By Jamie Epstein, TMCnet Web Editor

Back in February of this year, Alpheus began serving the enterprise market and thus far has seen incredible responses to its indirect sales channel driven by master agents.

The sentiment among companies with regards to the channel has been "phenomenal," Layne Levine, senior vice president of enterprise and channel sales stated in a recent article. "We just signed a very large auto group a week ago. We just signed a deal with a Chinese delegation in Houston ... the reception has been phenomenal."

Long known in the industry as a provider of fiber-optic and networking solutions, some of Alpheus’ biggest customers are AT&T, Verizon (News - Alert), and Level 3. "We have the largest network in Texas outside of AT&T (News - Alert)," Levine added."Nobody can claim that. We are Texans based in Texas doing business with Texans."

Last year, The Gores Group, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm inked an agreement to gain control Alpheus from El Paso Corp. and Genesis Park L.P.  This move was made to better get in touch with the enterprise market as the group powers Ethernet, data, voice and colocation services.

Intent on penetrating companies based in Texas with over 50 employees who rake in at least $1 million in revenues, all types of industries are being sought after by the company in order to enhance its footprint including law firms, oil and gas companies, real estate firms, hospitals, schools and local governments.

Moreover, after forming a partnership with Telarus (News - Alert) Inc., a master agent, Alpheus has also hired Mark Mohr as a partner sales manager.

"We don't want to sign every single master agent ... out there," Levine concluded. "We don't want to be a quoting machine. That's not our game ... We want to get in and do big multi-location deals with ... a couple of partners and Telarus fit the bill. They have a very entrepreneurial style, they are easy to do business with, they move quickly."

Patrick Oborn, vice president of business development with Telarus, added that the partnership with Alpheus will help to better target specific regions of the country, in addition to other product areas such as fiber.

Edited by Carrie Schmelkin