On Rad's Radar?

There are a bunch of debates raging over the telecommunications infrastructure. 

Congress has looked at Open Access bills for cellular networks. By this we mean that a consumer can use any available handset or device on any cell network. This is kind of the Carterphone concept for cellular.

The 700 MHz auction had open access provisions built right in, so VZW's 4G/LTE network will need to incorporate Open Access.

Spectrum is a finite resource. TV, radio, public safety and the cell companies all share access to various licensed spectrums. Other companies, like oil companies to communicate with rigs and ships, have purchased spectrum licenses. There is also the unlicensed bands like 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz, and 3650 MHz that are shared by any and all. We are seeing in the 2.4 GHz band that too much usage causes crowding and in some cases makes the spectrum useless. (Your little blue Linksys wireless AP's use 2.4 GHz, as does quite a few cordless phones and other consumer products). As more and more products and consumers go cordless and wireless, this resource will be used up. It must be allocated better. 

(An aside: Open Access has one advantage: less handsets in the landfill.)

Net Neutrality is based on network management. Both cable and DSL have bottleneck issues in your community. To manage those issues, the service provider uses tools, hardware and software, to prioritize traffic. This same set of tools can be used to degrade Vonage while prioritizing the ISP's VoIP service offering. These same tools can be used for DPI (deep packet inspection) to read every unencrypted packet that passes through the box. This same tool can be used to police the network (or Internet) of child porn, illegal downloads, and the like. Do we really want that kind of Big Brother action? 

At the heart of the NN debate is the fact that a few ISP's have degraded VoIP packets and legitimate P2P (peer-to-peer file-sharing) traffic. As networks go all IP, there needs to be a set of guidelines for peering traffic and network management. I don't think the FCC or Congress should be the ones making these rules. Any rules they come up with will be a compromise that will ultimately solve nothing, but create new problems.

The final debate in DC is about Fair Competitive Access to the telco infrastructure. After court rulings and Forbearance petitions in 2004-06, CLEC's and ISP's have been losing ground in the ability to get access to telco network elements to provide service to customers at a fair and competitive price. In so many cases, the CLEC "wholesale" rate is higher than retail. Make sense? Docket 05-25 at the FCC is the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Special Access Rates. 

While they may seem similar in that they are all about access to the network, they all are about different aspects of the network access. In the end, Open Access Rules and Net Neutrality guideleines will define how we use the networks for innovation, collaboration and communication.

American Tower is buying 196 Towers from Cincinnati Bell (CellNews)-- Outsourcing of Network Infrastructure continues.

Mobile Backhaul Equipment Market to Jump 60% in 2009 to $5.9 Billion (CellNews) Qwest and cable companies are all over fiber backhaul from cell towers. More smartphones means more bandwidth needed from each cell site - and NxT1 won't cut it. Using wireless backhaul won't either as the big boys don't want to use Unlicensed nor use up their precious paid-for spectrum on backhaul.

Pay As You Go Mobile Broadband Overtakes Contract Deals, according to CellNews. Boost Mobile all-you-can-eat-text-web-talk-for-$50 is not good for T-Mobile or VZW. Ma Bell still leaning heavily on iPhone. When exclusivity ends, they will be in big trouble if they don't fix things now - and suing VZW over ads isn't going to help fix what ails you, especially when you lose the first court battle. No injunction granted, because "ATT doesn't argue that the maps are incorrect in terms of showing its 3G coverage. But it says that Verizon is misleading customers by implying that they cannot use their phones or access the mobile Web when they aren't in 3G coverage areas. The reality is that customers can make phone calls and access the Internet from their phones using the company's slower EDGE or GPR networks."

Key investor is opposed to Sprint purchasing the thorn in the side affiliate, iPCS.

Unions push to organize T-Mobile USA employees, according to FierceWireless. That's funny because the old SNET company union workers can't get Ma Bell execs to talk to them. And this isn't a time in American economic history to be a worker looking to unionize. You should be helping your company stay afloat so you still have a job -- and your pensions aren't wiped out when your former company files Bankruptcy. Foolish greed.

