April 2009

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What About AOL?

April 29, 2009

Tonight, Steve Case was on twitter tweeting, "Sad AOL went from being Internet pioneer/leader to also-ran. But still more there then most understand; hopeful can return to greatness." My replies were as follows: what they need are some young, hungry start-up execs, but what they will get is a stodgy exec that wants to cost cut and ride it out.

Why do I say that? Look at Embarq. Hesse had a couple months to pick a team and formulate a plan for the soon-to-be spun off Embarq. What did he do? Let's go with DSL and cost cutting.

Posted in Internet, Web 2.0, apps, broadband, im/chat

Tagged: aol, email, IM : Related Tags: mobile, embarq, content, trying

The Ultimate Hosted VoIP Service

April 29, 2009

What's the perfect VoIP Service?

I have seen so many VoIP Providers, I can't keep track. But that also means that the VoIP providers are not doing a very good job of Messaging, Positioning and Differentiating their offerings.

The only VoIP provider I know that has married Hosted Exchange with Broadsoft is Simple Signal. It makes sense to me because what is UM (unified messaging) but voicemail to email - everything in one box.

Google Voice does it as well. One inbox for Gmail and Google Voice.

Posted in PBX, broadsoft, im/chat, sip trunking, technology, telecommunications, unified communications, video, voip

Tagged: apps, hosted email, hosted pbx, itsp, pbx, voip : Related Tags: google voice, hosted exchange, service, provider, providers, hosted

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When Will Level3 Pull the Trigger?

April 28, 2009

Speaking with some industry channel folks today, we got to discussing Level3. Rob Powell says it best, "The Economy Takes a Big Bite Out of Level 3". This is a company with $6B in debt compared to $4B in revenue and negative free cash flow. Everyone wondered when the BK filing woud happen.

Level3 is as much at fault as Cogent and Hurricane Electric in leading the way to pricing underwater. Plus with operational challenges they aren't creating happy customers or agents.

Posted in Internet, broadband, economy, telecommunications

Tagged: bankruptcy, level3 : Related Tags: level, customers, datacenters

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Broadband is Productivity

April 28, 2009

I think that broadband has made some people "too connected". Between twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email, text messages, etc. When do you get a recess? But for those that can in fact walk away from the tech and live a normal life, broadband allows for increased productivity.

If you think I am making this up, Broadband Properties magazine has a nice article with supporting facts. BBP wrote about a study done in Iowa between one city that built out a FTTx network and the neighboring town that did not. Fiber city wins in taxes, jobs, and home values in 3 years.

Posted in broadband, economy

Tagged: tele-presence, tele-work, voip : Related Tags: virtual offices, business continue, broadband, business, offices, employees

Nothing but Headlines: DPI, Caps, Clearwire

April 24, 2009

I'm seeing a lot of news in our space but not enough time to cover it all or analyze it, so here's just the headlines:

DPI (deep packet inspection) by cable being investigated by Congress. It scares the crap out of Boucher (ARS). Cox, Comcast, NebuAd = new privacy law being debated (NYTimes).

Broadband download caps: in the news all week because apparently TWC said that without caps, they won't upgrade any more. Well, I have news for them: if they don't upgrade they will lose customers.

Posted in Yahoo, bandwidth, broadband, cableco, politics, privacy, telecommunications, wimax, wireless

Tagged: cable, clearwire, dpi, lawsuit, nebuad, privacy, wimax, wireless : Related Tags: being, comcast

Hosted VoIP Can Save You Money

April 21, 2009

If you Google VoIP save money, there are a million hits. There is the article, "How to Save Money with VoIP Service" with 5 lame tips. VoIP News has one titled, "15 Ways to Use VoIP to Save Money During the Downturn", that lists ways to use different vendors for differing free services based on VoIP. VoIP News has another one which asks, "Will VoIP Really Save You Money?" The answer of course is yes.

Where does VoIP save you the most? Inter-office dialing, In-State calls which cost more than inter-state calls, and international dialing.

