Peter : On Rad's Radar?
Peter
| Peter Radizeski of RAD-INFO, Inc. talking telecom, Cloud, VoIP, CLEC, and The Channel.

December 2012

You are browsing the archive for December 2012.

Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry & Monopoly Power

December 31, 2012

Three Quick Thoughts on the Economy

December 31, 2012

Fiscal Cliff (or whatever dreaded scenario that Congress is creating to profit from personally) is just one more emergency to keep the American public in check panic mode. Meanwhile, Congress got a raise.

This brings me to point 2: the top earners keep earning more money but the middle class remains flat.

Recently, I was part of a group in Tampa opposing tax dollars to bring in another big box retailer.

It Starts With On-Boarding

December 28, 2012

Whether it is a new partner, a new employee or a new customer, the on-boarding is the most important step that you can take.

For an employee, at arrival, there should be a workspace, gear and guidance waiting.

For a customer, on-boarding is the process by which you ensure that the customer not only understands the changes that your services - Hosted PBX, backup, MDM, cloud services - will have on their daily work experience, but has options for learning how to use it - like manuals, videos and more.

I have seen where customers would leave a Hosted PBX vendor due to poor on-boarding - more precisely because the customer didn't get to leverage the service enough to make it worthwhile keeping.

Will 2013 Be the Year of the Broker?

December 27, 2012

As carriers add cloud services, we find that a majority offer the same stuff. DUH! That happens with everything in telecom - Integrated T1, Metro E, EoC, Hosted Exchange, SIP Trunking, yadda yadda.

As we enter an era of cloud and social media, I find that most of the service providers are still not branding.

Last Merger of 2012 - Maybe

December 27, 2012

Sidera is merging with Lightower - to compete more effectively with the RBOCs, according to IBT.

The merger is being done by Berkshire Partners, a VC firm with no connection to Bershire Hathaway. It is a $2.2B deal. Both Lightower and Sidera are owned by VC's.

Blunt Advice About Cloud for the Channel

December 21, 2012

I write often about how Agents need to be selling Cloud services for 3 reasons:

The industry is swinging to cloud as the main revenue source since the PSTN is closing and thus access to copper.

The idea of the Office is migrating to mobile, which is the number one reason for cloud services - access anywhere.

More and more businesses have to do more with less people.

Everyone Uses Conferencing

December 19, 2012

Predictions for 2013

December 19, 2012

CenturyLink Biz has an ebook out with predictions for 2013 and beyond. M2M, mobility, cloud - all just mind blowing stuff . It's prediction time obviously. Let me say that 2013 can go a couple of ways - DC gets its collective act together to improve the financial situation or it doesn't.

A Little Bit of Tuesday News

December 18, 2012

365 Main returns to the data center space with its completed $75 million acquisition of 16 data centers, in the US from Equinix. Some Equinix execs came along with the acquisition. The data centers - located in Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Indianapolis, Nashville, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburg, San Jose, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa and Washington D.C. - seem like the former Switch & Data facilities.

2 Small Acquisitions

December 14, 2012

Fill 'Er Up

December 11, 2012

Many business models are at odds with the customer wishes.

Airlines want full planes. Customers don't want to be sardines and have bags checked for them.

Consumers hope that not everyone is using the Internet at 8 PM.

Cloudy Math

December 10, 2012

There is a lot of talk about the big money that Agents and VAR's can make if they just switch over to sell Managed Services and Cloud Services. Here are some facts about cloud.

M5 had the highest ARPU (average invoice per customer) when ShoreTel bought them - at $2000. Most other cloud communications providers hint at lower ARPU - maybe around $1000 per customer.

Regulating the Internet

December 10, 2012

While the ITU / UN take over of the Internet was being debunked, AT&T has been making moves of its own. They even have the help of the Astroturf groups as they try to dismantle the copper plant and reassert their Monopoly. (more about that at WSJ)

The FCC is working on two fronts.

RBOCs Declare War on CLECs

December 6, 2012

This is a letter from telecom lawyer Kris Twomey to the members of FISPA, an association for ISP's and CLEC's. I know that Politics and Regulatory talk puts you to sleep or bores you or you don't have time for it - but these proposed changes to the Telecom Act WILL affect you!

"One of the questions I am often asked by ISPs considering starting CLEC operations is whether access to unbundled network elements ("UNEs" or "the copper in the ground") will continue in the future. My response has always been something like, "Of course, the Telecom Act guarantees it.

Beware of Cable

December 6, 2012

On the one hand, you have the Top MSO's - Comcast, TWC, Cox, Charter, Cablevision and Bright House - taking market share rapidly, primarily due to its better broadband bargain and its willingness to build out fiber.

On the other hand, cable sells a commodity item at low prices. Obviously, not just cable prices are low, T1's are under $300 in major areas; EoC is inexpensive; and Internet bandwidth in major hubs is under $1 per MB! It is taking more and more sales to make a living.

It's About Stats and Studies

December 4, 2012

Here is a collection of some stats and studies for your reading pleasure.

(1) 

Mary Meeker's 2012 Presentation On The State Of The Web is a good read despite being heavily mobile. She spends quite a few slides pointing out how SO many industries have been disrupted side-swiped by technology, especially Internet enabled apps.

(2) 

"The worldwide Ethernet switch market, which had grown in large part due to the adoption of 10 Gigabit Ethernet technology in the data center, contracted in the third quarter, with revenue dropping 4.4 percent, according to analysts with IDC." [eweek]

(3) 

The $14 Billion Dollar Announcement

December 3, 2012

While I don't agree with everything that Bruce writes here about AT&T's $14 Billion network spend in the next 3 years, there were a few take aways.

The big one is that the ILEC's have been getting rate hikes for years to pay for fiber that most customers are not receiving. FiOS is where it is - and that's the end of that project. U-Verse is fiber to the node and that isn't deployed everywhere either.

Featured Events