"Niche groups are emerging as cultural creators" - Frank Cooper of PepsiCo at AMEX Innovation Summit.

Tom Peters has been talking about businesses aiming at the explosively growing Hispanic market as well as targeting female shoppers for years. I guess Pepsi finally listened.

At Broadsoft Connections I made the comment that a Bundle will need to be created to target a specific vertical (or niche). Not everyone agreed with me. But according to Seth Godin, Coca-Cola Japan comes out with a new product every 3 weeks because they have no idea what will work.

Are you experimenting with your marketing? Your bundles? 

Are you targeting Everybody? I hope not because Everybody does not know you. Qualified prospects will react more positively to a specified offer. 

Seth Godin wrote Permission Marketing in 1999. Ten years later, most media companies don't understand the concept still. As Seth explains in the book and in his blog numerous times, when I give you my email address, it is a trust issue. I trust that you will not spam me; inundate me with off-topic email; and most importantly not sell my email address to third parties -- even if they are your partners. 

All too often, when I sign up for an event, I get inundated with email from the vendors of the event. This irks me for a number of reasons, but mostly because I did not give my email address to them.

This is a failure on so many levels. The media company has a database of email addresses that are mostly "junk". By that I mean. yahoo, hotmail, and the like. That means they are likely not sending email that will not be read.

An advertiser is paying to send an email that will be likely read. It does no good to pay for 5000 emails if 4500 of them are worthless, unopened, bounced or sitting in an email box that gets opened infrequently.

By the way, the CAN-SPAM Act is one thing, but your media company brand gets destroyed by these kind of hijinks. Act accordingly.

Listened to XO to introduce Enterprise SIP (ESIP) to the Channel today. This offering is very targeted. Enterprise SIP is designed for multi-location customers such as Retail and Restaurant chains that are looking to get rid of PRI's.  

ESIP will be for high capacity connections with the minimum connection of 10MB at the hub (or HQ) for aggregated voice traffic. 

Essentially it is a SIP trunk (at 10MB) that will take all of the local and long distance traffic - inbound and outbound - from the branch offices across an MPLS (or other private network) through one or two hub circuits. 

Here's how it works.

You connect all of the offices together via a private network or MPLS architecture. Then you port all of the numbers to the SIP Trunking of XO's Enterprise SIP Service. The trunk will plug into an IP-PBX or an SBC and handle all of the voice traffic on the company network. All inbound and outbound voice traffic will utilize the ESIP Trunk.

A 10MB pipe will handle about 100 G.711 call streams (more or less). That means about 500 to 1000 extensions depending on the phone usage of the employees.

XO will even give Virtual-NXX numbers off this trunk. Although toll bypass is not allowed. 

The thing that surprised me the most was how specific the offering is. It's isn't for everyone. It was designed with a very particular market segment in mind - namely retail and restaurant chains.

The ESIP offering is designed to terminate on a Session Border Controller, IP-PBX or a Fax Server. 

Need to UPDATE that this is my take-away from the call. XO has many VoIP products and they want to match up the best solution for each customer. The ESIP is specifically for Multi-Location, MPLS-enabled customers. Not many companies need or can afford a Session Border Controller, so to me that is an indicator of the type of Enterprise that this offering i sdesigned for.

Speaking with Peter Davis, Partner Channel Manager in the Southeast for XO, about MPLS and HIPAA. XO recently held a webinar describing how their MPLS Solution can enable healthcare organizations to be HIPAA compliant.

The wording here is important. Transport is neither compliant or not. It is the end devices and users that must be HIPAA compliant. In other words, how the data is handled end-to-end has to be compliant, not the pieces and parts. 

When speaking with Hospital HIPAA Administrators it is important to remember that part of compliance is security and part is procedure. The procedure part has to do with how all medical records (physical and virtual) are handled and secured, whether on-premise, in transit, at a data center, ona  server or in a file cabinet.

