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

June 2011

You are browsing the archive for June 2011.

Dimension Data Makes a Move

June 30, 2011

I learned about Dimension Data a VoiceCon event. They had an interesting booth. They are a South African company doing more than $4B in revenue as a global VAR for Cisco, Microsoft, McAfee, TEM, HP, EMC, VMWare, Blue Coat and more. I didn't know that NTT bought the company outright in 2010 for GBP 2.1B.

What You Can Learn from Blackberry

June 30, 2011

An employee of Blackberry published an open letter to the co-CEO's on the web [see it here]. There are lessons for all in this letter.

1) It's all about the USER Experience. The people buying your product / service are the ones you have to please. Not Wall Street, your VC's, or your own desires.

DISH Grabs Spectrum, Cable Goes South

June 28, 2011

So Charter has purchased the "cable television systems from US Cable of Coastal Texas, LP serving, in aggregate, approximately 16,000 customers in Missouri, including the communities of Hannibal, Moberly and Mexico," according to The Mexico Ledger.

TDS parent, Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. announced it will acquire OneNeck IT Services for $95 million. OneNeck, generated revenues of $37 million in 2010, will be a subsidiary of TDS Hosted & Managed Services, LLC (TDS HMS). OneNeck is a hosted application management and managed IT hosting services provider, specializing in ERP apps.

TelePacific Nabs Another

June 28, 2011

TelePacific moves into Texas with the acquisition of facilities-based CLEC, Tel West. Tel West is in Central Texas, serving about 3400 SMB customers. This will add to TelePacific's current 38,000 customers, serving 1.2 million access lines in mainly California and Nevada, according to the Sun Herald.

TelePacific has been on a tear lately picking up Orange County Internet Exchange, Telekenex, Nextweb and pieces of O1 to boost its revenues and add assets that it didn't previously have like a data center, nationwide MPLS network, Hosted UC platform and Managed Servcies division. It certainly makes for an exciting CLEC for agents to sell for.

Tel West, founded in 1998, owns and operates 11,000 fiber miles in Texas with offices in San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth and Corpus Christi. This will give the VC's invested in TelePacific - Investcorp and Clarity Partners - the push into Texas that they want.



Should Cisco Buy Level3?

June 27, 2011

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Is this article today on ARS, the writer, Cameron Kaine, is asking for Cisco CEO Chambers to step down. In the same article, the writer thinks that Cisco should spend its $45B in cash to buy Level3.

Kind of ridiculous for a number of reasons.

One: now you compete against your customers. A move like this would give Juniper and others the perfect opportunity to take market share.

Two: Cisco owned a network provider before.





Why Use an Independent Telecom Broker?

June 27, 2011

What is an Independent Telecom Broker? It's not the preferred title that I like for an independent telecommunications agent but some companies like it. It has variations as Agent, Consultant and Specialist, but at the end of the day the Independent Telecom Broker is hired by the customer to find them the best solution available for their business.

According to the Society of Telecommunications Consultants, "No member shall accept fees, commissions, or any other valuable consideration in connection with those services from anyone other than the member's client." A broker - like a stock broker - makes his money from transactions; in this case, a broker gets paid by the vendor for any sales made.

XO Has a New Channel Chief

June 27, 2011

XO has announced that the new Channel Head at XO is Shane McNamara. Shane spent time in the channel at Global Crossing and recently headed up the carrier services department (agency) at CDW. Shane replaces Brian Law, who left XO due to a renewed entrereneurial spirit.

From the official announcement from XO's CMO, Mike Toplisek: "Today I'm pleased to announce the new leader for the XO Business Partner program and our indirect sales efforts.

GoDaddy for $2B?

June 24, 2011

Sprint/C-Link Talk

June 22, 2011

There have been a bunch of rumors about Sprint being a perfect target for CenturyLink, especially after the T-T merger, when Sprint will become the the Danica Patrick of cellular (pretty, media savvy, but not a real contender).

CenturyLink is currently rolling out VZW products to small business and residential customers, according to news reports. Qwest, recently absorbed by CenturyLink, was partnered with Sprint then switched to being a VZW authorized agent. Since both carriers went with VZW, I don't see them rushing in to buy Sprint.

One reason: why give such a sales boost to VZW to then have to swap everyone over (if you even can get them to switch).

Another reason: Sprint has a convoluted relationship with Clearwire, cablecos and PCS affiliates.





Is this a Master Agent Dilemma?

June 21, 2011

From the carrier side, Channel executives are looking to the VAR space for growth? Why is that? Has the Agent contribution to channel revenue hit a plateau?

At dinner last night, I was talking about the magic number of a tribe. For consultants, it's 100.

FCC Gets to Work on Cramming (and more)

June 20, 2011

The FCC is working on the ATT-T-Mobile merger. The FCC is still monitoring Broadband and the Media. Looming over the Agency is the issue of Inter-Carrier Compensation, which Google weighed in on today by saying that the Tail is Wagging the Dog! Google is not alone in requesting that the FCC settle inter-carrier compensation for VoIP at $0.0007 per minute.

Moving and Shaking the Industry

June 20, 2011

Cbeyond opens up for business in Boston. Agents rejoice as they get to sell a booming brand to the SMB space in Boston.

AboveNet looks to have a private equity buyer.

Another fiber provider is getting an infusion of equity from a new private equity partner.

One of the original Broadsoft providers, CommX, was acquired by Keyon Holdings.

Lightyear Network Solutions has a new Sprint MVNO agreement that will allow it to offer its 60k current customers some new wireless products as well as its agent channel.

