables us to offer a greater degree of personalisation for resellers,” says Light, “We can in essence white label the PBX for any of our resellers so that they can brand it themselves and add their own value packages as suits their skill sets.”
Contrex is a versatile comms platform that can handle not only IP trunks but also analogue and ISDN lines. This gives Tempura, with their BT and Easynet relationships, a great opportunity to sell end-to-end solutions for their resellers.
“Support is a key issue in this market and on top of the PBX we offer resellers a wide range of IP handsets such as those from Snom and Polycom – we even have Mitel IP sets working on the Contrex. On top of this we provide the excellent Siemens wireless DECT systems.”
Light sees a large market for the product, whether hosted or CPE and his message to resellers is to ask them to look at what is happening around them in IP networking applications. Right now he sees a perception problem caused by much misunderstanding and believes his task is to make life a lot easier for his resellers.
“Contrex IP telephony solutions work well in many applications; retail, home and remote working for example and are particularly cost-effective when a company is relocating. Here the cost of moving a traditional PBX and re-supplying exchange lines can approach the cost of a new system.”
Ed Says
Tempura is on a staff and reseller recruitment drive and has an interesting proposition for the channel. As well as the products and services mentioned here the company also has a WLR3 offering which can provide BT’s uncontended DataStream and note that with BT operating in 64 countries and Easynet in most of Europe, the reseller will have very few boundaries when it comes to remote applications.