With off-site data storage, the best solution for access is a private line, a Layer 2 VPN, or an MPLS network. Why? Segmentation of traffic. Security of data flow. Less chance for a lapse in security. 

The data needs to be securely stored and backed up. EMR firms have to sell a fairly expensive proposition due to all the safeguards and redundancy that goes with accessing medical records from a remote server. 

In many ways, the telecom agent can sell numerous pieces of the puzzle through XO (or other carriers or VAR's). 

• The transport - private line, metro Ethernet, Layer 2 VPN, or MPLS.
• The data center - collocation for servers and networking gear
• Data storage and backup

HIPAA is more involved with procedures in place (and to be followed) on the storage, access and security of medical records  than on the technology used to secure, store or transport those same medical records.

If you are looking for more info on MPLS, XO has an MPLS video series on YouTube and TCA has a stored webinar for its members on its website.

AT&T cancelled their CallVantage service. It will go dark on Nov. 20th. The porting process is probably the most painful part of changing service. If you are a licensed CLEC, it is a little easier. If you are a VoIP Provider relying on another carrier to LNP for you, you have to set expectations for the porting. And by that I don't mean blow smoke up my tush by telling me it could take 45-60 days. Sure that can happen, but I haven't seen that time frame in a while.

One of my clients who took over my VZ number ported it in 3 days. Bang! Done! And that's against VZ, one of the worst possible feet dragging, no-one-home LEC's. 

Do you know what On-boarding is? Personnel departments use the term to mean when you bring on a new employee. The process involves getting them email addresses, ID's, parking, a desk, badge, orientation, training, benefits, etc. Most larger corporations have a written procedure in place for on-boarding. Why is it important? Because the first impression the new hire gets is day 1. All to often Day 1 is a mess for the new hire. No desk. No computer. No contact or introductions. Welcome aboard!

Is that what you do to your customers? Because the on-boarding of a new customer is very important too. It's their first impression of your company's ability to provide service. Imagine how that feels when the customer gets no status update for a month. The porting happens suddenly and without warning. Or worse doesn't happen for a long time. (Long is relative). 

Did you map out the PBX extensions? Did you check inside wiring and the LAN design? Are the phones programmed? When will staff training occur on how to use the new system, voicemail and handsets? Is there a manual or a wiki?

These are the basics of the on-boarding process. LNP is just a part of it.

I received an email yesterday through my website contact form. From Dennis  asking me if I was a direct agent for Paetec. (I'm not; I sub through Microcorp). I reply that I am a sub-agent and ask why. His reply: "Because I'm an agent for PaeTec and I'd like to talk to you about our sub-agent program."

I explain I already am a sub-agent. His response: "I understand that and am interested in your commission structure. I'll cal anyway if you don't mind."

The fact is I did mind. I hate this crap in our industry. I email him that I think poaching agents is not very nice and that as a founding member of an agent association, TCA, I feel that integrity and ethics are an important foundation of The Channel. His reply: "For the record, I was not poaching other people's agents, I happen to see you web site and noticed the PaeTec representation so i thought I'd introduce myself. Besides that, I didn't know it was unethical to solicit other peoples agents; I thought that was what most would consider the free market system. Thanks your your input anyway; I was going to give you a lead for fiber but under the circumstances, I suspect you are well set in that area as well."

He teaches Technology Management at a local college and has been in the business many years.  It irks me. 

What's was going to be his pitch? I'll give you two more points if you move your business over? Does he think that I have no integrity? Does he think that my relationship with my Master Agent is based solely on commission points? 

The TCA spent some of 2009 composing a Code of Ethics for Agents which included the following:

• Honesty and Integrity are the foundation of an Agent.
• Agents should educated on the solutions that they propose to customers.
• Agents should always have the best interest of the customers at heart.
• Agents shouldn't churn Master Agencies.
• Every dealing of an agent - whether with a customer, prospect, carrier, master agent, vendor or other agent - should be performed with the utmost of respect and integrity.

