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| Peter Radizeski of RAD-INFO, Inc. talking telecom, Cloud, VoIP, CLEC, and The Channel.

July 2008

You are browsing the archive for July 2008.

Thinking about VoIP for the show

July 31, 2008

To be a speaker at the IT Expo, there is a lot of paperwork. And I have procrastinated so that I now have to scramble to meet tomorrow's deadline. I will share with you some of the questionaire:

What has been your company's biggest achievement in 2008 so far?

Telco by the Numbers

July 30, 2008

Ma and Pa Bell (better known to you as AT&T and Verizon) added about 3 Million cellular users in 2Q08. Where did those subs come from? Certainly some came from other carriers like Sprint-Nextel. Some are family handsets, maybe.

ZRC2

July 30, 2008

And the BK Starts

July 30, 2008

Profits tumbling. Stock market in disarray. Real estate is ugly. And now Mervyns files for Chapter 11. Also, today, Bennigan's (and its sister Steak N Ale) filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy (which means liquidation); all company-owned restaurants closed.

All They Want is Sales

July 25, 2008

Most of my phone calls lately is How Do I Generate More Sales? It's getting tougher to sell telecom. For years it was all about "Saving 10%". Now that's not enough.

AT&T Profits from Forebearance

July 23, 2008

Gary Kim writes that AT&T's Profit is up 30% in 2Q08, even with an 8% drop in their core busines: landlines. But when you have iPhone 1 and 2, you can add 1.3M cell customers (probably taken from Sprint). Even when building out network for U-Verse, 3G cellular, and its IP backbone worldwide (and bitching about it), Ma Bell managed to squeeze out a 30% PROFIT.

Meanwhile, Ma Bell has been petitioning for Forbearance at the FCC.

Interns, Mentoring, and Your Company

July 21, 2008

Dan Caruso writes about how his company Zayo is working with the University of Colorado and Entrepreneurship. Zayo will take interns and develop the entrepreneur spirit. What a great way to promote your company, get some promising talent, and give back.

My question is Why aren't more companies doing that?

Dr. Reed in The House

July 21, 2008

Dr. David Reed gave testimony to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce last week in a hearing on DPI (deep packet inspection). The House Committee is trying to figure out what to do about DPI, Privacy (HA! What privacy?), NebuAd and Targeted Advertising. Dr. Reed wasn't the only one to testify.

40 Hour Work Week

July 16, 2008

I don't know about you but a 4 Hour Work Week seems unlikely, but just a 40 hour one would be grand! Tim Ferriss wrote the book, 4 Hour Work Week, and gave a great 45 minute summary of the book's principles at SXSW 2007 (here). David Seah has an exhaustive review of the principles of the book here. I'm just focused on his outsourcing.

Why Twitter

July 16, 2008

Duct Tape Marketing has a post about the business use for Twitter. I can see why Twitter would work for a conference like it did for SXSW: great way to update attendees; remind people about keynotes and sessions starting; let people comment about what was cool and where they are going (dinner anyone?); etc. (Read article about it here). And that is a good use for Twitter, but what other business uses are there?

OCS in the Sandbox

July 15, 2008

Broadband Corruption?

July 15, 2008

DSLReports.com has an editorial titled, U.S. Broadband Cannot Be Fixed Until You Tackle Corruption. It seems that the new group, Internet for Everyone, has upset Karl. Karl is right in a way. There have been numerous groups over the years, including COMPTEL and its prior siblings, that have tried to get grass-roots support for a change at the FCC and in DC.

VZ R&D is Court

July 15, 2008

Over the past 9 years that I have been in telecom, Verizon has probably been in court at least once a month either suing the FCC over some rule or part of the Telecom Act or being sued for anti-trust. VZ has also sued for patent infringement. It has been sued often for billing disputes, since the ILECs make billing a profit center. And numerous states have taken VZ to task for awful customer service.

Dvorak Likes Shrink Wrap

July 14, 2008

In a recent column in PC Mag, An Ode to Shrink Wrapped Software, John Dvorak talks about the ten weaknesses of online apps. It really comes down to this: "Using the Internet to return to the old model of mainframe computing is a misuse of resources and a dead end."

Everything else he says just comes back to either the model sucks or the security / reliability stinks. His argument is really about Control.

Wasted Ad Money

July 14, 2008

The Last Lecture

July 9, 2008

PCI Compliance

July 7, 2008

Elizabeth Bowles at Aristotle.Net gave a session on e-Commerce that included some PCI DSS stuff. PCI DSS is like HIPAA in a lot of ways: buzz but no one has a handle on it. There's more myth than fact, but who is going to sift through the hundreds of pages of law?

In most of these laws (HIPAA, PCI, SOX) it is a matter of securing data.

NebuAd under Deep Inspection

July 2, 2008

First there was wiretaps at the telco central offices. Then there was Sandvine and DPI (deep packet inspection) to help curb Peer-to-peer file-sharing (BitTorrent) that was consuming all available bandwidth with piracy (according to the puppet masters at the MPAA and RIAA). Now there is NebuAd, where DPI meets targeted advertising. And Privacy is just a thing of the past.

Flat Markets

July 2, 2008

All the telecom markets are flat: landline, cellular, broadband, TV, and long distance minutes. This makes it incredible hard to grow and remain profitable. Price comes into play more often (ask the guys that sell LD minutes). What one company loses another gains and around and around we go.

Are You Equipt?

July 2, 2008

Microsft launches Equipt: "The Microsoft Equipt bundle -- formerly code-named "Albany" -- includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, plus OneCare and a handful of existing free Windows Live applications." [AP] Microsoft has already entered the SAAS market space with Hosted Office (for business). Now it enters the consumer market.

I wonder how much of this is a function of all the online apps (like Google Apps, ThinkFree, GE Whiteboard, etc.) coupled with a growing piracy problem. Let's face it, Gen Y doesn't like buying anything - music, movies, software.

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