Optimize Your Business Communication with Call One Solutions
Call One provides managed communications, connectivity, and collaboration solutions for mid-market and enterprise businesses seeking a single-source technology partner.
Overview
Call One is a leading provider of managed communications and technology solutions, specializing in helping mid-market and enterprise organizations simplify their digital transformation. Founded in 1992 and headquartered in Chicago, the company has evolved from a traditional telecommunications reseller into a sophisticated managed services provider (MSP) focusing on connectivity, cloud communications, and network security.
The company serves a diverse range of industries, including healthcare, professional services, manufacturing, and government. Call One’s primary mission is to solve the complexity of modern business technology by providing a single point of contact for a wide array of services. Their portfolio includes:
- Cloud Communications: UCaaS, CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service), and hosted voice solutions.
- Connectivity: Fiber internet, Ethernet, and diverse broadband options.
- Managed Networks: SD-WAN, managed Wi-Fi, and network security protocols.
- Professional Services: Strategic IT consulting, project management, and ongoing technical support.
With over three decades of experience, Call One has built a significant market presence by acting as a strategic intermediary between major global carriers and the end-user. This allows them to leverage the infrastructure of large providers while delivering the personalized service and customized engineering of a local partner. Their focus remains on reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) for clients while increasing network reliability and employee productivity.
Positioning
Call One positions itself as the "Strategic Alternative" to massive, impersonal national telecommunications carriers. Their market strategy is built on the premise that while large carriers provide the "pipes," they often fail at providing the service and customization required by modern enterprises. Call One occupies the middle ground, offering the scale and reliability of a global network with the responsiveness of a local managed service provider.
Their messaging focuses on three primary pillars:
- Simplicity: Positioning themselves as the "one back to pat" (or "one throat to choke"), they emphasize the elimination of vendor sprawl and the consolidation of complex billing.
- Advocacy: Call One positions its experts as client advocates who navigate the complex landscape of carriers and technologies to find the most efficient and cost-effective solutions.
- Agility: Unlike the bureaucratic hurdles associated with tier-one providers, Call One highlights its ability to design, deploy, and support custom solutions rapidly.
In a competitive landscape filled with automated "self-service" platforms, Call One intentionally leans into its human-centric brand positioning. They target IT directors and C-suite executives who are frustrated by the lack of accountability and technical expertise provided by their current service providers. By focusing on "Managed Connectivity," they differentiate themselves from pure-play software vendors by owning the underlying network performance that those software applications depend on.
Differentiation
The core of Call One’s product differentiation is its "Single Source" platform, which integrates voice, data, and cloud services into a unified management framework. Unlike providers that offer a closed ecosystem, Call One’s technical advantage lies in its vendor-neutral approach. They curate and manage a best-of-breed technology stack—including SD-WAN, Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS), and high-speed fiber—tailored to the specific geographic and technical requirements of the client.
Key product-level differentiators include:
- Managed SD-WAN & Connectivity: Their solutions offer intelligent path selection and real-time monitoring, ensuring that mission-critical cloud applications remain performant even during network fluctuations.
- Interoperability: Call One excels at bridging legacy infrastructure with modern cloud solutions, allowing companies to migrate at their own pace without operational disruption.
- Consolidated Billing and Analytics: One of their strongest technical advantages is the ability to aggregate disparate services across multiple locations into a single, transparent dashboard. This provides IT leaders with granular visibility into spend and usage patterns that are often obscured in complex enterprise environments.
- Customized UCaaS Deployments: Rather than a one-size-fits-all software package, Call One designs communication workflows that integrate directly with existing CRM and ERP systems, enhancing the ROI of the software stack.
Ideal Customer Profile
The ideal Call One customer is a mid-market to enterprise-level organization (typically 50 to 5,000 employees) that operates across multiple locations. They are often in highly regulated or high-uptime industries such as healthcare, finance, professional services, or retail.
Key Characteristics:
- Complexity: Managing multiple carriers, diverse contracts, and varied hardware across different branches.
