August 2009 Archives

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. DOMESTIC SECTION 214 APPLICATION FILED FOR THE ACQUISITION OF ASSETS OF UNITY BUSINESS NETWORKS L.L.C. BY TELEPSHERE NETWORKS LTD. (DA No. 09-1875). (Dkt No 09-150 ) STREAMLINED PLEADING CYCLE ESTABLISHED. Comments Due: 09/08/2009. Reply Comments Due: 09/15/2009. WCB . Contact: Tracey Wilson-Parker at (202) 418-1394 or Jodie May at (202) 418-0913.
 
"The FCC is asked to assign Unity BN's domestic interstate common carrier transmission lines to Telesphere. Unity BN, an Arizona limited liability company, is authorized as a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) in Colorado and Minnesota and also provides inter-state Voice over Internet Protocol and data services in Colorado, Minnesota, and Oregon. Telesphere, a Washington state corporation, provides interstate services throughout the U.S. .... Pursuant to the terms of the proposed transaction, Telesphere Access, LLC, an Arizona limited liability company and wholly owned subsidiary of Telesphere, will acquire Unity BN's CLEC assets. Telepshere will acquire substantially all of Unity BN's other assets, including any domestic section 214 authority."

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. However, piracy around the world dwarfs the US. < I won't rant here about copyright or the fact that there are way too many lawyers.> Needless to say, the BSA makes a living chasing small business owners about licensing. How do they find them? Disgruntled employees who turn them in. (I've seen it happen. Not pretty at all).

When most software moves to the Cloud or as a service, licensing headaches will disappear. (Data security headaches will increase dramatically however). So the BSA is expiring.

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. Some TAM also tracks laptops, including Lojack style software to delete info from smartphones and laptops.

TEM is is used to track the following:

1. Contract expiration - so you can notify the carrier before the auto-renewal kicks in
2. Contract terms - how much, how long, etc.
3. Billing reconciliation - 10% of all bills are wrong I am told.
4. Hidden charges -  I'm doing a panel on this - many hidden charges.
5. Circuit location - circuits don't routinely get disconnected as they should. If you close an office or downsize, you want to do the same with the circuits
6. Spending - are conferencing, long distance or cellular minutes increasing?

Today, businesses need to contain costs. TEM is the way to do that. For agents, it's another way to be valuable and to make some dough.

Alex Doyle at Broadsoft pointed out a blog post from his company: Why is UC like a Gym Membership.  The analogy is really about PBX systems - hosted versus on-premise. A gym is the hosted scenario and a Bowflex would be the on-premise version. It's the best analogy I have seen used to date. I hope you are going to ITEXPO and Broadsoft Connections, because smart folks will be at both places simplifying things for you.

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? Let me know. Thanks.

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. Please request a DUNS number. HUH?

Nothing can be input without a DUNS. No where to just pull a contract. Why does it have to be so difficult? Why do agents have to spend hours in your systems to sell a sub-$500 standard service? Why do we have to take hours of training on these systems?

My first reaction is because RBOCs don't want agents. They keep cutting commissions and adding more requirements. Making it more difficult to make a living as an agent for them.

It is simply easier at this point to just sell resellers - Acces2Go or NIT or WBS. It's residual based commission. It's roughly the same rate. And it's so much simpler. 

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. A variety of solutions to these challenges are being developed today, however, there's room for significant debate on which solutions are best."

We will be talking about CDN as a Network Optimizer and What the Business Models are for CDN beyond how it changes the Customer experience.

Join us Wednesday, 09/02/09 at 11:30-12:15pm for this discussion.

I will be moderating a developer panel at IT EXPO WEST on Developing Profitable Web 2.0 Solutions. The panleists are from Ifbyphone, Voxeo and Intelepeer.

This is a Dev panel so we will be talking about The Styles or Ways to go about Developing Apps, including How To Create an App using the API. We will basically keep to the core of the description: "Attendees will learn how Web 2.0 allows organizations to gracefully migrate expensive legacy telephony to a lower cost software model without disrupting existing operations."

Join us on Thursday, 09/03/09at 9:30 AM

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. I would also add that Level 3 is the premier alternative service provider with a global IP network providing greater customer responsiveness and expertise at more competitive prices. And for our partners, we offer a complete portfolio of enterprise solutions including voice, data, and IP, that they can provide to their customers.

Q: What steps did you take to reach these customer and partner satisfaction goals?
A: We have worked diligently to focus on making the customer our number one priority. We've redesigned our partner and customer support teams to streamline the customer experience, give us better visibility into their needs and how to best meet them. We've empowered our partners with tools like MasterStream, the Level(3)Enabled Portal and the Business Partner Portal, and we've put together some really aggressive promotions for our partners and their customers.