Posted in PBX, sales and selling, voip

Tagged: hosted pbx, voip : Related Tags: state calls, money, productivity, hosted, office

Compare the RBOC Profit

April 21, 2009

There are only 3 RBOC's left: AT&T, Verizon and Qwest. In the new Fortune 500 listing, telecom has 21 companies listed. The top 2: Ma and Pa Bell. AT&T has revenue of $124B.

Posted in cableco, economy, telco, telecommunications, wireline

Tagged: att, financials, numbers, qwest, rboc, vz : Related Tags: profit, qwest

AT&T Closing CallVantage Service

April 20, 2009

Well, AT&T is calling it game over on the VoIP game. I have been using CallVantage since 2004. It has worked very well with some pretty decent quality. It has an easy to use portal; call forwarding; simul ring; click-to-dial; voicemail-to-email; and more. Oh, yeah, the Simple Reach number so I can provide clients with a local number.

If you offer a similar service, start advertising to take over the 150K customers.

Posted in voip

Tagged: att, voip : Related Tags:

IT versus PBX

April 20, 2009

If a business is moving to UC, how does the decision get made on the platform?

In many cases, the IT Administrator has some responsibility for the phone system (even if that means he calls the PBX vendor). When the IT Admin is tasked with replacing the phone system, what goes into that decision?

Certainly, if the admin is Cisco certified, he will be leaning towards a move to Cisco Call Manager. You don't get fired for buying Cisco. You also go with what you know. If the admin is an MCSE, he may lean towards an OCS solution.

Posted in PBX, VAR, telecommunications, unified communications, voip

Tagged: cisco, managed services, microsoft, pbx, UC, unified messaging, voip : Related Tags: phone system, cisco, admin

What the Heck is UC and UD?

April 20, 2009

Talking to a channel exec this morning about UC. There isn't really a clear definition of UC. When you speak to UC companies like Altitude, the UC is about the contact center, first call resolution, and unified desktop. To me, first call resolution is a business process management (BPM) issue.

Posted in PBX, technology, unified communications, voip

Tagged: UC, unified messaging, voip : Related Tags: unified desktop, blinking light, customer service, email piece, business, project

CIO's Top Tech Investments

April 16, 2009

Robert Half interviewed 1400 CIO's for a research study (press release here), It's not a surprising list: Security, VOIP, Virtualization, SAAS, and data center efficiency. Considering power costs much more than space, getting energy and hardware efficient means cost savings. Oh, wait, that's virtualization too. And Software as a service and VOIP.

In summary, the top tech investments of CIO of companies with 100 or more employees is IT Security and cost cutting initiatives.

Posted in data center, saas, security, technology, voip

Tagged: data center, SAAS, saas, security, voip : Related Tags:

Telcos on twitter

April 16, 2009

Do you know what twitter is? It's the text messaging to the masses application platform. Officially, I think it is described as a micro-blogging social networking platform, but huh? The idea with twitter is to update a group of folks about what is of interest to you.

I'm on twitter and so are many TMC folks, like Rich, Tom, and sales guy extraordinaire Anthony; so is the TMC news service.

There are some telcos on twitter like Embarq, CenturyTel, and Windstream. The two companies merging do nothing with there account; it's a place holder. Windstream however just started up and they are doing a good job of it as far as I can tell.

Posted in TMC, social network, telco, twitter, voip

Tagged: freedomvoice, rich tehrani, tom keating, twitter, windstream : Related Tags: telcos twitter, twitter, doing, folks

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Why Security Will Be Priority 1

April 16, 2009

As I skim the Verizon Business 2009 Data Breach Investigations Report (PDF) to find that "295 million records were compromised and there were 90 confirmed breaches last year", I think where is the security? The Intrusion Detection Systems, the firewalls, the vigilant admins. Oh, wait, most companies don't have that. What else is missing? A Password Policy and a skilled technician who doesn't use the default settings for gear.

I'm generalizing of course, but there wouldn't be so many breaches if systems, policies, and security was intact.

