Author: Deirdre Forcier

SLICFiber® Expands Network Capacity Tenfold Through Strategic Integration With Westelcom

Written by Deirdre Forcier on May 30, 2025. Posted in Uncategorized. No Comments on SLICFiber® Expands Network Capacity Tenfold Through Strategic Integration With Westelcom

Major Investment Enhances Reliability and High-Speed Connectivity Across the Adirondacks and North Country

Nicholville, NY – May 1st, 2025 –SLICFiber® is proud to announce the completion of a major network upgrade following its strategic acquisition of and integration with Westelcom. The result of this investment has been significantly enhanced network redundancy and as much as a tenfold increase in network capacity. SLICFiber®’s 100% fiber optic network now supports faster speeds, greater reliability, and stronger performance to homes and businesses across dozens of counties from the Capital Region across Upstate New York and into Montreal.

Delivering Leading-Edge Upload and Download Speed and Dependability

The all-fiber network now also includes private connections to Microsoft, Amazon, and Google’s Cloud platforms, ensuring direct access to enterprise-grade cloud solutions and streaming services. “Nearly anything that households and businesses need to do that requires connectivity can now be done faster and more reliably with SLICFiber®”, said Brad Pattelli, the SLICFiber® Chief Executive.

Empowering Economic Growth and Connectivity

The expanded network capacity is a game-changer for residents, businesses and institutions throughout the Adirondack and North Country region. It will directly support economic development, attract high-tech businesses, and meet the growing demand for high-bandwidth connectivity.

With these enhancements, SLICFiber® continues to invest in underserved communities, to provide local customer care that treats you like family, and to solidify its position as Upstate New York’s fastest-growing Internet service provider.

Strengthening Local Communities & Businesses

This expansion supports families, schools, businesses, healthcare facilities, and municipalities by ensuring they have access to fast, dependable Internet. Whether for remote work, online learning, telehealth, or entertainment, SLICFiber®’s upgraded network provides the speed and reliability people need in their everyday lives.

Leadership Perspective

Kevin Lynch, Chief Operating Officer SLICFiber® emphasized the significance of this milestone:

“This substantial investment in our 100% fiber optic network positions SLICFiber® as the leader in delivering fast, reliable broadband access to both households and businesses across Upstate New York. By realizing the synergies of our combined organization, we have been able to leverage our respective strengths to further support our commitment to our mission-critical customers.

Paul Barton, Chief Relationship Officer of SLICFiber® added:

“We are excited to introduce our customers to this next-generation network. Beyond speed and reliability, our focus remains on exceptional customer care to our municipal, education, healthcare, small businesses and residential customers alike. This network upgrade is just the beginning. Stay tuned for new and even more exciting announcements as we continue expanding and enhancing our services.”

About SLICFiber®

SLICFiber® is a rapidly expanding, 100% fiber-optic telecommunications provider headquartered in Nicholville, NY and with offices in Watertown and Plattsburgh, NY. The company serves both residential and commercial markets, bridging the digital divide in rural and underserved regions of New York and surrounding areas.

At SLICFiber® our employees are at the heart of our mission. Our company and our customers benefit from hundreds of years of collective experience in delivering innovative and reliable telecommunications services across the New York region. Our culture is collaborative and knowledge-sharing, encouraging growth and excellence.

At SLICFiber® we believe our success is built on and earned by exceeding customer expectations through open communication and a commitment to doing things the right way.

For more information or to learn about our Referral Agent Program or our Winner Winner Program, visit www.slicfiber.com or call our customer care team at 833-301-7542.

Media Contact:

Tony Lent | Chief Growth Officer, SLICFiber

📧 alent@slicfiber.com

📞 248-974-5428

Teo UC Releases Major Software Update

Written by Deirdre Forcier on April 4, 2022. Posted in Uncategorized. No Comments on Teo UC Releases Major Software Update

Everett, WA – Teo, a Westelcom Unified Communications (UC) platform solution, recently announced the completion of its “Royale Project”, a major upgrade on the platform, completing a full refresh of user and administrator interfaces.

The original Teo UC interfaces were built on legacy technologies, with limited support for mobile devices and modern browser features. While fully featured and capable, it was built with specific targets for where and when it would be used. While Teo had built and deployed HTML5 based interfaces starting in 2020, all versions prior to Royale still included a full version of the legacy portal as well. The expectations and requirements of users have changed since the original Teo UC interface was designed in 2009. While Teo was building new portals to provide better support for mobile, enhanced features, and more performant interfaces, the need to support the legacy portal at the same time constrained what they could offer and support.

The Royale upgrade (Version 5.60) is the first UC release without any legacy interfaces, allowing for enhanced performance, accessibility, and capabilities. System configuration features, including time settings, email notifications, and security settings are now managed independently from one another, allowing for easier changes that are less likely to be service impacting. New features include a SIP interface making it easier to manage independent SIP trunk configurations. Time, security, and notification settings can now be managed independent of the network configuration with a new dedicated screen for managing users not associated with an extension.

“While this update provides improvements for all users of Teo UC systems, the features in this update will be especially impactful for partners and customers using our on-premises solutions. ” states Garrett Allen, Director of Product for Teo UC.

Westelcom will be holding weekly Teo UC training sessions for partners to learn more about the platform and become subject matter experts when selling it.

Please contact Deirdre MacNerland with any questions or to be added to the weekly training sessions.

Marketing Director

dmacnerland@westelcom.net

Westelcom to Host 3rd Annual Charity Kickball Tournament

Written by Deirdre Forcier on June 9, 2021. Posted in Blog. No Comments on Westelcom to Host 3rd Annual Charity Kickball Tournament

Westelcom, a provider of advanced telecommunications solutions, has announced that it will host their Kickin’ IT for a Cause kickball tournament to support the Watertown Family YMCA’s Transforming Our Community For Generations Capital Campaign to create a new Watertown Family YMCA in downtown Watertown.