Q: How much impact has tools like MasterStream and your portals had on the program?
A: We have tripled our quote volumes since MasterStream launched because it's made it a lot easier for partners to do business with Level 3 and respond to their customers' needs immediately. They can use it to quote all major Level 3 services automatically. The partner portal also offers partners a wide range of resources like on-net location data, service maps, marketing collateral and training. In addition, our customer-enabled portal has real time data on customer installs, and trouble tickets can be generated without a phone call.

Q: Are there any new incentive programs partners can take advantage of?
A: There are tremendous incentives right now. The Economic Stimulus Promotion has been extended through the end of the year and we just announced the "Connect NOW with Level 3" bonus. This new program lets partners earn a one-time bonus payout based on sales growth from August 3rd to October 31st in addition to their existing commission rates.

Q: What are some advantages for partners that diversify their offerings with Level 3?
A: Well, I think it's really important that partners have diverse offerings beyond the incumbent carriers and we think we have the best alternative solution in the U.S. today - especially considering that more and more VARs and System Integrators want to offer total solutions to their customers and we can help them provide it. As more applications, storage and monitoring are provided as "on-demand" services, we become a more essential ingredient to our partners' solutions and a critical component to solving their customers' business issues.

Another key advantage is that we view our partners as an extension of our sales force; an integral part of our overall business strategy. Since we are vested in our partners' long-term success across the board and we are nimble enough to respond to their needs, they can lead with us and feel confident in our strong support for them.

Q: How do you validate that you're making strides in the program?
A: We have a great survey program called Voice of the Partner, or VOP. Our VOP surveys are showing the best ratings we've ever had - in particular for Partner Sales Managers, SE, Partner Support Group, partner marketing and our overall ease of doing business. These surveys validate that our partners feel all of these program elements are very strong, and it tells us we are in a strong position to be a leading carrier supplier for them.

Q: Given everything we've discussed, can you recap all the key reasons why now is best time to sell Level 3?
A: Certainly. We offer a superior customer experience and we are dedicated to the long-term success of our partners. We provide the support, resources, tools and aggressive incentives necessary to make it both easy and profitable to do business with us. And, we are uniquely positioned to help our partners diversify their service offerings in the marketplace and provide their customers with a total. In short, we are a strong partner, we provide solid customer support, we are easy to do business with and we provide strong financial motivation for our partners to sell Level 3.

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.

So when I look at the newest DECT phones like Aastra 600D series, Cisco WIP310, and others, they are so small, lightweight and are starting to resemble a cell phone. Right? A perfect example is the UniData Wi-Fi phones. These look just like a cell handset and come with video capabilities and cameras. No other handset has that yet.

Broadsoft extended Web 2.0 services to the mobile device. So has Mitel. Blackberry wants to mobilize your PBX - to make your cell phone an extension on the office PBX system. So does Mitel. So does Broadsoft. Oh, and so do the cell carriers because they want you to spend those minutes.

It looks like only difference between your IP phone and your cell phone will be signaling technology (Wi-Fi, CDMA, GSM, DECT). When we get a phone with half those chips in there, will the desktop phone become obsolete? Are we really that mobile? I sit at my desk at least 40 hours per week when I am in town. I can't see getting rid of my cell phone even with those home phone systems that jack into your cell phone. For me the call quality on the cell is inferior to either my VoIP line (most times) and my POTS line.

I think that battery life will always save the desktop phone. I wish it could do more: like updates and texts or IM or something. After all the desktop IP phone by Polycom or Aastra (the ones I am familiar with) are mini-computers. Broadsoft and Aastra have XML marketplaces for apps for them, but I have not heard (or seen) anyone taking advantage yet. (Anyone?)

As more minutes move away from the PSTN to VoIP Networks and Cellular systems, what happens to the PSTN? Where's the Tipping Point when the telcos can't or won't maintain it anymore?

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. This has repeatedly been the most common issue I have seen in deployments of business VOIP, especially hosted. It also shows how many companies have people running their networks that really have little to no idea of what they are doing."

"This is also exactly why the bulk retail residential VOIP providers put such little emphasis on their support, since they know it is a losing battle especially in today's reality of shared access MSOs and oversubscribed DSL providers. And that is before they actively block or shape the competition."

Many VoIP Providers don't even take this into account.

Another great panel at IT EXPO West will be Leveraging Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) to Maximize Network Efficiency. We will be discussing what a CDN is; where it fits in the network architecture and why; what the business model is; and how it affects the Customer Experience. Voxel dot Net, Voxeo and Zeugma Systems will be on the panel. Stop by Wed., 9/2/09, at 11:30 AM.

One of my sessions at ITEXPO in Los Angeles will be Developing Profitable Web 2.0 Solutions. The all-star panel consists of Ifbyphone, Voxeo, and Intelepeer, who will be talking about how to us an API to create a new app. Should be good content. Stop by at 9:30 AM on Thursday.

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.

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. Cloud or no cloud, security is breached. 

I guess its like spam: we'll always have it. And unlike PGP encryption: hardly used at all.