- Technical Maturity: Seeking to move from legacy "dial tone" to integrated cloud communications but lacking the internal bandwidth to manage the migration alone.
- Budget: Mid-range to premium; they value service, reliability, and "one throat to choke" over the absolute lowest commodity price.
- Team: A small-to-medium IT team that needs to offload tactical telecom management to focus on strategic business initiatives.
Best Fit
Call One excels in the following scenarios:
- Multi-Location Management: Companies with dozens or hundreds of satellite offices, retail locations, or clinics that struggle with disparate billing and varying service quality across regions.
- The 'Lean IT' Organization: IT teams that are overstretched and need an external partner to handle the 'heavy lifting' of carrier negotiations, circuit installations, and ongoing MACD (Move, Add, Change, Delete) tickets.
- Legacy-to-Cloud Transitions: Businesses still reliant on PRI/POTS lines that need a phased, low-risk migration path to UCaaS or SD-WAN without losing connectivity during the process.
- Complex Billing Environments: Organizations spending hours manually reconciling telecom invoices from multiple carriers; Call One’s consolidated billing solves this administrative burden.
Offerings
Call One offers several tiers and packages tailored to business size and complexity:
- Cloud Communications: Hosted PBX, UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service), and CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service) tailored for remote and hybrid work.
- Connectivity Solutions: Dedicated Internet Access (DIA), Broadband, 4G/5G Wireless Failover, and Ethernet Private Lines.
- Managed Network: SD-WAN as a Service, Managed Firewall, and Endpoint Security.
- Strategic Consulting: Telecom audits, contract negotiation, and technology roadmap development.
- Hardware-as-a-Service (HaaS): Options to lease or finance desk phones, conference room equipment, and networking gear to avoid large CAPEX outlays.
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Introduction
Evaluating a telecommunications and technology partner requires looking beyond simple hardware costs to the long-term value of management and support. Call One is a leading managed technology solutions provider that specializes in simplifying the complex world of connectivity, communications, and collaboration. By acting as a single point of contact for nationwide carrier services, cloud communications, and network security, Call One helps mid-market and enterprise organizations reduce operational friction.
This guide provides a deep dive into Call One’s offerings, ranging from consolidated billing and circuit management to advanced UCaaS and SD-WAN deployments. IT leaders will learn how to assess Call One’s fit for their specific infrastructure needs, understand the implementation roadmap, and evaluate the business requirements necessary to transition from fragmented legacy systems to a unified, managed environment.
Key Features
- Consolidated Billing: Aggregates multiple carrier services into a single, easy-to-read invoice, significantly reducing the administrative burden on accounts payable.
- Carrier Aggregation: Access to a nationwide portfolio of Tier 1 and Tier 2 providers, allowing Call One to source the best price and performance for any geographic location.
- Managed SD-WAN: Centralized control over network traffic to prioritize mission-critical applications (like Voice and Video) while providing automated failover.
- Unified Communications (UCaaS): Feature-rich cloud voice, video conferencing, and messaging solutions that replace aging on-premise PBX hardware.
- Dedicated Account Management: Unlike direct carriers, Call One provides a dedicated point of contact for troubleshooting, scaling, and strategic planning.
- Professional Services: On-site installation, structured cabling, and hardware staging to ensure "white-glove" deployment.
Use Cases
- Retail Expansion: A growing retail chain uses Call One to rapidly provision internet and VoIP at 50 new locations, ensuring each site has identical configurations and a single monthly bill.
- Healthcare Continuity: A regional hospital system implements Call One’s managed SD-WAN to ensure that electronic health record (EHR) traffic is prioritized over guest Wi-Fi, with automatic failover to 4G/5G if the primary fiber is cut.
- Remote Workforce Transition: A professional services firm migrates from an on-premise Mitel system to a Call One UCaaS solution, allowing their 200 employees to use their business lines via mobile apps and laptops.
- Telecom Expense Management (TEM): A manufacturing company with fragmented billing across five states uses Call One to audit their spend, resulting in a 20% cost reduction and consolidated invoicing.
