Helping small businesses connect

DENNIS DIBATTISTA, left, president, and Edward McConnell, director of applications development, at General Packet, a small tech firm in Pawtucket that specializes in IP services and private-label broadband services for businesses. /
DENNIS DIBATTISTA, left, president, and Edward McConnell, director of applications development, at General Packet, a small tech firm in Pawtucket that specializes in IP services and private-label broadband services for businesses. /

Two trends have transformed telecommunications in the last few years: the convergence of voice and data, and the growing use of wireless technology.

Across the nation and around the world, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), WiFi and the availability of more and more public-access networks have made it possible to connect virtually anywhere, anytime – and do so an increasingly inexpensive manner.

General Packet is a company built on those technologies, with a special focus on small and mid-sized businesses and on public-access networks for the hospitality industry.

Founder Dennis diBattista is a veteran of this field, having worked in both competitive telephony and networking since the early 1990s. He was working for QC2, a company he helped found, when he decided to form a new company to focus on VoIP in particular.

- Advertisement -

The owners of QC2 – which has its offices just down the hall from General Packet’s – are from Ireland and didn’t want to pursue VoIP in the United States, diBattista said, but he did.

“We purchased the VoIP assets and a centralized authentication system,” he said.

DiBattista had a specific market in mind. “VoIP is a mature technology, but a developing industry to small and mid-size businesses,” he said. “Pursuing that is what compelled us to keep the momentum going that had started at QC2.”

General Packet developed a line of VoIP products for that market, priced as low as $10 per month plus 3.5 cents per minute, with multiple free extra features such as call retrieval, three-way calling and malicious call tracing – and going up to $61 per month for hosted IP PBX service with almost 40 extra features, including remote-office service and music on hold.

“We can save them 30 to 50 percent from what they pay today, and we can typically give them features that that wouldn’t get or couldn’t find somewhere else,” he said, highlighting some of his personal favorites, such as the ability to map inbound calls to a geographical database to get a better understanding of the customer base.

“We marry network applications with standard functions,” he said. “You don’t find that at Verizon or Cox.”

But General Packet didn’t stop there. It also engineers, installs and manages private-label networks, providing secure ways to combine wired and wireless networks so employees and guests of a company can connect wherever they need, without the risk of a security breach.

And in May, the company acquired Netrisen, which focused exclusively on broadband and WiFi service for the hospitality industry. General Packet now offers this service nationwide.

“Ninety percent of our business originates from outside of Rhode Island,” he said. “There’s just a lot more hospitality on the West Coast, and previous relationships we have also take us outside the state.”

As with VoIP, General Packet’s IRIS service for the hospitality industry comes in multiple packages, from a basic $20 per month for free WiFi service, to higher-end WiMax for monthly subscribers – and plenty of optional features, including blocking of undesirable URLs, a clocking feature that limits access at certain times, and different levels of support.

And as with VoIP, there are business tracking tools as well, such as the ability to track usage of in-store WiFi networks to see how it relates to register sales.

“We provide network tracking and network connectivity usage tracking. We can track usage by day part, so we think of when did a customer come in, when did they connect to the Internet, and how long did they stay?” he said. “Often they have found a positive correlation between WiFi usage and cash register rings.”

But it isn’t just about tracking those sales, he said – it’s also about marketing.

“The benefit of working with us is the customer gets a customized portal, which means it’s their brand in front of the customer who logs onto the service,” he said. “Instead of a T-Mobile hotspot you could have [your own] hotspot. General Packet is very much behind the scenes working with the venue’s brand so that the brand is in front of the customer.”

As for the future of the company, diBattista said he thinks it will continue to play to its strengths, and he expects to keep growing.

“It’s been doing very well, and we’re very happy with the progress to date,” he said. “Broadband on demand and VoIP play very well together, and that’s where we want to stay.”

Company Profile: General Packet
Owners: Dennis diBattista and Thomas Cannon
Type of Business: VoIP services and private-label broadband services
Location: 1005 Main St., Pawtucket (in the Hope Artiste Village)
Employees: 5
Year Established: 2006
Annual Sales: WND

No posts to display