Telecom has changed. Not overnight, but fast enough that a lot of MSPs are still adjusting to it.
A few years ago, telecom was something you might layer in, maybe VoIP or a UCaaS resale agreement on the side, and billing was manageable because volumes were low and expectations were simple.
Now it’s part of the core offering.
MSPs are bundling voice, connectivity, and IT into a single relationship. They own the customer, the experience, and increasingly the revenue that comes with it.
That shift has opened up a real opportunity for recurring revenue and margin expansion, but it has also exposed something most MSPs didn’t fully anticipate: Telecom billing doesn’t behave like standard MSP billing.
Once you start scaling, you feel it pretty quickly – usage data doesn’t quite line up, taxes get more complicated than expected, and reconciliation takes longer than it should. Finance teams end up spending time chasing accuracy instead of focusing on growth.
That’s the backdrop we’re walking into this spring.
Datagate will be at three major industry events over a few weeks:
Different audiences, different regions, but the same conversations tend to come up in each place: How do you grow telecom revenue without creating operational friction in billing?
Why Telecom Billing Becomes the Problem
Most MSPs don’t struggle to sell telecom anymore. That part has matured.
Where things start to break down is after the sale.
Telecom introduces a layer of complexity that most PSA and accounting systems were never built to handle. Call detail records, usage-based billing, bundled services with overages, mid-cycle changes, and telecom-specific taxes all sit outside the typical MSP billing model.
So teams improvise.
They build workarounds, they export and import data between systems, they rely on spreadsheets or try to stretch their PSA further than it was designed to go. For a while, it works well enough…. Then the business grows.
That’s usually when the cracks start to show, with billing cycles taking longer and errors starting to creep in. Customers begin asking more questions about invoices. Internal teams spend more time reconciling than they expected.
At that point, billing stops being a background process and starts affecting how fast the business can actually scale.
What Telecom Billing Should Look Like Instead
The way to think about this is pretty straightforward.
Telecom billing shouldn’t sit off to the side. It should connect directly into the systems an MSP already relies on.
It should take raw telecom usage data, handle the rating, apply the correct taxes, generate invoices, and push everything cleanly into the PSA, accounting platform, and payment systems without manual intervention.
That’s where Datagate fits.
It acts as the bridge between telecom data and the rest of the MSP stack. It handles usage rating, bundles, and telecom tax compliance, then feeds accurate billing data into the systems your business already uses.
There’s no need to replace your PSA or accounting tools. The goal is to make telecom billing work inside that ecosystem, not alongside it.
The result is less time spent fixing invoices, more confidence in billing accuracy, and a billing process that can actually keep up as the business grows.
Three Events, One Ongoing Conversation
This spring, we’re bringing those conversations to three very different events.
Each one has its own focus and audience, but the same underlying theme tends to come up. MSPs want to expand telecom revenue without increasing the operational load that comes with it.
CPExpo
April 13–16, 2026 | The Venetian, Las Vegas | Booth 1462
Channel Partners Expo is one of the largest channel events in the industry. You get a mix of MSPs, agents, VARs, and vendors all in one place, most of them focused on growth, partnerships, and new service opportunities.
Telecom is a big part of that, and you see a wide range of maturity levels in the room. Some MSPs are just starting to explore telecom services, while others are already deep into UCaaS and trying to make their billing processes more efficient, but the same topic tends to come up once you get into the details: billing is harder than most expect.
At CPExpo, a lot of the conversations we have are grounded in real scenarios, looking at where billing starts to break down, where time gets lost, and how teams are currently working around it.
This year is also a bit unique for us because Liston Pinto, our Regional Manager for EMEA and APAC, will be attending CPExpo for the first time!
That’s significant because many of our North American customers and partners haven’t had the chance to meet him in person. If you’re operating across regions, or thinking about expanding into new markets, it’s a good opportunity to connect with someone who sees how telecom billing challenges show up globally.
If you’re planning to attend, you can grab a free expo hall pass or discounted access here: https://l.feathr.co/channel-partners-conference-expo-2026-Datagate-Telecom-Billing-r
Vectors
April 26–29, 2026 | Orlando, Florida | Booth 502
Vectors, hosted by SkySwitch, has a different feel.
It’s more focused on the UCaaS ecosystem and partner enablement, so the conversations tend to be less about whether MSPs should offer telecom and more about how to do it in a way that is actually profitable.
Because at this point, selling telecom is not the barrier. Managing it properly is.
At Vectors, we’ll be positioned alongside two key partners: Alternative Payments at booth 501 HaloPSA at booth 503
Datagate will be right between them at booth 502.
That setup gives MSPs a chance to see how the full workflow connects across PSA, billing, and payments. Not as separate tools that need to be stitched together, but as a connected process that runs through the business.
If you’ve tried to piece these systems together manually, you already know how complicated that can get. Vectors is one of the few environments where you can see how it works when everything is aligned, and have conversations with all three vendors in one place.
➡️ 💳 Learn more about the Datagate x Alternative Payments integration here.
➡️ 🪽 Learn more about the Datagate x HaloPSA integration here.
MSP Show
May 13–14, 2026 | ExCeL London | Booth 944
The MSP Show in London tends to bring a more operational audience. MSP owners, finance leaders, and billing teams who are dealing with these processes every month.
The questions are more direct:
- Why does telecom billing take so long?
- Why is reconciliation still so manual?
- Why don’t invoices always match what’s in the PSA?
- And usually, how do we fix this without having to overhaul everything?
Mark Loveys and Liston Pinto will be at booth 944, working through those conversations.
In addition to that, Mark will be part of the MSP Show Hot Topics sessions, which run every hour as discussion-style roundtables.
His session focuses on: Why Telecom Billing and Reconciliation Are the Recurring Revenue MSPs Are Missing.
It’s not a presentation in the traditional sense. It’s a practical discussion based on what MSPs are actually experiencing right now, especially when telecom starts becoming a meaningful part of the business.
Why This Matters Right Now
There’s a broader shift happening underneath all of this.
MSPs are becoming the primary route to market for telecom services, and customers increasingly expect a single provider to handle both IT and communications. That expectation puts more pressure on how services are delivered, billed, and presented.
Billing has to keep up with that.
It needs to be accurate, consistent, and easy for customers to understand. It also needs to reflect everything they’re buying, across IT and telecom, without gaps or confusion between systems.
When billing works well, it supports growth. Invoices go out on time, payments come in faster, and teams spend less time fixing issues.
When it doesn’t, it tends to slow things down in ways that aren’t always obvious at first.
The MSPs that solve this tend to scale more smoothly. The ones that don’t usually feel the friction as they grow.
If You’re Attending
If you’re going to be at CPExpo, Vectors, or the MSP Show, come by and say hello.
Most MSPs we speak to don’t think telecom billing is the issue at first; it usually shows up somewhere else, like slow collections, margin that feels off, or too much time spent reconciling at the end of the month, and when you trace it back, billing is often right in the middle of it.
That’s the kind of conversation we tend to have at these events.
We’ll walk through how telecom billing is set up in your business today, where things tend to break as you scale, and what a cleaner setup actually looks like when everything is connected properly.
Nothing complicated, just a clearer way of thinking about it.
And if nothing else, you’ll probably leave with a better sense of whether your current process is holding you back more than you thought.
If you’d rather lock in time ahead of the event, feel free to reach out to our team at [email protected] and we can set something up.
