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

February 2010

You are browsing the archive for February 2010.

Intelliverse Reverses Course

February 26, 2010

In November, I noted that Intelliverse was shifting focus. They are actually reversing course. Intelliverse was formerly Voicecom, a voicemail platform company. It made its money from MLM type companies, like Mary Kay, who had many franchisees who needed a voicemail type account.

Reclaim Some VoIP Gear

February 23, 2010

Changing the Cable Channels

February 23, 2010

As we head into the Channel Partners Expo in Vegas, we get the story of an agent being played by a carrier. Now it's not that unusual for agents to have carrier commission collection issues. There have been many stories about it in the last 18 months. What makes this unusual is that the carrier is a cable company.

SEO and Google Dollars

February 19, 2010

I was at Social Fresh a couple of weeks ago. It is a conference for marketers to exchange stories about social media. Here are some of my take aways:

Social Media is still young yet.

Is Google a Thief?

February 18, 2010

Google CEO Eric Schmidt made enough of an impression at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week that Yankee Group blogged about it. Google at the MWC.

Much criticism against Google is that they steal from book publishers, TV and movie producers, and newspapers. TechDirt regularly provides case studies of how much malarchy this is.

What Do You Need to Know?

February 16, 2010

On a discussion today about certification training for agents under the TCA  umbrella, we talked about what kind of training will it be.

Years ago, there was a CSP certification for agents that was created by Virgo (Phone+), Dale Stein of TAG, and Scott Levy. It didn't get much traction. Some think because of the money, but I think it's because agents don't want training.

How many agents think about the Industry, the Indirect Channel?

TEDx Tampa Bay: Happiness is the Key

February 13, 2010

I was at TEDx Tampa Bay yesterday. (It's a local franchise under the TED umbrella. Charles Armstrong of SparkLabs is Tampa Bay's Steve Jobs - wait till you see the Tour Wrist. He stated in his talk, "The limits of what's possible is bound only by the limits of our innovators' imagination." 

We saw this at ITEXPO East 2010 a couple of weeks ago. There are many companies that are banging out really neat stuff. Our industry has a bunch of   brilliant stars - many of whom where in the Cloud Summit.

Guy Hagen summed it up during his TEDx talk: This economic storm is riddled with opportunity for creativity and innovation.



How Do They Avoid Being Just the Dumb Pipe

February 11, 2010

On LinkedIn there was a question in the Telecom Executives Business Network group: "How can a Telco Service Provider value chain defend itself from the attack by the emerging "Cloud" services? My understanding is that the emerging "cloud" services remove value-add and differentiation from the Telco service providers which are cornered to act just as the bit-stream providers (especially for the retail market)."

My answer to that was as follows:

Most telco carriers worry about becoming a Dumb Pipe. Isenberg told them this would happen.

Is it the Regulatory Environment?

February 9, 2010

In a twitter exchange with Erik Cecil, former regulatory counsel at Level3, we were dialoging about the Fairpoint bankruptcy. (FairPoint aims to cut debt by two-thirds).

My reply stated, "Just 2 years after the deal w/VZ to create an unstable Fairpoint despite opposition, Fairpoint screws everyone." By everyone, I mean the customers, the economy, the state, the PUC who approved the deal despite being against it (And Erik, you think there is regulation?), the workers, the Union, shareholders and the debt holders. I actually don't care about the last two, because both should have known it was going to go POOF!

ISP Sues ILEC for $10B

February 9, 2010

Endstream Plans

February 8, 2010

At ITEXPO East 2010, I sat down with Erik B. Levitt of Endstream Communications to find out what this wholesale VoIP Provider had plans for in 2010. Endstream is a domestic inter-connection carrier wholesaling VoIP minutes. It acquired a small residential VoIP player. It is in-process for CLEC status in five states.

Freeside's new CEO

February 8, 2010

Freeside Internet Services, Inc. is the company behind the open-source telecom billing system named Freeside. Peter Bowen was named President and CEO on January 1, 2010. Ivan Kohler steps down as president but remains as the chief architect for the software.

Mitel MVNO Means Money

February 5, 2010

Mitel has signed an MVNO deal (TMC video) in order to maximize on its PBX business as it relates to the mobile workforce.  It's one thing to have an application that loads on some smartphones and will talk to the PBX. It's a whole other pool of thought to go make a deal with a cellco to resell their network so that your mobility piece of the PBX puzzle can be better integrated.

As expected, here's why I think this will fail:

  • Most MVNO agreements end in flames - ESPN, Disney, Helio, Virgin Mobile. 
  • The cellular pie is flattening, so how much room is there for another carrier.
  • The current price feud between ATT and VZW means shrinking margins.
  • Contracts, cool phones and fulfillment.
Mitel's Mobility play will encourage more minutes of use and more MB's of data -- all of which they have to pay for (like Cbeyond does) as a metered service. This will also eat into margins.

How do you get around the fact that most people are under a contract already for cell service? Or that many folks want their iPhone (or other cool, preferred handset)?

Enterprise Cloud Computing Seminar

February 4, 2010

  The February South Florida Technology Association (SFTA) monthly meeting in Fort Lauderdale will bring together the leaders in the virtual server and storage cloud computing space. Panelists will include representatives from Dell, VM Ware, Cisco, and DataCore.

"There is a lot of excitement building up to the event and we expect a great crowd to attend, including local IT Directors and C level executives from some of the largest organizations in South Florida," writes Lenny Chesal, Chief Marketing Officer for the sponsor, Host.Net.

The meeting will be February 25 at 5:30 PM at the Fort Lauderdale Marriott North (6650 North Andrews Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, FL).

Which Docket, Dave?

February 4, 2010

Dave Rusin is the CEO of American Fiber Systems. He is a self-proclaimed fiber bigot. He has a two part blog post about the Special Access fight at the FCC. 

Dave may have his dockets confused. He calls it the Special Access docket at the FCC, but he is really ranting about the UNE docket. What's the difference?

The Special Access docket was started by Sprint and T-Mobile.



Can You Stop Billing Me?

February 4, 2010

AT&T terminated the CallVantage service in November. Not only was porting the number out of CallVantage a challenge, but they continue to send me a bill for a service that they terminated!

I can't log in because the phone number is no longer with ATT. So I email for help.

Is This a First?

February 4, 2010

Chasing the Points

February 3, 2010

Sometimes being an agent is embarrassing. There's the whole discussion on Phone+ about Ethics in the Channel. When I first got in the channel in 1999, I wouldn't do business in Miami, because you had to buy the business. Agents would pay up to 90% of the commissions back to the customer (or the customer's wife) to get the business. 

Then there's the whole: I'm going with whoever gives me the most points.

Comcast Buys NGT

February 3, 2010

Comcast goes deep into trunking and Hosted VoIP with the purchase of New Global Telecom (NGT). NGT has had a few business models. It started out as a wholesaler, providing the back-end softswitch for companies like AT&T and New Zealand Telecom. It then started selling partitions on the Broadsoft.

VoIP Via Affiliate

February 2, 2010

RingCentral has been selling their services via the affiliate marketing route for some time. LD.net built a big book of business through affiliate marketing. Now FreedomVoice has launched their affiliate network.

"The program offers affiliates the opportunity to sell three popular FreedomVOICE products: FreedomVOICE Toll Free Number Service (virtual phone system solution), FaxFreedom (an intuitive Internet faxing service), and AdTrakker (a real estate call capture system)."

Commission Junction is one of the portals for affiliate marketing.

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