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

November 2008

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Distributing

November 29, 2008

One thing that the VoIP Providers seem to want is Distribution. How does a VoIP Provider get his device into the hands of the consumer?

Vonage spends millions on advertising and has deals with retail outlets like Amazon and Circuit City. Skype has devices on Amazon and other outlets. (It seems like Amazon has an affinity for VoIP providers, including Magic Jack and Ooma.)

Now Ooma is a strange deal. There has been a lot written about Ooma (here and here and here)  Sharing a PSTN line seems like no way to save money.



Follow up to a Typical Situation

November 29, 2008

I wrote about a typical telecom sales situation about a week ago. Khali Henderson, editor of Phone+ magazine, has an editorial that talks about this type of scenario in the Channel. The conclusion of the story happened yesterday when the client called me to ask me to meet the direct AE's rate and send him a contract. My best Indirect rate is $1500 per month higher than the direct rate.

Thanks

November 25, 2008

It's the last full day of work for many of you. Here are some tips to get through Thanksgiving:

  1. Stop watching / reading the news. It's going to be more of the same news for a while and listening to it and reading it are not going to help you. It will only increase your anxiety.

The Pain of The Switch

November 24, 2008

Interesting report from Strategy Analytics: More folks would switch their triple play provider if they didn't have to waste a day or two waiting for the install.  With that kind of stat, will any of the duopoly companies fix their install process?
People often claim to be satisfied with what they already have. 76% of broadband subscribers in the US suggest they are very or somewhat satisfied with their broadband service. But when they are asked if they would be willing to switch, three in every four say they would do so, depending on the price and performance of an alternative service.
Can't be too satisfied if you would switch.

And really the perception varies greatly.

Internet Will be Full by 2012

November 24, 2008

"Nemertes Research continued to throw cold water on the future of the Internet last week, releasing a study projecting that demand for bandwidth on the Web would exceed its capacity by 2012." [PCWorld.com]

I just don't see how that can be. With 40G pipes starting to emerge. With Content Delivery Networks (CDN's) popping up every where.  The CDN's make most traffic local.  The CDN's are getting closer to the edge. Does that report mean that the backhaul traffic will overflow? Or the CDN network will exceed capacity?

Qwest Referral Changes in 2009

November 24, 2008

AIS is San Diego Collocation

November 23, 2008

Back in September, American Internet Services announced a CEO change at the Grand Opening of their Tier 4 data center in San Diego. Alessandra Carrasco was promoting from EVP and COO will assume the role of Chief Executive Officer. I interviewed her in October.

ME: What verticals are you chasing?

Are You The Next Sue Crawford?

November 23, 2008

If you can't get a position at the FCC, perhaps you can put your talents to use at the other governmental telecom agency, which is looking for a few intelligient people like Sue Crawford help shape the broadband policy of the US:

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is seeking nominations of individuals to represent the business community, public interest groups, and other appropriate groups interested in serving on the NTIA Online Safety and Technology Working Group (OSTWG) for a single fifteen (15) month term to commence in January 2009. At the conclusion of the working group's term, the OSTWG will provide a report to the Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator and to Congress on ways to promote and to preserve a safe environment for children using the Internet.

DATES: Nominations must be postmarked or electronically transmitted on or before December 12, 2008.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On October 10, 2008, the President signed into law the ''Broadband Data Improvement Act'' (the Act), Pub. L.

Doing Extra Business

November 21, 2008

Most people that know me know I am a Follower of Seth Godin. No one else that I read regularly makes me re-think how I view business and the world more often as Godin. IN his post, How to make money from the Internet, he writes:
Connect organizations spending money with ways to save money.
During the last recession, plenty of entrepreneurs scored by selling businesses on doing a phone bill audit.

Is the $100 Triple Play viable?

November 21, 2008

So on Linkedin, Neal Lachman, asked if the $100 Triple Play was Viable in today's economic molasses. Neal writes:
Bundling voice, video, data services for a higher ARPU was an obvious, great move when broadband services and advanced digital services were first introducded......  However, the market is moving more towards a lower ARPU for the triple play services. This is especially going to play a big role in future operations. The time of high ARPUs is going, and soon it will be history.

DISH Get's DRM

November 19, 2008

So DISH Network keeps upgrading my DVR software without my asking. Tonight, I go to record a pay-per-view movie and the dialog box says, "You only have 24 hours to watch this movie before we remove it from your DVR."  Well, that stinks. We used to buy them and watch them at our leisure - usually within a week.