Gary Kim has an excellent blog view about How Not to Sell Hosted PBX. First, you need to sell that is Reliable, Dependable.  Even before the usual pitch of: Show me your phone bill and I will save you some money. (Blah!)  Give Gary's story a read.

Yesterday was a big day for The Channel. Two separate acquisitions occurred with both takeover companies expressing interest in the Channel of the company being bought.

First, we have GTT buying WBS Connect. WBSC is just a reseller of Transit and Transport with about $28M in revenue. It was bought for about $1.8M in cash and notes plus $600K in stock. A spreadout payment over 18 months. WBS Connect had 900 customers  (ARPU calculated at $2600 per month). Lots of hype about POP's and lit buildings touched but at the end of the day WBS Connect was just a reseller pushing IP pricing lower (i.e., in my experience, they sold on price. Get your best deal and I will beat it by $1/MB). If that's the sales approach, what value is that? I won't rant here. I'll let it speak for itself.

Second, ILEC Windstream (formerly Alltel combined with Valor) bought Nuvox. Nuvox was a combo of FDN, NewSouth and Nuvox. Apparently, Nuvox had $180M in debt with 90,000 customers bringing in $500M in revenue (ARPU of about $500 per month). Windstream will issue stock valued at $183M and pay $280 million in cash for $500M in revenue and access to business cutomers outside its footprint. With cellular assets an ILEC like Windstream would be swimming in the EarthLink pool: declining revenue from a declining customer base. The only way to attract new customers is to go outside its own region - or buy a cellular company or a cable outfit (both of which cost way more than $500M).

Nuvox pays out between 12 and 18 points to its Channel agents. Many people call me wondering how they do that when they sell PRI's in many markets for $400. I have no idea. One thing that stands out is that the $95M loan in 2006 grew to $180M in 2009, some it from its FDN acquisition in 2007, but how much because they sell underwater? Nuvox burned through nearly $500M in VC funding as well. 

It sounds funny but on the same day the two companies famous for driving the price of telecom down are acquired - and the Channel is given as a reason. Is this just a bunch of order-takers or is the state of the economy the reason that price is the main object (instead of value and reliability)?

In a discussion on twitter with @DougonIPcomm (that Doug blogged here), Doug is promoting the idea that HD Voice is here so buy the cheap HD Voice handsets from Polycom and Cisco now.  I think he missed my point.

Doug points to Xconnect, Simple Signal, Apteva and Sprint as examples of HD inter-connected ITSP. Big deal. There are 1100 VoIP Providers in the US alone. many not inter-connected with anyone but the PSTN.

To enjoy true HD Voice calling both sides of the call have to be SIP (supporting G.722). Most calls today still land either on a PSTN connected phone or (more likely) on a cell phone. That will break the HD Voice.

Doug dislikes this analogy but Fax over IP still doesn't work 99% today. Years after Brooktrout fixed this issue. Why? There are T.38 compliant fax machines and certainly Edgewater devices work, but the problem is in the WAN. Any conversions of the packet and you break the fax packet. So IP to PSTN, bye bye. The same issue with HD Voice. We do not have too many all IP networks.

Then let's look at the SIP Upstream providers. You mention Sprint. Most ITSP's buy from Level3, then Global Crossing, Bandwidth.com and Verizon. How many of those networks are G.722 end-to-end?

The best way to sell Hosted PBX service is to use the HD Voice demo. However, you need to set proper consumer expectations that it only works On-Net. That when Joe Sales calls in from the field on his cell phone, it will sound tinny, not HD.  

When Grandma calls in from her kitchen wall phone, it likely won't be HD either. 

Doug thinks you should buy the HD hadnset anyway. Go ahead. But if they are sub-$200 now, think what version 2 will be like price and feature wise?

On a listserv today, I replied to a wholesale account exec at a reseller that had just plugged his service to the list. In the reply, I said "that's one way to pimp your product" then went on to explain that he missed the point of the original email -- and in fact doesn't quite get the goal of the membership of that list/group.

