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

October 2012

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Tough Talk About the Channel - VARs and Agents

October 31, 2012

Best Practices for Webinars

October 30, 2012

Just finished moderating a webinar for Kontiki on Adding Live Video to All-Hands. It seemed like a good time to go over some best practices for webinars for speakers.

  • Do not use cellphones if possible. The feedback from the phone and the poor call quality diminish the speaker's impact.
  • Speakerphones are not a good idea due to background noise. I have been on a lot of calls with barking dogs, TV blaring, and other noises.
  • Remember that it is ultimately about the content and the user experience.


It's All Just Shifting

October 26, 2012

"Ovum, in a latest research report, has warned that OTT VoIP will cost the global telecoms industry $479 billion in lost cumulative revenues by 2020, which represents 6.9 percent of cumulative total voice revenues," according to reports. Notice that it says Over-the-Top VoIP, not VoIP the way cellcos, FiOS and cablecos deliver it. I think it is a wild guess.

If you believe that tablets and smartphones will replace desktops and PC's, then OTT VoIP will be a good part of that.

Moves by AT&T

October 25, 2012

"An industry executive argues that service providers face becoming "irrelevant" to consumers, though it might be unusual to hear it said in public," writes Gary Kim. It is the same argument - dumb pipe versus value added reseller.

While VZ and ATT have billing relationships with hundreds of millions of customers, is that enough? Without valuable contact to your customers, service providers are relegated to being a line item on the credit card bill -- commodities to be RFP'ed or shopped.

The Future of the Desk Phone

October 25, 2012

Have you read that the desk phone is disappearing? It seems to be a recurring theme for Jon Arnold (here and here).

When I spoke with snom at ITEXPO, I asked them about the disappearing desk phone. snom's response was that they were taking market share from Cisco and Polycom, so they were doing okay growth wise.

Your Cellphone is Spying on You

October 18, 2012

There is so much talk about malware on Windows computers. Apple users think they are safe. HA! It was simply a matter of volume. Now that iOS is on millions of devices it is worth the time for bad guys to turn their focus.

Zayo Grabs First

October 17, 2012

Where's Your Special Sauce?

October 17, 2012

Just saw a blog post about a company rolling out SIP Trunking to meet the market demand for low cost dial-tone. Really? Hasn't that been done? Over and over and over by so many companies?

The Changing VAR World

October 15, 2012

Opening evening at UBM's BoB Conference was a panel discussion about the change in the VAR and MSP community. This is a collection of tweets about the panel discussion #bob12.

Social Media (SM) , mobility, are cloud - threats to some, opportunities to some - both to many.

"Behave like a three-year old: fall down, learn something, try again."

The New Job Marketplace

October 15, 2012

Jobvite has a slide deck about the future of work. Bigger companies are not creating the same amount of jobs - or the same kind of jobs. Technology replaced a lot of workers, even some salespeople.

The 3 C's - Consolidation, Cloud, (global) Competition - are eliminating jobs by the tens of thousands - ask CenturyLink, Verizon, Cisco, HP.

Three Big Jumps This Weekend

October 15, 2012

The biggest jump over the weekend was Red Bull Stratos: "Felix Baumgartner captured the attention of the web on Sunday when he jumped from a capsule 128,000 feet above Earth and landed safely on the ground in New Mexico." [via Huffpro] Not only did Baumgartner break the speed of sound, but YouTube broke the streaming barrier previously set at the Olympics. 8M people watched globally as Baumgarter jumped from the stratosphere.

Another big jump was Japanese mobile operator, Softbank, plunking down $20.1 Billion for a 70% stake in Sprint. Sprint needed the cash to reverse its course in 4G build-out issues with WiMax and Clearwire.

Money, Market, Launch - News

October 12, 2012

I can't always write about everything happening, so here are some tidbits:

The TCA added 17 more members at the CPExpo in Orlando as the TCA closes in on 550 members - about 200 of whom have signed up to get certified as a CTP.

The US Secretary of Defense announced that Cyber-attacks could threaten US infrastructure. The DoD is working on a response.

We Will Cost You Jobs

October 10, 2012

Don't worry this isn't a political rant; it is a marketing one. Many of the lost jobs in America are due to technology. No one really mentions that. I saw this tweet today:

The VoIP industry makes a couple of claims that I think are ridiculous:

Why Do Agents Need Marketing?

October 9, 2012

ITEXPO West Wrap-Up

October 8, 2012

I'm home from ITEXPO West in Austin. It was another great show for me. The folks at TMC did another wonderful job putting it together.

Jaime H. juggled my press room meeting schedule on Tuesday, despite my last minute schedule changes.

The Fall of the CLECs

October 4, 2012

With the T1 market being overrun by the cable companies, CLEC's are struggling to find footing. They need to go cloud, but are struggling. It is times like this when they wish they had a brand.

Branding would help them with the next step - or a Vision.

Sprint Missed the Boat

October 3, 2012

MetroPCS was in a hurry to get hitched. With 30 fast approaching, MetroPCS dated Sprint then got engaged to T-Mobile USA. Gary Kim has a nice graph of how T-Mobile will still be 4th after this acquisition, but a closer 4th.

No one is bemoaning the GSM-CDMA issues that lie ahead - and they do.

Mobile Apps Are Not News

October 3, 2012

This May Hurt

October 3, 2012

I notice that more companies are getting smart and putting women in the C-suite. IBM has quite a few female SVP's and a new female CEO. Yahoo! has a new female CEO. Facebook has a smart COO who needs a CEO gig.

Buying or Being Bought: Sprint

October 2, 2012

In March, Craig Moffett of Bernstein Research announced that Sprint would end up in bankruptcy. MSN reports, "After assigning a 50% likelihood in March that Sprint would end up in bankruptcy as it raced to build a national wireless network to handle smartphones like the iPhone 5 and compete with stronger carriers -- and citing bond trading prices -- telecom sector bear Craig Moffett of Bernstein Research now says that readily available financing makes that prospect remote. However, amid a 100%-plus stock rise for Sprint in 2012, Moffett says that even if bankruptcy is not a near-term risk for Sprint shareholders, significant risks remain."

Bloomberg writes, "Sprint's stock surged 136 percent for the second-biggest gain in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index as the wireless provider boosted sales with Apple Inc.'s iPhone and began rolling out a faster network.

Some Moves That May Seem Like News

October 2, 2012

Who is going 100G? Both XO and Spread Networks announced its deployment of 100G technology. The surprise? Bright House Networks announced that it will extend its relationship with Fujitsu and utilize that vendor for 100G in its metro network.

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