DISH has increased prices across the board. They will lose AT&T as a distribution arm in February of 2009.

Typical Situation

November 19, 2008

Typical Sales Situation: So I meet a prospective buyer. We exchange cards. A couple weeks later, he has a circuit need to be quoted. We have a conversation. It gets complicated.

Big Failures

November 19, 2008

Bandwidth Caps

November 17, 2008

Bandwidth caps have more to do with preserving TV revenues than network management business. Yes, there are issues of last mile and node congestion for both telco and cableco networks. It is also a function of the band-aid approach that these companies take. instead of one huge upgrade (like say Verizon with FiOS), there have been baby step fixes.

It's also about preserving revenue.

The IP Resale Tumble

November 17, 2008

Spam Response Rate

November 17, 2008

Fiber Lit Buildings

November 17, 2008

Rob Powell has an update to his fiber list on Telecom Ramblings blog. What is interesting about the chart is that TWT and L3 have about the same number of route miles - 26,000 - but TWT has way more buildings lit that Level3. TWT has 10,700 buildings lit and L3 has about 7550. TWT lights about 250 per quarter.

Obama and NAB

November 17, 2008

I don't know how this ended up in front of me this morning, but it was an interesting piece about Obama and Radio Localism. Obviously, conservatives don't want localism because it gets in the way of profit. You can't profit if you have to pay a DJ in each market AND report some local news. Sheesh!

ISPCON this week

November 10, 2008

Telecom Peek

November 10, 2008

JobVent

November 10, 2008

Where Does AT&T Get the Money?

November 10, 2008

Best VoIP Commercial Ever

November 10, 2008

Gaboogie

November 6, 2008

Conferencing is growing and there are so many players in the field. Not much differentiation that I can see. But Gaboogie has at least one differentiator: It calls the participants!

Another differentiator is Dimdim, which states that "When they wanted to share what was on their computer screens they discovered that existing web conferencing products were all either too expensive or too complicated (or both)." Dimdim is free for up to 20 attendees.

I use Freeconference.com and pay for the recording ability. I handed 2 calls off to my podcast folks and it turns out that the call quality was too low.



One More Race: Wi-Fi

November 6, 2008

Glaxo Cutting Salespeople

November 5, 2008

Pharma is having troubles anyway. Patents expiring on the Billion dollar drugs like Viagra. A trickle in the pipeline of new drugs. So today's announcement that  GlaxoSmithKline plans to reduce its U.S.

It's Going to be Limiting

November 5, 2008

AT&T is testing broadband caps in Nevada. First, cable now Ma Bell. In both cases, the reason may have to do preserving TV revenue than anything. There is concern. It even popped up as a LinkedIn question.

Historic Moment

November 5, 2008

FCC Voted Today too

November 4, 2008

The Rotten Apple in the Channel

November 4, 2008

In its latest financial filing AT&T claims that they sold 6.9M iPhones and added 1M new cellular customers in the quarter due to the iPhone 3G. (Apple says that 39% of quarterly revenues were due to pushing out 200M iPhones so far.)  Here's the funny part: Agents can't sell the iPhone. Agents can sell Blackberries and other phones but not the iPhone.

Once again AT&T spends money to create a "Solution Provider" Alliance Channel that demonstrates preferences to AT&T sales employees over its Channel agents. On its Alliance website, AT&T writes "Targeted customer sets to minimize channel conflicts" That's some messaging there.

Speaking to the Channel Champions, more than one is worried about what the new year will bring.



Deep Dive on Blogging

November 3, 2008

On Wed. night, I am moderating a discussion at the American Marketing Association - Tampa Bay Chapter (New Media SIG) on the Deep Dive into Blogging. 

In a Biz Journal article, the author notes, "It is a new world for business. Embrace the opportunities. Open your mind to a new way of connecting. It is a great way to prosper in any economy."

I say that in today's business world, you have to be connecting with your customers and prospects - even your employees, vendors, and prospective employees.



Frontier Adds a Cap

November 3, 2008

Delisting Notices to Vonage, Circuit City

November 3, 2008

Neither campaign is discussing how important technology is to the US economy. Two companies received delisting notices from the stock exchange. The NYSE sent Vonage notice. That should be a fun discussion at the shareholder meeting today.
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