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

August 2009

You are browsing the archive for August 2009.

Telesphere Bought UBN

August 26, 2009

Per an FCC Announcement (below) Telesphere has bought Unity Business Network. I knew that they were in talks and I thought after Telesphere's $15M in funding that they would buy UBN up. This was kind of easy since both are Broadsoft based. Ah, finally some consolidation in the VOIP Provider space.

Released: 08/25/2009.

Is the BSA Relevant?

August 26, 2009

I received yet another press release from the BSA (Business Software Alliance). It was about a funny video. Why the PR firm thought it was relevant to me is astounding.

It got me thinking. Is the BSA losing relevancy?  Two things are shaping the commercial software world:  SAAS and Open Source.

The BSA's job is to stop piracy - in the US mainly.



TEM and TAM

August 25, 2009

There's a lot of buzz about TEM in the Industry now. Telecom Expense Management. It's about controlling the costs of telecom. It's a big expense especially for multi-location and Enterprise companies. 

TAM is telecom asset management which means it tracks cell phones and laptop data cards.

UC is like a Gym Membership

August 24, 2009

Trends for 2010

August 24, 2009

In speaking with Microcorp today about their agent event in October in Atlanta, we were discussing a panel on Trends for 2010.  It's not so much about the vendors, it's about the services that the vendors are offering that will become the next revenue stream for the channel.

This ties in with a TCA listserv discussion about Alternative Streams of Revenue for the Channel Agents. TCA will be hosting an agent call about Electricity with a couple of agents who have been selling electricity to businesses in unregulated states for a while. (Paetec offers this to agents as well).  Other topics include Web Strategy (like Lead Generation through Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Social Media Marketing); SAAS; 4G; the Cloud; and Managed Services.

It won't be enough to just sell TDM in the future, you will need partners to offer Telecom Expense Management (TEM) and Auditing as well as all the new services coming down the pipe (electricity, SAAS, cloud, 4G, VOIP, SIP Trunking, etc.). 

Maybe we are heading into Master Agency 2.0 - the dawn of an era when the master agent will have to be more than a collection of carrier contracts. What do you see that you might need from your Master Agency in the future?





Could They Make It Any More Difficult

August 23, 2009

A client who ordered a 2xT1 MIS in March wants a stand alone Internet T1 at the same location to segment some traffic. Trying to pull a simple contract for this customer is a bear. Why?

DUNS number given to me by the carrier in March. Not found.

Leveraging CDNs to Maximize Network Efficiency

August 20, 2009

At IT EXPO WEST I will be moderating a panel on Leveraging Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) to Maximize Network Efficiency. Our panelists will be Zeugma Systems, Voxeo and Voxel dot Net.

While we hear discussions all the time about CDN, not many folks know what they are, how they are designed, or what it means to the customer experience.

The session description explains that "the network throughput has become the bottleneck in delivering high quality video.

Developing Profitable Web 2.0 Solutions

August 20, 2009

Interview with Level3's Schlagbaum

August 20, 2009

This Q & A with Craig Schlagbaum, Vice President, Indirect Channels, Level3 comes from their monthly newsletter and is printed with Craig's permission.

Q: What is the top reason that partners should sell Level 3 today?
A:It's been about two and a half years since we launched the program, and our customer's experience today is the best it has ever been after integrating seven other carriers. We're now meeting our CCD set/met and our standard intervals at 90/90/80 percent of our goals which means customers are getting installed on a timely basis.


One Phone Soon?

August 17, 2009

I look at the new IP Phones and wonder: Are they morphing into a cell phone?

I like cordless handsets, mainly because I walk when I am talking. It helps me think and it sounds better for the caller. And I use a corded headset.

Have You Considered This?

August 14, 2009

An interesting discussion on one of the lists started as VoIP Redundancy for ITSP's and quickly went on tangents. One tangent here hits the nail on the head:

I think the hardest part of this is that a modern business switching from traditional to VOIP is usually used to completely segregated networks. I know I at least always prefer deploying VOIP on completely separate infrastructure as much as possible, but the selling point of cost savings usually overrides this. The effect of this is that now what happens on a company's existing data network (or has already been happening for some time) can now effect voice quality and reliability, but the blame and burden of proof still comes back to the VOIP provider.