The Transforming our Community for Generations Capital Campaign project represents the vision of the Watertown Family YMCA to be the premier organization offering healthy lifestyle programming for all ages, while supporting initiatives designed to enhance the YMCA’s position as a family-centered organization accessible to all. The Watertown Family YMCA, through quality programs, provides for the strengthening of families, the healthy development of children, positive individual behaviors, and a healthy, safer community for all. These programs emphasize caring, respect, honesty, character building, fun and friendship. The YMCA is a charitable organization which creates a sense of community through involving individuals and families of all ages, gender, ability, income and race.

Now open for registration, the tournament will be held on Saturday, September 18that the Cerow Recreation Park in Clayton. Check-in begins at 9 am with kick-offs to follow at 10 am. The tournament is open to the public and will be split into a competitive division and a family fun recreational division.

Paul Barton, President of Westelcom commented, “We support the YMCA’s vision of providing healthy lifestyle programming for all ages throughout the greater Watertown area. There is a $300 minimum team donation to enter the tournament. Barton added, “We hope that players of all ages will enter to help raise funding for this very important capital campaign.” There will be awards for the top three teams in each division and the team that has the highest charitable contribution. To add another element of excitement Westelcom will be recognizing the team with the best use of costumes.

To register go to www.westelcom.com/kickball or email jvanhoesen@westelcom.net or Jill Van Hoesen at 315.755.3929. Registration is now open.

To learn more about the Transforming our Community for Generations Capital Campaign project go to: https://www.watertownymca.org/capitalcampaignvideo

About Westelcom

Westelcom is a provider of advanced telecommunications solutions operating throughout Northern New York’s region between Lake Ontario and Lake Champlain. Westelcom offers a strategic suite of business communication services over their fiber network which includes telephone, long distance, high-speed broadband, dedicated internet, and private Ethernet networks for multi-office connectivity. The company also provides advanced IP phone and data solutions to include hosted PBX, hosted firewall, server colocation, and carrier neutral colocation services to businesses and enterprise clients.
As a leading carrier of telecommunications services, Westelcom has extensive expertise in serving the health care industry to include providing managed internet services to two regional telemedicine networks, 9 regional hospitals and over 120 medical facilities. Their Mission is to exceed customers’ expectations by providing excellent customer service in communications solution design, delivery and support. Westelcom can be reached at www.westelcom.com or 866.482.5427.

About Watertown Family YMCA:

As a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, the Y provides crucial programs and services to more than 230,000 people every year. With the help of generous donors, we are able to provide more than 250 homeless youth safe, stable housing, 115,000 healthy meals to school-age youth, and more than $9.5 million in financial assistance to more than 27,000 people to ensure everyone has a chance to succeed and belong at the Y.

Jill VanHoesen
Director of Business Development
315.755.3929
jvanhoesen@westelcom.net

Deirdre MacNerland
Director of Marketing
518.825.1142
dmacernland@westelcom.net

Westelcom Announces Business Voice for Microsoft Teams

Written by Deirdre Forcier on May 1, 2021. Posted in Blog. No Comments on Westelcom Announces Business Voice for Microsoft Teams

Watertown, NY, April, 12, 2021

Westelcom, formerly a regional N.Y state communications provider and more recently national provider of mission-critical communications solution, announced their direct-routing capability to Microsoft Teams. This new capability enables organizations to scale and deliver work-from-anywhere in a hybrid remote worker environment.  Westelcom Business Voice for Microsoft Teams delivers an enterprise-class and easy-to-administer global voice solution for IT leaders while keeping the Microsoft Teams experience unchanged for end users.

As the business landscape continues to evolve, driven by a rise in demand for remote and mobile working opportunities, solutions like Microsoft Teams have never been more prevalent. Companies have seen the value of having collaboration tools at the center of their communication stack, but Teams isn’t just a place to chat and share files. Business leaders are also looking for a way to combine their Teams experience with business phone demands too.

Westelcom Business Voice for Microsoft Teams is a powerful integration between Westelcom’ s cloud-native Business Voice and the Microsoft Teams collaboration platform. It allows users to optimize productivity with seamless calling from within the Microsoft Teams application via Westelcom’ s cloud-based, direct routing integration. Features and benefits of Westelcom’ s Business Voice for Microsoft Teams include:

Make and receive calls using Microsoft Teams Softphone Via Mobile & Desktop Clients
Call Extensions & PSTN Numbers Using Teams Dialpad
Receive Calls From PSTN
Use all call handling features available in Teams platform

Click To Dial From Microsoft Apps For Team Users
Supports Speed Dials, Contacts & Call History
Eliminate on-premises equipment 
Benefit from built-in security and control
Reduce or increase the number of lines you need month to month

Consolidate your conferencing tools
Give your employees a consistent user experience

Westelcom’s Business Voice for Microsoft Teams can be leveraged on any PC, Mac, or mobile device. Designed to ensure businesses have everything they need for effortless communications, the Professional Bundle for Microsoft Teams allows companies to maximize their investment with Microsoft Teams.

“This will enable organizations to operate in the post-Covid environment seamlessly tying together remote workers and offices with Voice, Video, Data collaboration capabilities” stated Paul Barton, Westelcom President.

“Microsoft Office 365 is prevalent in the work force. We are excited to be able to combine our voice services and integrate with teams to enhance communication and extend our capabilities.”
Eric Svenson, Vice President of Carrier Engineering and lead of product roll-out.