Editorial

Vodia Partner Spotlight: Skyetel

Published on:

December 15, 2021

Founded in 2014, Vodia partner Skyetel is “the telecom company that scares the big guys,” an independent telco with customers in all 50 states and all Canadian provinces. Skyetel maintains a robust network spanning North America that provides true multi-tenancy to resellers. The company’s platform was built for resellers to manage multiple customers from one convenient portal.

Founded in 2014, Vodia partner Skyetel is “the telecom company that scares the big guys,” an independent telco with customers in all 50 states and all Canadian provinces. Skyetel maintains a robust network spanning North America that provides true multi-tenancy to resellers. The company’s platform was built for resellers to manage multiple customers from one convenient portal.

Skyetel’s multi-tenant, SIP trunking platform is configured for resellers to easily connect with Vodia to provision and manage their DID inventory – resellers can take advantage of relationship pricing without any contracts, commitments or upfront fees. The company’s “bring your own PBX” policy enables its resellers but doesn’t compete with them: they Skyetel platform makes it so resellers can easily handle multiple customers from a single, easy-to-use portal.

Prior to Skyetel, Chris Bardos – President of Skyetel and former California State Debate champion – founded SkyeBlue, a successful phone service provider to small- and medium-sized businesses. As a reseller, however, Chris found there weren’t any good carrier-grade, SIP trunk platforms catering to the unique needs of multiple tenant-customers. Chris sold SkyeBlue to focus on serving resellers as a carrier with a completely different approach and, in 2014, he founded Skyetel, a SIP trunk provider with a specific focus on resellers.

In 2016 Skyetel deployed its current next-gen nationwide carrier platform, which has had zero customer-affecting outages since it was deployed; as of 2020, Skyetel was the fastest growing North American carrier deploying its own OCN (622J) coast-to-coast and had developed a reputation for awesome customer service, by reducing average support response time to mere minutes. The company has had 100 percent uptime for seven consecutive years.

Skyetel is as committed to its community as it is to its resellers. The company has won The SW Washington Business Journal Best In Business award four times. In 2018 Skyetel committed to going from “carbon neutral” to “carbon negative,” to offset more carbon than it produces. Skyetel has also partnered with One Tree Planted, a non-profit organization committed to global reforestation – Skyetel has contributed to planting thousands of trees and is a member of Conservation International’s Emerald Circle, a group of donors who have made significant investments in the Conservation International mission.

Like Vodia, Skyetel is a relationship-first company, and its team is what’s propelled the company to its current level of success. Chris Bardos is an entrepreneur and fierce competitor who loves technology – he embodies Mark Twain’s quote, “find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” He absolutely loves what he does. When he’s not running one of America’s most awesome SIP trunk providers, he and his wife relax at their cabin on the coast of northwestern Washington and travel abroad whenever they can in search of fine wines and joie d’vivre.

Like Chris, Brian Smiley, VP, Sales & Marketing, loves what he does, delineating and executing the company’s revenue strategy. A 20+ year resident of Denver, CO, a continuously growing telecom hub, Brian previously worked for Qwest, Level3, Inteliquent and Peerless Network. He built his career as a sales leader on a technical background in quality and sales engineering. Brian most enjoys consultatively sharing what he has learned over two decades in telecom, especially about the reseller market, whether it is with his clients or employees.  An avid boater, lacrosse coach and pilot, he has three children.

Want to find out more about these indefatigable telecom pioneers determined to provide the best service to resellers throughout North America? Contact Brian Smiley, bsmiley@skyetel.com.

Vodia will host a joint webinar with Skyetel on Thursday, 13 January at 1:00 PM EST – this webinar will take resellers through the entire configuration process. Register here: https://my.demio.com/ref/3mqwR2LGEZu5vT06.

Latest Articles

View All

Configuring Emergency Alerts and Notifications with V70 of the Vodia PBX

V70 introduces emergency alerts and notifications designed to ensure critical events are not missed and responses happen immediately. Alerts can be triggered directly by users, delivered across multiple channels including phones, email, mobile apps, and SMS, and can automatically initiate calls to predefined numbers. Administrators have full control over how alerts are configured, enabling consistent, reliable handling of incidents across real-world, multi-tenant environments.

March 26, 2026

Vodia V70: WhatsApp Business Calling and Messaging Integration

Vodia V70 integrates WhatsApp Business calling and messaging directly into the PBX, allowing businesses to manage voice and customer conversations from a single platform. With native SIP integration, WhatsApp calls are routed to extensions, queues, or IVRs without middleware, reducing complexity and eliminating the need for additional gateways. Combined with support for messaging, dashboards, alerts, and AI voice agents, V70 brings greater control, scalability, and flexibility to real-world communication environments.

March 24, 2026

Vodia PBX V70: New Admin Interface, AI Voice Agents, and Scalable Multi-Tenant Performance

Vodia PBX V70 introduces a redesigned admin interface, multi-core scalability supporting more than a thousand concurrent calls per server, and integrated AI voice agents for both inbound and outbound communication. Reusable AI templates make automation easier to deploy, while snapshots and centralized provisioning reduce operational risk. With custom dashboards, emergency alerts, and WhatsApp Business integration, V70 provides greater control and flexibility for real-world deployments.

March 19, 2026