Posted in Web 2.0, security

Tagged: firewall, ids, mpls, pci compliance, saas, security, verizon : Related Tags: security, breaches, managed

Video Competition at the FCC

April 9, 2009

The FCC assesses the competition in the video market on the same day that the FCC approves the acquisition of a de facto controlling interest in DIRECTV by Liberty Media Corp. and Liberty Entertainment Inc. (DA No. 09-780)

The FCC adopted a supplemental Notice of Inquiry to Congress On Video Competition for Years 2008 and 2009. The docket 07-269 can be commented on until 5/20/2009 (FCC No. 09-32).

Posted in FCC, video

Tagged: dbs, directv, FCC, satellite, video : Related Tags: video competition, competition, video

FCC Broadband Policy Beginnings

April 9, 2009

As the FCC, USDA, and NTIA get set to disburse $7.2 billion in moneys to telecommunications companies for broadband deployment, penetration, and mapping along with E-Rate type services and tele-medicine, the FCC has to actually come up with a National Broadband Strategy.
"The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act charged the FCC with creating a plan to give all Americans access to broadband. The FCC began the effort, which will include a series of hearings and meetings, on Wednesday by asking for public comment. The FCC must present the plan to lawmakers by Feb. 17, 2010." [Infoweek] One would have thought that former FCC Chairman Martin would have put a national policy in place, but all he had was a chalk board with "ideas" or guidelines that the telcos could ignore.

Posted in FCC, Internet, broadband, politics

Tagged: broadband, fcc, FCC, NTIA, politics, RUS, stimulus : Related Tags: national broadband, grant program, broadband deployment, access broadband, broadband, national

Mobile VoIP is a Problem

April 8, 2009

There are so many mobile voice apps I cannot even keep track. Some are convoluted. Some are callback services. Some are pure packet based VoIP that eat up data usage.

Posted in apps, cellular, telecommunications, voip, wireline

Tagged: apps, cellular, mobile, voip : Related Tags: voice calls, calls, mobile, voice, office, calling

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Caught My Eye at VoiceCon

April 8, 2009

At VoiceCon, Grandstream had some new SIP-based gadgets including the video telephony units that VidTel is using and video surveillance gear. As TMC's Erik Linask reports here, "The first products in the new line include one- and four-port video servers/encoders -- its GXV3501 and GXV3504 -- and an IP video camera -- the GXV3601.... All three products leverage Grandstream's experience with H.264 real-time video compression, providing clear video while optimizing bandwidth usage, and SIP-based VoIP technology for providing two-way audio and video streaming to mobile phones and desktop video phones."

But the other hardware surprise for me was Aastra's Clearspan. It's basically an Aastra branded version of Broadsoft on a blade server for enterprise.

Posted in broadsoft, technology, unified communications, video, voip, wimax

Tagged: aastra, broadsoft, ctia, grandstream, nokia, sip, video, voicecon, wimax : Related Tags: wimax gadgets, video, wimax, gadgets, broadsoft, nokia

Are You Still an ILEC Agent?

April 7, 2009

This from Telephony online and the Convergence Consulting Group:
The latest in an annual study of the bundled services market shows US telecom service providers are losing wireline voice customers at a faster pace and being transformed in the process into companies that will look very different from their traditional telecom roots. The Battle for the American Couch Potato: Bundling, TV, Internet, Telephone, Wireless, released this week by the Convergence Consulting Group, shows maintaining a broadband connection is increasingly important to telecom providers, as wireline voice services become much less important. If you look at the numbers in that PDF report and you still think that the QBPP is a viable option or that the last 400K businesses in the BellSouth region will somehow see the light and convert, I have some land for you in South Florida.

I have written about this in years past: the telcos have finally hit the wall. Everything is flat or down now: TV, wireline, cellular, and broadband.

