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

April 2009

You are browsing the archive for April 2009.

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.

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.





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.

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.

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.



Data Center Rumors

April 23, 2009

In case you didn't hear Oracle bought Sun. Open Source folks are worried and so are Sun customers.

Nuvox opened a new 5,000 square foot data center at 421 West Church Street in Jacksonville FL, which is THE telecom hotel in that city.

Rackspace hired Robert Scoble.

Data Vault in Miami was flooded last night according to a telecom source in South Florida.

Host.net/WV Fiber is opening a new data center in Nashville. It was announced yet but I ended up with a spec sheet in my email -- not from the company though.
This is the second data center that I have heard of being built in Nashville (I can't remember who the other is).

DataSite in Orlando signed a 15-rack first client in February.










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.

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. VZ is $97B.

AT&T Closing CallVantage Service

April 20, 2009

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.



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.

CIO's Top Tech Investments

April 16, 2009

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.



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?

Video Competition at the FCC

April 9, 2009

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. Now acting FCC Chair Copps has been tasked and he takes this seriously.
"This commission has never, I believe, received a more serious charge than the one to spearhead development of a national broadband plan," FCC Chairman Michael Copps said in a statement Wednesday.


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.

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.

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.


How Many Minutes?

April 7, 2009

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?

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.

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.

UGC for AT&T

April 5, 2009

My 3 Days in Internet Marketing

April 5, 2009

VoiceCon

April 2, 2009

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