Leveraging CDNs to Maximize Network Efficiency

August 14, 2009

Developing Profitable Web 2.0 Solutions

August 14, 2009

Carrier IPT Down

August 14, 2009

FierceVoIP has a headline: Carrier IP Telephony Market off 14% in 2009.
Analyst firm Dell'Oro Group sees the carrier IP Telephony market breaking out of its current slump in 2010, according to a recent report. While the group said the carrier IP telephony market in 2009 will be down around 14 percent from 2008, Dell'Oro expects the market to rebound to $4 billion by 2013.
Why is IP Telephony down? Well, in the Enterprise space you have mass layoffs, bankruptcies, mergers, and office closings which all result in a negative line count.

PCI Compliance in the Cloud

August 14, 2009

On this blog, the author posts a reply from Amazon about the level of PCI Security of EC2 and Amazone Web Services. 

As for PCI level 2 compliance, that requires external scanning via a 3rd party, PCI-approved vendor. It is possible for you to build a PCI level 2 compliant app in our AWS cloud using EC2 and S3, but you cannot achieve level 1 compliance. And you have to provide the appropriate encryption mechanisms and key management processes.

What strikes me as funny is that PCI Compliance is confusing enough without adding the cloud to it. Also, data security is almost a misnomer with the number of breaches that professional cyber-criminals perpetrate almost weekly.



People Won't Pay

August 14, 2009

If your model is free, how do you pay the bills? How do you pay for the infrastructure - the servers, switches, collocation, bandwidth, labor, etc.? How do you pay developers and engineers to scale it and keep it up?

Twitter is still free and so is Facebook. Popular too.

IP Phone Reviews

August 5, 2009

Social Media is Like Dating

August 4, 2009

Last night was the WITI Tampa meeting with two social media experts - IBM's VP Sandy Carter and Tampa Bay's own Shawna Vercher.  

Sandy walked the audience through some social media lessons, including some homework on your Brand 2.0: Post 2 presentations to SlideShare; join LinkedIn and Facebook and connect with 50 people; and join twitter and tweet. Your brand is about experience, connection, promise and interaction. Social media helps you to give your audience (or marketplace) that. It can't replace face-to-face, but, as Shawna put it, it's a nice placeholder for you until you see them again. It's a way to stay top of mind. It's all about what you want your brand to be - offline and online. 

Other ways to utilize social networks to boost your brand are becoming an expert on LinkedIn Answers; creating how-to videos on YouTube; and increasing your search engine results with tagged video and photos (especially with a Flickr account).



Sprint and Virgin Mobile

August 3, 2009

There was a question on LinkedIn today about the MVNO model making a comeback. It seems that Sprint buying Virgin Mobile has sparked a slow news day. 

Let's not forget that SK Telecom dropped almost $300M on the Earthlink MVNO formerly known as Helio, which was given to Virgin Mobile last year. SKT was looking for a foot hold in the US market (just like every other international player). If SKT decided to sell its one stake, what chance does the MVNO model have?

As more minutes move to the cellular networks from the wireline network, how does that scale or make financial sense for a virtual operator?



The New FCC on Apple about VoIP

August 3, 2009

After Google Voice was rejected by the Apple iPhone store, the new FCC - Chairman Julius Genachowski, and Commissioners Michael Copps, Robert McDowell, Mignon Clyburn, and Meredith Attwell Baker - was prodded into action by Google. The FCC sent a letter to Apple about the GV Rejection. (Read it here). The Letter (DA No. 09-1737) has nine very specific questions to be answered by Apple and AT&T by August 21.

The New FCC also sent a Letter (DA No. 09-1739) to Google concerning Apple's rejection of the Google Voice for iPhone Application.  The questions are not nearly as pointed but are specific.

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