The company began working with resellers in the U.S. a year and a half ago, and in March 2014 a partner program was formalized in the U.S. That program has now been extended to Canada.
Cel-Fi smart signal boosters
San Diego-based Nextivity has announced that its Cel-Fi all-digital smart signal boosters are now available in Canada through the Rogers, TELUS, and Bell Canada networks, and that membership in the Nextivity partner program is now available for Canadian resellers who want to resell them.
Nextivity, which was founded in 2006 and has been shipping product since 2009, makes a carrier-grade, all-digital smart signal booster that can more than quadruple wireless data speeds and eliminate dropped calls for wireless subscribers indoors.
“We are simply more powerful than our competitors,” said Werner Sievers, Nextivity’s CEO. “We gives customers high confidence that they will get a bigger footprint from us, so that they need to purchase 1 or 2 systems instead of 2 to 4. RF is not an exact science, and there is usually some tuning, but this is as close as you can get to a plug and play RF product. It means that the reseller can install many more systems in the same period.”
The channel is a relatively new addition to Nextivity’s go-to-market model.
“Our initial thesis and value proposition was to target mobile operators and go to market through them,” Sievers said. “It’s a complex technology and if they didn’t endorse it, we would be very limited in terms of market opportunities, especially outside North America because of regulations.”
Sievers said their challenge was to build a technology that would be endorsed by operators, which is tricky because the operators essentially were able to call the shots, and are picky and choosy.
“We set about finding a way to build a hardware and software platform, and ultimately had to design our own silicon,” he said. “Toshiba fabricated our first processor for us, and we shipped four first product in 2009.”
Nextivity now ships to over 140 operators worldwide in 60-odd countries.
“Only now do we feel the product and space has gotten to the level of maturity that we feel comfortable going through a reseller and integrator channel,” Sievers said.
The company began working with resellers in the U.S. a year and a half ago, and in March 2014 a partner program was formalized in the U.S. That program has now been extended to Canada.
“Our reseller profile is mixed,” Sievers said. “Some are very large, while many are small to medium teams of 10-50 people with strong vertical niches, like home audio-video or marine. Some have markets we never would have imagined. They have these unique verticals and areas they are expert at, and they provide boosting technology as part of a complete solution.”
While Sievers said while the program will likely add tiers in the future, right now it’s a pretty flat program. Members get one-to-one support from a member of Nextivity’s dedicated reseller team in San Diego, and can choose to have Nextivity provide customers support.
“A big difference with us is we don’t pay the inventory game at all, as we require no minimum inventory commitments,” Sievers said. The risk of return is low, and the installation is incredibly easy, so we don’t need arduous reseller agreements. The product enables the reseller, without use of much resources, to test new opportunities very rapidly, and scale them if they show any life. The only real question is if the product matches the reseller’s business model.”
The Cel-Fi for Resellers program is now live in Canada. VARs and custom integrators interested in selling Cel-Fi can apply online at www.cel-fi.com/reseller. Canadian resellers and customers will also be able to access exclusively Canadian content at www.cel-fi.ca.
