Does Size Always Matter?

New partnerships between telecom giants are stealing the spotlight, but it’s the quiet, third party deals that could steal the show. So, does size always matter?

AT&T and Verizon recently announced their partnership with not only each other but with a smaller third party vendor to help build hundreds of new cell towers aimed at improving customer exposure and experience. The new cell tower construction aims to provide their already existing customers with new, updated technology to enhance overall connectivity as well as provide service to areas that lack wireless connectivity.

While two competitors coming together to benefit both businesses is news, the partnership with Tillman Infrastructure to help execute the initiative is more noteworthy. While Tillman Infrastructure definitely has a reputation for quality work, they are not as ‘well known’ as some of the larger infrastructure companies like Crown Castle and American Tower. In fact, Tillman Infrastructure has only been operating for the last 4 years, while some of its competitors have been around for decades.

What motivated AT&T and Verizon to put their trust in a smaller partner? As third-party contracts come up for renewals, more large companies are looking to discover new options to not only cut costs but also broaden their network of vendors. As leading companies aim to provide a better customer experience and keep costs down, we are starting to see a shift as these brands turn to smaller ‘challenger’ brands to ensure their success.

As a third-party manufacturer, we are seeing a similar shift in the transceiver market. Gartner recently released a report, Don’t Fall For the Network Transceiver Scam, which encourages purchasing from third party optics providers instead of the OEM. Consideration and use of third party optics is rapidly increasing as companies look to control costs. With the shift however, often comes reliability and scalability concerns.

At Integra Optics, we take pride in our inbound and outbound testing process that make our optics 33 times more reliable than OEM and third-party generics. Using in-house robotics as part of our product fulfillment process also allows us to scale production to meet market demands and customer expansion.

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