ChannelVision Magazine has awarded Marashlian & Donahue, PLLC, The CommLaw Group as a 2025 Visionary Spotlight Award (VSA) winner for Innovation in Regulatory Strategy and Compliance.
This annual competition is designed to highlight the business, service provider and overall contributions to communications and the channel, including products, services, deployments and channel-related achievements across multiple categories.
Each year, ChannelVision's editors and an independent panel of judges evaluate entries based on key categories such as overall innovation, future industry impact, creativity, feature set differentiation, ease of use and interoperability.
Innovation in Regulatory Strategy and Compliance was determined to exemplify aggressive innovation within the communications industry, demonstrating a myriad of opportunities for channel partners to enhance their own roles as trusted partners for business success.
"This was a very competitive year," said ChannelVision president and CEO, Berge Kaprelian. "Despite signs of a tightened economy, we saw organizations placing great value in innovation and market distinction. We applaud our 2025 VSA winners on a job well done."
The firm is being recognized for its pioneering development of the "Carrier of Record" (CoR) model—a breakthrough legal and commercial framework that democratizes access to the highly regulated and heavily taxed communications industry by enabling a fully compliant carrier to partner with smaller—and even micro—retail channels to deliver services to end users. The CoR model relieves retail partners of the burdens of regulatory and tax compliance traditionally associated with telecom resale, while empowering them to sell, support, and cultivate direct customer relationships and earn significantly greater revenue than what is typically available under standard sales agency arrangements.
The CoR model was created to address a longstanding challenge in the telecom industry: how to empower new market entrants and small retail distribution partners to offer regulated communications services without taking on the full weight of the U.S. telecom market's complex, costly, and burdensome compliance obligations. Historically, providers have been forced into one of two boxes—either as fully regulated and taxed telecom service providers, or as unregulated sales agents with limited revenue potential and minimal ongoing customer engagement.
Conceptualized and developed by The CommLaw Group, the CoR model introduces a legally defensible third path. Under this structure, a registered, authorized, and fully compliant service provider—the Carrier of Record—assumes full responsibility for all regulatory, tax, and remittance obligations. Meanwhile, Retail Partners maintain direct customer relationships and may, depending on the arrangement, take on billing and front-line support responsibilities. The model also enables them to realize significantly greater revenue through enhanced margins, rather than being limited to traditional commission-based compensation.
"We're proud to be recognized for our visionary role in developing the Carrier of Record model," said Jonathan S. Marashlian, Managing Partner. "The CoR framework has become an essential tool for emerging providers seeking to scale without regulatory paralysis. It offers clarity, scalability, and compliance confidence to a market that desperately needed a new approach."
"We believe this model helps level the playing field," Marashlian added. "It allows smaller players with strong customer relationships to participate in the telecom economy without falling into the traps that come with trying to be a carrier in name only."
Now gaining traction across the VoIP, UCaaS, CPaaS, IoT, and wireless sectors, the CoR model is empowering new market entrants to scale their businesses confidently within a robust and legally sound compliance framework. However, Marashlian also issued a caution:
"The CoR model is not, however, risk-free. Our firm has already seen companies attempt to replicate the model based on our early white papers, but with critical compliance elements missing. Providers who want to do it right—and safely—should consult experienced telecom counsel. Cutting corners here could have serious consequences."