Pricing Models
Call One’s pricing is typically structured around the specific services consumed:
- Subscription-Based (SaaS): Per-user, per-month pricing for UCaaS, CCaaS, and security licenses.
- Monthly Recurring Charges (MRC): Fixed monthly costs for internet circuits, MPLS, or private lines based on bandwidth and SLA.
- Usage-Based: Fees for SIP trunking or long-distance minutes (though many plans are now 'unlimited').
- Non-Recurring Charges (NRC): One-time fees for professional services, installation, hardware purchases, and project management.
- Managed Service Fees: Often bundled into the MRC, covering the cost of 24/7 monitoring and support.
Technical Requirements
- Network Bandwidth: Minimum requirements depend on the number of concurrent UCaaS users (typically 100kbps per voice call).
- Hardware Compatibility: While Call One is vendor-agnostic, preferred hardware includes Poly, Yealink, and Cisco for endpoints, and Meraki or VeloCloud for networking.
- Power/Environment: Adequate rack space and power (UPS recommended) for any on-site managed equipment or SD-WAN appliances.
- Cabling: Cat5e or Cat6 structured cabling is required for modern VoIP and high-speed data delivery.
Business Requirements
To successfully partner with Call One, organizations should meet these prerequisites:
- Stakeholder Alignment: Buy-in from both IT (for technical specifications) and Finance/Procurement (for contract consolidation benefits).
- Process Readiness: A willingness to transition from direct carrier management to a managed service model, which requires updating internal SOPs for reporting outages or requesting new services.
- Inventory Documentation: A baseline understanding of current contracts, circuit IDs, and renewal dates is helpful, though Call One can assist in discovering these.
- Change Management: Staff must be prepared for potential hardware changes (e.g., switching from desk phones to softphones) if migrating to UCaaS.
Implementation Timeline
A typical Call One implementation follows this schedule:
- Discovery & Audit (Weeks 1-3): Analysis of current bills, network architecture, and business requirements. Identification of cost-saving opportunities.
- Solution Design (Weeks 4-5): Engineering the new network or communication stack, selecting carriers, and finalized pricing.
- Procurement & Provisioning (Weeks 6-12+): This phase varies based on carrier lead times (Fiber installs often take 60-90 days, while UCaaS seat licensing takes days).
- Migration/Go-Live (Weeks 13-16): Porting numbers, onsite or remote hardware installation, and testing.
- Post-Implementation Review (Week 17+): First bill reconciliation and transition to ongoing support.
Support Options
Call One distinguishes itself through a high-touch support model:
- 24/7/365 US-Based NOC: A dedicated Network Operations Center monitoring client circuits and responding to alerts in real-time.
- Tiered Support Levels: Standard support for all clients with escalated SLAs available for mission-critical enterprise environments.
- Customer Portal: A centralized dashboard for viewing invoices, opening support tickets, and monitoring circuit status.
- Strategic Reviews: Quarterly or bi-annual business reviews to analyze spend, optimize performance, and plan for future technology needs.
Integration Requirements
Call One focuses on both network and software-level integration:
- UCaaS Integrations: Seamless connectivity between voice services and platforms like Microsoft Teams (Direct Routing/Operator Connect), Salesforce, and HubSpot.
- Network Interoperability: Support for diverse SD-WAN appliances (Velocloud, Cisco Meraki) to integrate with existing LAN environments.
- API Access: Availability of APIs for larger enterprises to pull billing and usage data into internal ERP or ITFM (IT Financial Management) tools.
- SIP Trunking: Ability to integrate modern VoIP services with legacy on-premise PBX systems via gateways.
Security & Compliance
Call One prioritizes network and data integrity through:
- Carrier-Grade Data Centers: Leveraging facilities with SSAE 18 SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type II certifications.
- Network Security: Integrated SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) and firewall-as-a-service options within their SD-WAN offerings.
- HIPAA & PCI Support: Solutions can be architected to meet the stringent privacy and security requirements of healthcare and retail sectors.
- Redundancy: Geographically diverse points of presence (PoPs) to ensure high availability and disaster recovery.
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