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

April 2013

You are browsing the archive for April 2013.

What Happens When

April 30, 2013

The VoIP Market Right Now

April 29, 2013

"The market for VoIP services has moved well beyond the early adopter stage to mainstream status in many developed countries. SIP trunking and hosted UC continue to heat things up, fueling growth," reports Diane Myers, principal analyst for VoIP, UC, and IMS at Infonetics Research.

According to the study, "Due to continued demand for enterprise cloud-based services, hosted VoIP and Unified Communications (UC) services revenue grew 17% in 2012 from 2011, the most of any segment."

The reality is that SIP Trunking jumped 83% because VoIP is a cheap dial-tone replacement.

The Cloud is like Chicken Wings

April 25, 2013

I presented a webinar for Cloud Services Community today about Selling Cloud Services as an agent. The take aways were as follows:

  • Where do I start when thinking about selling cloud services?
  • Is there criteria for choosing a cloud vendor?
  • What pitfalls are there in cloud for an Agent?
  • How to choose a cloud provider?
  • What steps to take as you move to cloud services?

Can agents even sell cloud services? Sure but as a sales engine, not an install and deployment shop. That will be the hard part: who does all the pre-sales and post-sales engineering if an agent just wants to ink contracts for you?

Florida Broadband Litigation Woes

April 24, 2013

"Florida Rural Broadband Alliance, LLC (FRBA) is a regional collaboration of local governments, community activists and economic development agencies from rural and economically disadvantaged communities located throughout 15 counties within Florida's Northwest Rural Area of Critical Economic Concern (NWRACEC) and the South Central Rural Area of Critical Economic Concern (SCRACEC)," reads the website for FRBA.

It continues, "The FRBA project will build a new Middle Mile broadband infrastructure, which will link together providers of vital public sector commercial services with private sector non-profit entities for the first time in these two struggling regions of Florida. At this time, only 39 percent of the FRBA region has broadband service. ...At the end of the 3-year build out period, FRBA's project will deliver up to 1,000 times the existing capacity within the coverage area.

Are Outages The New Normal?

April 24, 2013

This is a guest column from Peter Eisengrein, SVP Network Operations & Design, Evolve IP

Last week one of the nation's largest carriers experienced an outage that affected tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Voice over IP users, maybe more. At least one carrier employee dubbed the outage "catastrophic" yet the news media shrugged. While not exactly a reliable news source, even social media, which is at least a quick indicator of newsworthy events, hardly noticed.

How can it be that a "catastrophic" outage that is so far reaching never made the news?

No Need to Be a CLEC

April 19, 2013

Up until the FCC's test plan today, VoIP Providers had to rely on CLEC's to get phone numbers. "The FCC has adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on direct access to telephone numbers for VoIP providers, a process that they say will streamline the process to roll out services," writes FierceTelecom.

"Telephone numbers are a valuable and limited resource; access to and use of numbers must be managed judiciously to ensure that they are available as needed and to protect the efficient and reliable operation of the telephone network," states the FCC in its notice today about the six month trial for a few inter-connected VoIP providers to get direct access to a few numbers.

"In the accompanying Notice of Inquiry, we seek comment on a range of issues regarding our long-term approach to numbering resources.

Is The Market Ready for Hosted PBX?

April 18, 2013

Thoughts on the Channel in 2013

April 16, 2013

There is this article with four opinions about the Channel in 2013. Reading them, I am almost certain that they are not only viewing the channel from differing sides but that they are discussing different channels.

I do like the statement from Ian Moyse, "We are seeing the same swathe of change as we have seen in other industries with providers who ignored the changes in customer buying choices (take Kodak, Blockbuster Video and the big record shop chains such as Tower Records and HMV). This change will be a contributor but not the only cause to the start of a new re-shaping and re-sizing of the channel with resellers facing new competition from Telco's, Xsp's and a new breed of reseller and potentially vendors themselves."

Selling Direct is Different Than Channel Sales

April 16, 2013

I make this statement often: Selling Direct is Different Than Selling via The Channel. You would think it was obvious, but it is not.

When a company sells direct, the messaging is aimed at the end user. The sales channel is pursuing customers.

I Was All Set with SoftSprint

April 15, 2013

I was already calling it SoftSprint or SprintSoft when Softbank announced a deal to buy 70% of Sprint for $20.1 Billion. Now Charlie Ergen has decided to make an offer for the whole company at $25.5 Billion. DISH is sitting on $10 billion in cash - and some 4G spectrum. DISH made a case to purchase Clearwire, but Sprint rebuffed that offer - by buying Clearwire.

Big Changes at Broadvox

April 14, 2013

Just over a year ago, big changes happened at Broadvox. Bruce Chatterley, who was CEO of Speakeasy until MegaPath absorbed Speakeasy and Covad, became President and CEO at Broadvox. As is often the case in telecom, top executives bring in their whole team. Chatterley hired Chris Gellos, who was head of sales at Speakeasy, to be EVP of Sales at Broadvox.

Level3's Storey

April 12, 2013

Level 3 has announced that Jeff Storey has been appointed by the Board of Directors to be Level 3's president and chief executive officer, effective yesterday. Jim Crowe is out as CEO.

Is this a good move? Under Crowe in the last 5 years, it has been nothing but pain for customers and partners.

Who is Responsible for Sales?

April 10, 2013

I was once in a meeting where the engineering department was screaming that the sales team sucked. (Not a fun meeting.) But it does bring to light the question, Who is Responsible for Sales?

Everyone is responsible for sales. Every single person in your company.

Two Disruptive CEO's

April 9, 2013

These two guys are the reason that cloud services - UC, SAAS, HPBX - aren't easy to sell. Steve Jobs gave the world the iPhone and nothing has been the same since. Even the most technologically handicapped person loves their iPhone. It was a paradigm shift in not just handsets, but people's connection to the web.

Channel Shifts, Moves, Adds and Changes

April 9, 2013

There is a lot of noise coming out of the channel. Personnel changes left and right and center. Who's leaving, who's joining, who just signed an agreement. Bzzzzzzzz It's just noise for the most part.

Growing Out an IT Business

April 8, 2013

This is a slide from EarthLink's earnings presentation. Basically, telecom spending is flat and it is roughly 11% of what companies spend on IT services. So if you were looking for growth where would you turn? Oh, yeah, IT services.

Finding Fault is Not a Job

April 4, 2013

Every send an email out and the only replies are typos and grammar corrections?

Every go to a meeting to have other departments complain loudly about your department's performance?

Finding fault is not a job.

It creates a toxic environment.

Switchvox Team Leaves Digium

April 2, 2013

What Happened to Communicating?

April 2, 2013

What happening to communications? It's falling apart. People just text, tweet, email -- and in have been conditioned to shorten and shorten that message (down to 140 characters) that we are getting brusque. Tone isn't reflected in texts, tweets and emails, so the person receiving your message may not be taking it the way you think.

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