8�8 acquires a cloud company named Zerigo, which offers managed DNS, VPS and Cloud servers and monitoring. This move puts 8�8 on par with Cbeyond, Intermedia.Net and Parallels -- all companies that are truly treating Hosted VoIP as just another service in the cloud.

TWC is buying cable systems in KY and TN from NewWave for $260M [SOURCE: gulfnews.com ( http://bit.ly/m2Xeqv)]











Craig's Lifetime of Customer Service

June 15, 2011

Craig Newmark of craigslist spoke at the CoolTech event in Tampa last Friday. It was a good speech from a nerd with a dry sense of geeky humor. (Not everyone got it.) He was doing his best to "simulate social behavior", he said. He had 3 themes that he repeated throughout the talk (that's kind of my style of speaking, too): Customer Service, Doing what's Right, and the Common Good. Craig was introduced by his former attorney, Brett Britton, as a Bad ass.

Jobs

June 14, 2011

I was lured in to watch some of the GOP Presidential candidates debate on CNN last night. (I'll keep any comments about how the Baker Act comes to mind while watching some of them.) Then I switched over to watch the Bruins just pound Vancouver again. (Sorry, Wig!) But the prevailing debate theme was JOBS.

I just noted that bankers are making pucks on M&S and debt, but there are jobs out there. Two were in my inbox today.

One CLEC needs a VoIP Account Exec.

One MSO needs some with Broadsoft experience.

A couple of months ago, a few CLEC's were hunting for Channel Managers.

If you are job hunting, is your LinkedIn profile up-to-date and complete?
Are you connected to me on LinkedIn?
Do you check the jobs section of LinkedIn?
Do you check the TMC Job Board?

On twitter, I get a lot of marketing jobs.














And So the Bankers Cheer

June 14, 2011

Intermedia is a hosted Exchange company that ventured into hosted VoIP. That venture landed them an LOI (letter of intent to buy) from a private equity firm. On the heels of that, Intermedia decided to grab Zlago to bolster the cloud channel push that Oak Hill Capital Partners wants. Combined they reach about 7000 MSP's and VAR's, according to this report.

As TV Slows, The Cloud?

June 13, 2011

As I have been spouting for a while, telcos are getting into TV (and spending billions to do it) too late. The TV market is saturated - DirecTV, DISH, cable, telco and OTT. The economy isn't helping either as people ditch landlines and TV for mobile and Internet (bundles that the ISP's just don't seem to want to sell for some strange reason).

The cablecos tried wireless, but have dropped that notion in lieu of just partnering with Sprint (and Clearwire) again. (Still no Quad-Bundle actively being advertised.) The mobile and broadband space are both growing slowly (if at all). 

Growth Starts Here

June 8, 2011

This is from GE's 2010 Annual Report. I liked the graphic and the slogan: Growth Starts Here! When I think about GE that brings good things to life, I think that they must have very good people and a culture to applaud innovation AND failure (because you can't innovation without risk and failure). This is what it must have been like in the hey day at XEROX PARC, AT&T Labs and 3M. 

Telecom Debt

June 7, 2011

It's amazing how much debt there is in telecom.

AT&T and its assorted subsidiaries owe $65B.

According to Zacks, "the Debt to Asset ratio shows the proportion of a company's assets that are financed through debt. If the ratio is greater than one, most of the company's assets are financed through debt." Zacks lists a few telecom companies:

VZW and the Open Spectrum

June 7, 2011

In the 700 MHz FCC spectrum auction 73, Google 's involvement insured that the spectrum would be Open Access. ATT ducked out of that auction to buy 700 MHz spectrum from Aloha Networks instead. VZW won $9B worth of Googlized spectrum. That is, that the spectrum was supposed to be used for open access.

Service Provider Claims

June 4, 2011

What's funny is when one service provider tells me how inept the other service provider in his region is. "We take customers from them all the time." I hear the same exact thing from the other service provider.

Two other funny things I hear. One is how every service provider has the most talented tech person in the whole world.

Six More TCA Agent Companies Adopt CTP as Core Training Platform

June 3, 2011

The first industry trade association-sponsored certification program designed specifically for indirect sales agents is gaining momentum. Six more agent companies that are members of the Technology Channel Association (TCA) announced they have adopted the Certified Telecommunications Professional (CTP) program as a core training platform for their carrier sales group--AB&T Telecom, Avant Communications, COLOTRAQ, Microcorp, TBI and WTG.

"Ever since the formation of TCA in 2008, we have aimed to make professional standards in this industry official," said Dany Bouchedid, TCA President and COLOTRAQ's CEO.

Unbundling Cable

June 3, 2011

All Those in Favor

June 3, 2011

The Benton Foundation notes that there are over 10,000 comments to the FCC about the ATT/T-Mobile merger. Unions and relatives are competing against consumer groups for the robo-comments.

Meanwhile, MetroPCS officially opposed it, but wants to buy all the assets that ATT will have to spin off.

"The New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel says the Federal Communications Commission should deny the application of AT&T to acquire T-Mobile USA's assets and operations from Deutsche Telekom AG because the proposed transaction is not in the public interest," according to Benton.

Cable is Different

June 1, 2011

When selling cable services, it is different from selling most telco services. For one, the voice services are all digital and SIP. In many cases, voice is delivered on a separate VLAN or even physical path. (It's not a dynamically allocated converged circuit.)

Data services are delivered differently too.

Top 3 Things Affecting Your Agency

June 1, 2011

Your telecom agency has seen some changes over the last 10 years for certain, but the industry is in another state of change. What three things can affect your Agency?

1. Commission changes.

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