M5 Networks, a provider of managed telephony services, is extending its partner program beyond its current 100 local and regional partners to include a handful of national ones.

The new program has already signed two national partners, All Covered and Single Path, that will enable the company to do business in areas that were not previously covered by existing partners. M5 is looking for a total of 8 to 10 national partners by year end.

M5's managed voice services program offers voice and related services that are sold by partners into end user customers and hosted by M5. Services include everything to do with telephony, from voice, to service level agreements, to unified communications. The technology relies on Cisco hardware and a variety of third-party software.

In M5's partner program, MSP voice partners get a source of monthly recurring revenue.

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The new national program will help M5 break into new markets.

"Say we get a lead in San Francisco or California," said Jeff Silbert, vice president of channel and alliances at M5. "We used to turn down leads like this in markets our partners did not cover.  Now we can turn them over to the national partners."

M5 was founded in 2000 under the premise that dealing with the phone company was too hard, and customers would prefer some easier way to get all the services they need, according to Silbert. With that in mind the company built a centralized multi-tenant services offering for voice and related services. 

"It provides non-stop dial tone, even in the worst situations," Silbert said.

M5's service includes deployment, ongoing management and maintenance; business continuity; and on-demand offerings beyond voice for marketing, call center, staffing and client service functions, the company said.