Infostrada, one of Italy’s primary telecommunications providers, and Ingram Micro, a global distributor of technical products and services, recently signed an agreement that will introduce three dial-up products to professionals as well as small- and medium-sized businesses.
Working under the “Infuturo Business” trademark, the companies hope to capture a share of the country’s growing Internet traffic with their turn-key packages.
“For the professional, working from home, the Infuturo Business PSTN 200
is an ideal choice,” said a spokesman of Infostrada. “The 56Kbps speed
combined with Infostrada’s network will offer bands of 8Kbps during hours
of peak usage, and a pre-established usage of 200 hours a year.”
The second category of customers, small- and medium-sized businesses, will
be offered the Infuturo Business ISDN 200 (64Kbps) with IP dynamics and
band disposition of 12Kbps during periods of high traffic. Two hundred
hours of usage also comes with the package. For those requiring greater
online time, the Infuturo Business ISDN 400 is available, which doubles
one’s annual usage time.
Each Infuturo Business product supports industry standard SLIP and PPP
protocol for connecting to Infostrada nodes and guarantees Web navigation,
bidirectional files (ftp), News Group access, and two electronic mail
addresses.
“The agreement with Ingram Micro represents an essential step in
activating our Internet development plan,” said Sandro Marchetti, marketing
director for Infostrada. “We believe strongly in indirect channels of
marketing–for our special offers in the marketplace–to reach professionals. Ingram Micro, with their distribution experience and Internet products, represent an ideal partner for us in reaching this market. We’re convinced that our cooperative efforts will prove beneficial to the customer as well as ourselves.”
Infostrada, a joint venture between Olivetti and Mannesmann, began
operation in 1997 as a fixed network provider of telecommunications
services. The company closed its first year of operation with over 2000
business clients. Infostrada plans to invest nearly one-billion dollars
over the next four years for the development an enhanced infrastructure for
national telecommunications, including high-tech Internet/Intranet
technology.
According to Maurizio Capuzzo, director of marketing for Ingram Micro
Italy, “The selection of Infostrada as a provider of Internet services for
the professional market coincides with our business strategy. We are
looking at two operative phases: the first, to offer Infostrada to all
re-sellers that acquire Ingram Micro products. The second phase, will be to
select a limited group of operators in the position to offer a base of
high-level, professional clients. These will be certified as Infostrada
dealers through Ingram Micro.”
A California-based corporation, Ingram Micro has 31 affiliate offices
around the world, distributing more than 145,000 products to over 100,000 re-sellers in 120 countries.