Well, the AE got offended and pinged me offlist. I always say "pimping your stuff". Let's face it: in telecom most everyone is pitching and selling and pushing a commodity. Not much original stuff (except maybe fiber guys). Telecom people especially at Reseller CLEC's and IXC's are just pimping it out. Charging a little less than the company they buy from; adding a middle man; but what value? It's a straight price sale. (A rant on resellers coming in another post).

In many cases (not this one), the AE's move around so much that their business contact information should come with an expiration date. (You go to conferences to get the new business cards and find out where so-and-so is working now. What do they do with all that company logo-ed clothing?)

Do you think this industry is pimping it out? For the most part, I do. Exceptions in a later post. 

The New York Times has an article explaining "traffic pumping" here. This practice largely centers around Iowa Independent phone companies who are partnering with phone service companies like chat lines and free conferencing companies. AT&T has been complaining to the FCC about it for a while Many of these companies are in litigation to get paid by the IXC's.  What it really comes down to is that the "new" FCC has to take a stand on Inter-Carrier Compensation soon. It has been "studying" the issue for years. It's a political hot potato. Bill-and-keep is the system most pundits see as the quick fix. I'm sure its deeper than that.

UPDATE: NPR has a couple of articles about Google Voice and Traffic Pumping. One here about the 100 numbers that GV is blocking and the other here about the blocking.  BTW, GV has over 1M users now.

This PowerPoint presentation represents the outline of what my panel was going to discuss at Broadsoft Connections. We were going to make 3 points about Marketing a Profitable UC Bundle: 

1. Does Bundling Work;
2. How do you sell it;
3. What makes a successful bundle

Does Bundling Work? It depends. Are you using a Bundle for Customer Retention or Customer Acquisition? Our panleists included to ILEC's and 1 CLEC competing directly against one panelist.

The big point to make is that if you add one component sold separately between 15-20% of your customer base will uptake that new component (if marketed well). However, if you add it to a bundle, many more folks will take it. Albeit at a less margin, but more overall revenue.

Everyone was in agreement that the only way to sell a UC Bundle was face-to-face. A sales force - direct or indirect - could sell it. The hardware salespeople have a problem transitioning from selling a box to selling the Invisible. But training can fix that.

Upselling an existing bundle customer can work via tele-sales to increase stickiness and ARPU.

What makes a successful bundle? No one is sure yet. The only point that could be made is that it needs to be simple. Small business wants the pain of technology removed from their business life. And Broadsoft's 180+ features, Xtended Apps, and the XML on the phone are an infinite list of possibilities that will confuse the sales team let alone the consumer. Bundles should be created to attack a market segment, niche or vertical.

Atlanta based Telecom Master Agency announced at their Annual One-on-One event that they would be providing Commission Insurance. The details are coming (Brad Miehl said in November), but it looks like Evergreen may get a new look. Is this more Master Agency 2.0 innovation? Looking out for the agent more than ever.

UPDATE:

We at MicroCorp want to make sure there is no artificial ceiling in the amount of carrier business you entrust under our care and management. You should have complete confidence that you are going to be paid no matter if you are placing your first order or your one thousandth order with us. The scale of your business with MicroCorp should not matter and it is up to us to remove any risk as your base continues to grow. Even if this risk is highly unlikely to ever even occur.

Therefore starting today, we will be launching our Commission Assurance Program™. MicroCorp will be the first and only Master Agency that gives our channel the legal protection and ownership of their MicroCorp commissions in the unlikely event the company experienced any type of financial distress that puts your income stream at risk. In other words, if MicroCorp went out of business, the Commission Assurance Program™ would kick in and your revenue stream would be protected. Therefore, by having this program in place, we effectively eliminate the need of you having to diversify your revenue outside of MicroCorp simply to mitigate this type of risk.

Effectively, agent commissions are insured against loss. Nice. I have to call my Channel Manager Van Wender now to sign up for this program.