For2Fi, a company born from a channel partner organization, is successfully breaking into the largely untapped 5G and LTE business market with a new batch of partners and revenues of $9 million, marking a nearly 50 percent increase year over year.
For2Fi is winning deals at a time when businesses are scrambling to accommodate hybrid work and need connectivity in new places, oftentimes very quickly, John Reed, managing partner for North Dartmouth, Mass.-based For2Fi, told CRN.
“A lot of the deals we win are ones where broadband providers run into fiber buildout issues, or manpower issues, and they just can’t take on customer’s needs and wants by an install date,” he said. “That’s where we swoop in and save the day. The greatest thing about LTE and 5G is the ability to get customers up and running in sometimes hours.”
For2Fi’s typical install timeframe is 48 hours from the time the customer places an order until they have their devices and are connected to the internet, Reed said. “That’s been a big strength for us. A huge reason for our growth is the ability to be nimble and fast,” he said.
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For2Fi, a company that does 100 percent of its business through the channel, spun out of an idea that started at Fall River, Mass.-based ACE Consulting Group, a company that For2Fi’s CEO Andrew Gregoire also co-founded. For2Fi launched in April 2020 with a goal of filling a hole in the market when it came to business-focused LTE solutions.
Since its inception about three years ago, the company has added additional services, such as plain old telephone service (POTS) replacement as a service to give partners and businesses the ability to offer analog lines over an LTE connection, as well as a brand-new managed service around access control and security cameras that was launched in Q4 2022.
The transition to 5G has been good for For2Fi and “eye-opening” for many customers, Reed said. “5G is not the same simple game that 4G LTE was — there’s a lot of complexity to 5G and multiple flavors of 5G, but that really doesn’t translate to what’s out there in the b2b data market,” he said.
The firm today is helping multi-site customers transition from LTE to 5G as the next generation of cellular connectivity is built out in more locations, he added.
The value that For2Fi is bringing to the market is its expertise in all flavors of 5G with a managed cellular service that businesses can’t get from AT&T or T-Mobile, Reed said. “We can put the right solution together for the customer, with the right carrier, with the right antenna, and give them that experience that they’re looking for,” he said.
And the company is relying on the channel to get the word out about business 5G and LTE.
Businesses are increasingly interested in LTE and what 5G could mean for them, according to John Berardi, president for TruPoint Communication Solutions, a Longwood, Fla.-based For2Fi partner.
Solution provider TruPoint began working with For2Fi about two years ago when the firm was searching for a multi-carrier wireless backup solution for its multi-location, midmarket customers. TruPoint had some clients in which one location couldn’t use a device with an AT&T or Verizon SIM based on the carrier’s availability in that area, so the firm wanted an easy-to-use solution that could support multiple SIMs in a single device.
“When you’re talking about a low price point product like this, you also need the company to be easy to do business with and [you need] continuity, and that’s really what we found with For2Fi,” Berardi said.
TruPoint has many customers in the healthcare space, so a multi-carrier strategy is critical, Berardi said. “We’re not going to propose one internet connection. We think it makes sense to have some level of backup, especially if there’s mission-critical cloud services involved.”
Because TruPoint is based in Florida, the firm and its nearby customers have seen cellular connectivity continue to work first-hand during disruptive events like hurricanes, Berardi said. While the company is still primarily using LTE and 5G for redundancy, these connectivity options are becoming more mainstream, he added.
“We still use it for backup or if we have a mobile application or a temporary space, but it has been viable as a primary connection for short term use with some smaller clients,” he said.
Partners can rely on For2Fi for management or co-manage alongside For2Fi and offer Tier 1 support. Partners can also white label For2Fi’s solution so they can maintain the relationship with their customers and be the initial point of triage, but For2Fi is there to back those partners up as the expert in the wireless space, according to the company.
For2Fi today partners with telecom service broker Telarus and Sandler Partners to bring its services to market through Telarus’ and Sandler’s large base of solution providers and sub agent partners. The company also partners with wireless edge networking specialist Cradlepoint and relies on the Ericsson-owned company’s cellular routers as part of its offerings.
The company expects to kick off 2023 with a run rate to exceed $10 million and that’s without adding any new business, according to Reed.
“It’s exciting. The wireless game is the only thing we do,” he said. “It’s bringing the 5G and LTE service to light and providing the customers with that engineering support that they just don’t get from the carriers direct.”LEARN MORE: Telecom | Wireless | Managed Security | VOIP and Unified Communications
Gina Narcisi is a senior editor covering the networking and telecom markets for CRN.com. Prior to joining CRN, she covered the networking, unified communications and cloud space for TechTarget. She can be reached at [email protected].
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