Posted in Internet, agents, bellsouth agent, broadband, cableco, cellular, channel, duopoly, telco, video, wimax, wireless, wireline

Tagged: cableco, cellular, channel partners, embarq, financials, ilec, mso, numbers, qwest, rboc, triple play : Related Tags: consulting group, convergence consulting, telcos residential, voice customers, residential telephone, voice

How Many Minutes?

April 7, 2009

Telecomweb has an interesting set of stats:
Last year, U.S. wireless subscribers burned through 2.2 trillion minutes and 1 trillion worth of SMS. As such, mobile data accounts for 25 percent of a carrier's revenues, and all that from 270 million users.
Indeed these are huge numbers. No wonder AT&T says its a wireless company. TDM LD must be shrinking by the minute

Posted in cellular, telecommunications

Tagged: cellular, numbers : Related Tags:

Merger Rumors Abound

April 7, 2009

Well, it is conference month with the industry gathering at CTIA and VoiceCon (and other shows). And when we get together we tend to gossip. The latest rumors (some thanks to Telecom Ramblings) involve XO, TWTC, and Qwest.

Apparently, Qwest longhaul business - the original Qwest - is for sale, but who has that kind of money to buy it? Likely, a foreign carrier would make a play for it.

Posted in mergers, telecommunications

Tagged: level3, mergers, qwest, twtelecom, xo : Related Tags: level, qwest

Duopoly against the City

April 6, 2009

CircleID has the story of ILECs and Cable companies once again fighting municipalities, like BellSouth and Cox fought LUS.

With President Obama determined to promote the development of open network telecommunications and smart grid networks we can expect the incumbents to step up their legal battles to stop this from happening.

In relation to the recent $7 billion stimulus package AT&T made a statement that it didn't need the money, but that it would launch a defensive campaign against any competitors using the money to encroach on its territory.

To me, it's anti-American for the Duopoly to fight the city. It's more taxpayer money that could be used for something useful that gets used to fight against two enemies of progress and innovation. Should Lafayette taxpayers have had to spend $500,000 in fees to fight the Duopoly?

There is case after case where the city or town with broadband including FTTB (fiber-to-the-business) has created jobs and added tax base while increasing home values. When the duopoly sues to stop broadband deployment, while crying that it is unfair competition, look at the profit statements of these companies.

Posted in broadband, cableco, duopoly, economy, fiber, politics, telco, telecommunications

Tagged: broadband, duopoly, fiber, muni : Related Tags: duopoly, fight, money

Telecom is Broken Part III

April 6, 2009

So a client calls me. An agent sent him an unsolicited quote for 10MB of bandwidth over Ethernet for a ridiculously low quote. Since I have a long history with the client, he offered me the chance to match it and take the order.

So I go back to the carrier and ask for a match. I'm told no.

Posted in agents, bandwidth, channel, telco

Tagged: agents, telecom is broken : Related Tags: competitive quote, quote, agent, client

UGC for AT&T

April 5, 2009

AT&T has a strange website up called AT&T Investing in America. Adweek has an article about the campaign around the website.
The website invites Americans to share their inspiring stories. "As a member of corporate America, we share in the responsibility to help America through today's economic challenges by investing in areas -- such as AT&T's broadband infrastructure, clean energy, and our communities -- that will again promote economic growth and prosperity," said AT&T rep Jenny Bridges.

Posted in Marketing, economy

Tagged: at&t, economy : Related Tags: website, america

VoiceCon

April 2, 2009

I spent a couple of hours at VoiceCon in the exhibit hall yesterday. The biggest surprise was VZB and Sprint. Especially Sprint. They are pimping the Wireline / Fiber with mobile integration. They had lots of new handsets. (So again they can't even have a whole booth about the wireline product).

Here's a tweet from FierceVoIP: "Sprint tightens bonds with cable; offering enhanced VoIP services to basic VoIP offerings - Cable needs Sprint = Sprint needs Cable."

Posted in cellular, fiber, telco

Tagged: mobility, mpls, nextel, sprint, wireline : Related Tags: sprint, cable

On Rad's Radar?

April 2009