Written by Arunas Chesonis

Today, PAETEC and Cavalier Telephone have become one. This is a momentous day for our two companies, but more importantly, I believe we each are stronger and better positioned to serve your business than ever before in our combined history.

Eight years ago, I wrote a blog like this one that compared us telecom carriers vying for your business to the opening tip-off before a basketball game. It's at that moment when each team has an identical opportunity and the ball goes to the team which better anticipates and jumps higher. Likewise, in telecom we all had the similar routers, switches and servers, and the jump ball was open to anyone who worked harder to serve you.

Today, I believe the industry has further evolved, and we have developed such advantages in serving your organization that would make that analogy of a game-opening tip-off unfair. In fact, when we offer our unique brand of software, hardware, energy and financing solutions, it's like we're approaching the jump-ball while standing on a ladder.

Now that PAETEC and Cavalier have combined, our advantages to serve you have become even more distinct. Together, we now have one of the largest fiber networks of any competitive carrier, which will offer new options for network access. Our equipment subsidiary, Quagga, has developed complete IP-based solutions to make your business communications easier and more powerful than ever before. Our PBX manufacturing subsidiary, Allworx, is building what we believe to be the most complete IP-based telecom solutions for a small business. And our telecom expense management software suites, PAETEC's PINNACLE and Cavalier's Compco, are combining to reduce costs and increase efficiency for your telecom and IT organization.

And of course, layered over all of those products is an employee base nearly 5,000 strong focused on delivering unmatched service.

Today, we're larger and stronger than ever before, but will strive to earn your business with all the same passion that we did when our companies started. Welcome to the new PAETEC.