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

October 2011

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So PAETEC is in the WIND

October 31, 2011

There's No Spectrum Shortage

October 31, 2011

"US mobile networks currently have access to 538Mhz of radio spectrum -- with a further 300Mhz due to be made available -- but only 192Mhz is currently being used, according to an analyst note from Citi Investment Research & Analysis," from an article on Cellular News.

from Blough Turner's blog.

It kind of destroys (yet again) the argument of AT&T for buying T-Mobile. These carriers have the spectrum, which they have either NOT DEPLOYED or, as AT&T was polite as to tell Congress, have mismanaged what they have deployed.

Zero Moment of Truth

October 31, 2011

I hit up the newest gastro pub last night. It's been open about 4 days. There were zero search results on Google about them. Just a flash-based website. It was slow in the pub.

4 Random Thoughts from a Telecom Show

October 28, 2011

Here are 4 random thoughts from the STC (Society of Telecom Consultants) today.

The oil industry looks at green. When you are doing a comparison between Hosted PBX and Premise based PBX, remember that when you are moving hardware to cloud, so the premise saves on power, A/C, battery, and other stuff, which also means that on Cloud Communications means that the electric consumption is moved to a shared environment. It's a Green effort.

Just Like Fishing

October 28, 2011

I was reminded this morning while speaking to the STC that Marketing is just like fishing or hunting. You need to know what you will be trying to catch; what bait you will need; and where to hunt or fish.

Just like fishing, there are going to be some people just sitting in the boat catching nothing but a buzz and a sunburn because they are using the wrong bait (message) or there are no fish in that area.

Online marketing and social media really take that into account.



Oracle Says RightNow

October 24, 2011

What surprised me about

Cramming Star

October 24, 2011

Smarter Ads

October 24, 2011

One thing about On-Demand Prime Time TV that drives me nuts is the way the ads are repeated and driven into your head like a nail via a hammer. OUCH! The ads aren't even good.

My email box since before ITEXPO has been filled with PR firms emailing me press releases.

Some Have Reached The Peak

October 21, 2011

I had a conversation yesterday with a friend from UHC. She mentioned that VISA is worried about its profitability on just the $0.24 federal max per debit card transaction. Here's the problem the American economy faces: We Peaked Already.  Period.

Globally, America is in a battle for good jobs, natural resources, oil, and soon clean water.

Business is Still Happening

October 19, 2011

Despite all the bad news, bad politics, financial collapse and more, at the end of the quarter business is still getting done. People are still buying stuff.

For example, Juliana Kenny reports that Yahoo! still hit earnings expectations even with firing their CEO.

Stranded Assets

October 18, 2011

Last week, FISPA had a skype video call with the FCC. The first part was with Lisa Gelb of the Wireline Competition Bureau. She gave us a perspective on the Decline of the PSTN. There has been a 34% decline in wireline as consumers swicth from the fixed network and migration to other services, like VoIP, video, SMS and broadband.

The Telco Customer Experience

October 18, 2011

There has been some buzz on twitter about the telcos working on bettering the customer experience. Despite JD Powers awards, the average customer is not happy.

Those that are still on Telco 1.0 with POTS and DSL do not have a special relationship. And the fees are piling up.

Those with 3G or 4G wish they were actually getting high-speed broadband.

Those with VoIP - not quite Telco 2.0 - wish the quality was better.

Those customers with Hosted PBX - Telco 2.0 - wish the onboarding was better; the features easier to figure out; and that the quality was better.

The promise of Telco 2.0 and 3G/4G has largely been limited at the customer experience end.









It's Monday So Lots Happened

October 17, 2011

Polycom bought Vivu, a video collaboration company, to help Polycom push it's Presence gear. Video, video, video. Yet I never have video calls or video call requests. To me, I wish you would work on the phone part.

Jobs Jobs Jobs

October 14, 2011

There are quite a few positions available.

Tele-Pacific is looking for

Will Paetec End up in the Wind

October 11, 2011

PAETEC has a bid on the table from Windstream for a stock swap. The board of PAETEC will vote on it at the end of October. Some shareholders are so not happy with the bid value that lawyers and analysts have been hired to evaluate the deal.

Meanwhile CNBC reports that Level3 will be putting in a competing bid for PAETEC despite the fact that L3 is currently in the process of acquiring Global Crossing.

The Panel of 5

October 11, 2011

How does an agent distinguish between five CLEC's if the channel heads of those five companies spend much of an hour saying, "I agree" and "What she said".

