David Byrd
Chief Marketing Officer for ANPI
CloudTC and N-Able Acquired
"Australian-owned IP PBX systems company, Vixtel, has completed the acquisition of Silicon Valley based glass phone developer, CloudTC, for an undisclosed figure,"...
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ProfitBricks: Where InfiniBand Meets Cloud 2.0
In a recent meeting with William Toll and Pete Johnson of ProfitBricks, the pair were ecstatic to explain how their company has...
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Proactive Care Puts Operators One Step Ahead
By Thomas Fuerst, Senior Director, Multimedia Solutions MarketingAlcatel-Lucent
Monitoring and analyzing network data proactively saves operators time, money, and customers.
When a network service fails, it makes headlines, ticks off customers, and costs that network operator money. When a failure is headed off in advance, on the other hand, there might not be praise-laden headlines, but it's newsworthy nonetheless.
The traditional approach to customer care has typically been: a disgruntled customer calls customer service and complains of a service interruption or problem; the rep, learning of it for the first time, sends out a technician the next day, and eventually finds a resolution. Often, customers are left feeling put out, and the operator has spent significant time and money resolving the problem. Even worse is the customer who doesn’t call and just feels this is ‘typical’ of their network experience. That is a customer at risk of leaving.
Proactive care flips this dynamic on its head by using predictive analytics to identify potential outages or errors in the network and stop them before they occur. It consists of three main parts: one, constantly monitoring and measuring data on the network; two, real-time analysis of the data; and three, the most important, acting on that analysis to fix the problem.
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10 Lessons from Volleyball
I've played volleyball for over 25 years. I have traveled around the US to watch the pros live - both indoor...
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Emerging Threats Combats a Million Plus Pieces of New Malware a Week
There are 250,000 plus new pieces of malware being produced each day equating to one piece per person in the US in...
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NFV-Based Software Telcos Need OSS/BSS Interoperability
One of the goals of ETSI NFV is to allow new entrants to provide solutions to carriers based on software instead of...
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SysAid's Lifshitz: The Cloud Will Dominate ITSM Market
Cloud computing has really become a household word with mainstream media outlets running stories on television about the growth in the space...
Full Story »Why Carriers Should Transition to SIP Trunking?
October 15, 2012Carriers benefit from SIP Trunking several ways. First there is the revenue perspective. By offering SIP Trunking services Carriers can provide improved quality of service (both voice quality and service robustness) to their carrier partners and their end users/business customers. It is through the adoption and deployment of SIP Trunking that carriers are able to offer a VoIP service that has availability characteristics of 99.995 and mean opinion score equal to toll service 4.4 out of 5.0.
Inspirational Leadership
October 8, 2012Friday marked one year since Steve Jobs death and, not surprisingly, it provoke commentary and thought about the man, his leadership style and the future of Apple. Initially, I was not going to blog about Steve because I considered that there were plenty of others to do so. However, an article/blog did catch my eye and generate a bit of thought. Kathryn Cave, Editor, IDG Connect authored an article “Steve Jobs: The Model of Inspirational Leadership”.
It's in the Cloud
October 4, 2012As I walked the floor of IT EXPO yesterday, it was almost overwhelming to see the number of cloud-based solutions. The applications, tools, partners and value propositions have become stronger. Alliances between competitors are forming to promote cloud-based solutions, APIs and standards. It is nearly inevitable that a company will implement a major business solution in the cloud over the next few years.
The Cost Benefits of SIP
October 1, 2012This Thursday I will participate in a panel discussion titled “The Conversion from TDM to SIP: Evaluating the Benefits of SIP Trunking” at 3:00 PM during IT EXPO in Austin. Having covered this subject for sometime, I decided to preview my comments in this blog. Friday I addressed some of the issues with SIP Trunking most of which revolve around the loosely defined SIP standard, interoperability testing and bandwidth sizing. Today, however, I want to address cost savings.
The Conversion from TDM to SIP
September 27, 2012Next week I will be on a panel at IT EXPO 2012 discussing the benefits of transitioning from TDM to SIP Trunking. I have spoken on this subject quite often and will dedicate this blog and Monday’s blog to the subject. However, in addition to understanding the benefits of SIP Trunking, it is just as important to appreciate the supposed and real weaknesses of employing SIP Trunking in your communications infrastructure.
Earlier this year I covered the SIP Survey 2012 generated by the SIP School which summarizes the opinions and experiences of more than 400 industry professionals with SIP (Session Initiation Protocol).
Time to Accept Mobility as the Way
September 24, 2012Focusing on the iPhone success misses a larger point. It is not simply the success of Apple or even Samsung, who actually has the larger global market share for smartphones (33% vs. 17%), that is the major business story. The more important story continues to be the migration from desktop devices and PCs to mobile devices and smartphones.
That's Crazy!!
September 20, 2012As I travel for business, I find myself offered the opportunity to access ANPI’s data network or the Internet via Wi-Fi on several airlines. Like most dedicated employees, I do work on airplanes but I have only once paid for the privilege of using an airline’s Wi-Fi service and I am not alone. According to GoGo, one of the providers of such a service, less than 10% of passengers use Wi-Fi on airplanes. Furthermore, as in my case, being able to expense the service does not improve the adoption or penetration rate.
The ILECs and NTCA 2012
September 17, 2012In joining ANPI, I have been reintroduced to the concerns of the smaller independent telephone companies. Although, these companies are labeled as “incumbents”, they are relatively unknown outside of their local areas. Two things are worth noting: these ILECs or RLECs have been affected by the latest FCC reforms on funding and transit rules more than most of us are aware and these same companies must develop business plans that address the technological changes that IP communication affords them. I have addressed the funding reforms put in place by the FCC multiple times and will continue to review the impact of the new rules on our industry.
A Taxing Issue for Broadband and Channel Partners 2012
September 13, 2012A Taxing Issue for Broadband and Channel Partners 2012
Earlier this week the FCC reversed itself and decided not to pursue taxing broadband to supplement the funding of the Universal Service Fund (USF). The USF is funded through taxes on wireline services. Since the use of wireline services is dropping due to increased use of wireless services and applications, the USF has seen its funding strained.
When Rural Becomes Competitive
September 10, 2012The Rural Cellular Association (RCA) has renamed itself the Competitive Carrier Association to create greater synergies to fight AT&T ad Verizon, the two largest wireless carriers in the US. Whereas the RCA saw its initial charter as promoting the interest of small regional wireless carriers, the market has been defined by consolidation. This changed the landscape from wireless carriers categorized as regional and geographically limited in size and scope to nationwide.
When I was with Ericsson in the early 1980s is was very important for carriers to cooperate with roaming agreements and device interoperability.