That's what happened at the carrier executive panel at the Microcorp One-on-One event last night. Donna Wenk, SVP at PAETEC; Blake Wetzel, VP at CenturyLink; Mike Jerich, VP of Global Crossing and now Level3; Cardi Prinzi, EVP at EarthLink; and Carolyn Rehling, Regional VP of Sales at Sprint sat on a panel as Brad Miehl, CEO of master agency Microcorp, asked about plans for the Channel, products and what we might see in the Industry in the near term.

Everyone said MPLS and SIP -- oh, and Cloud - would be core products in 2012 - even Sprint, who mentioned its global MPLS.



360, OpenRange and Hosting.com

October 11, 2011

It looks like Zayo Group is going to buy 360 Networks. Back in May, Zayo and 360 entered into a long-term dark fiber deal that must have set off talks of an acquisition. (It explains why 360 was too busy to keynote this week.) Zayo, backed by M/C Ventures,  reported sales of $77.8 million and a profit of $11 million in 4Q11.  Instead of being acquired, Zayo is grabbing its 17th sale.

Hosting.com acquired Neospire, a Dallas based mission critical, managed hosting provider.

What Does It Say About the Reseller Model?

October 11, 2011

TNCI filed BK, owing $10M. There have been a number of resellers over the years in this industry - and there will be more. Reselling is THE business model that everyone jumps on it telecom. What was UNE-P after all?

TNCI Files BK

October 10, 2011

The reseller that spent so much effort trying to sign agents up for its Equity Plan - cash out when TNCI sells out - went south today by filing for bankruptcy. TNCI owes $10 million dollars to its wholesale carriers - Sprint, CenturyLink, AT&T, VZ and others. Agents are worried about commission payments paid and unpaid.

[That's all I had at the time and not much has been added.]


An update from a Master Agent: "On Sunday, October 9, 2011, TNCI filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection.






WAN Optimization

October 10, 2011

How Do You Make it Rain in the Cloud?

October 10, 2011

Here at Microcorp's One-on-One event, I moderated a panel this morning about various cloud services with Level3 (CDN), Cbeyond (Virtual Servers), Intercall (Microsoft 365/Linc), EarthLink (Security), and PAETEC (Visual Messaging). It's an eclectic mix, but that should tell you that there are many ways to leverage this thing called CLOUD to make money.

The Cloud is really a value for IT services. It's about leveraging the technology and the technical skill set of another company in order to let the business focus on their own finctionality, instead of the tech that might help the business operate.

The move to the Cloud by carriers is due to the lack of margin growth in the primary business of access. It's moving up the OSI stack from Layer 1 (wireless, copper, fiber) to Layer 3 (Internet) to Layer 7 (Apps).



Metaswitch is Blowing Up

October 6, 2011

I know that the M Forum was last week, but the news is tumbling out of Metaswitch faster than I can read it. It started at CPExpo when EarthLink Business confirmed that it was going Meta despite buying STS which was a Sylantro shop. Deltacom and ONE Comm had a lot of Metaswitches lying around (mostly unused.

Optimum Lightpath (Cablevision) rolled out Next-Gen Hosted PBX for the mid-market and enterprise.

To One of the Weird Ones

October 6, 2011

So your streams are probably filled with Steve Jobs links today. For repeating some of it here I apologize in advance. Seth Godin wrote a short eulogy to Steve Jobs yesterday. He spoke about the devices he created.

The Sprint Rumor Mill

October 5, 2011

We all know that Sprint is finally getting the iPhone - the 4S, not the 5. Is that really so terrible? apparently, Sprint had to guarantee $20B worth of iPhones - about 30 million phones over 4 years. Depending on who you believe - WSJ, BGR, or the Apple Insider - Sprint will be getting the iPhone 5 exclusively.

MVNO and Name Changes

October 3, 2011

Here at COMPTEL there have been some announcements. The big one is that Sprint has signed up two new MVNO's - XO and Easton Telecom. Easton Telecom is a reseller CLEC that has contracts with 100+ carriers (according to its PR). The interesting move comes from XO whose interim CEO inked an MVNO deal with Sprint.

What Does an SLA Really Mean?

October 2, 2011

SLA

stands for Service Level Agreement. Basically, an SLA is the minimum level of service that a carrier will deliver to you per your agreement. It is not a guarantee or an assurance that you will get that service.

Sales is Not Marketing

October 2, 2011

I saw this topic at a startup conference: "Sales for Start-ups How to Market Like a Rock Star!" If you ever see that topic, RUN!

Sales is NOT Marketing. They are different.

Laura Lake explains, "Marketing is everything that you do to reach and persuade prospects.

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