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

December 2013

You are browsing the archive for December 2013.

The Ridiculousness of My Cloud

December 30, 2013

"Finally a cloud of your own" by Western Digital. You can watch the commercial here. WD My Cloud personal cloud storage is a funny idea. People can't secure their home wireless router.

The CLEC Cloud Cover

December 30, 2013

Windstream, TDS, EarthLink and Cbeyond made a strategic decision to go cloud a couple of years ago. Acquisitions followed. It seems to be paying off.

CLEC's have a special access circuit problem.

6 Actions for Your Business in 2014

December 30, 2013

Borrowed from this article. Six actions to take in January to improve your business in 2014. I have mentioned these many times before in talks and blog posts here and in my other blog.

  1. Better define your role in your customers' businesses
  2. Evaluate Your Staff
  3. Invest in your staff*
  4. Evaluate your services (anything new added, or old to stop offering?)
  5. Change your culture (or fight to maintain your culture)
  6. Evaluate your customers (fire some, profile the best ones)

Define your role by being clear and concise on your benefits, values, outcomes that businesses, especially small businesses, can expect and generally receive by utilizing your services versus your many competitors.

Email Encryption on the Rise?

December 30, 2013

Glenn Greenwald is the reporter that broke the Snowden story this year. Greenwald stated that the biggest outcome of the story in 2013 is that more email is encrypted than before.

PGP was created in 1991, per Wikipedia. 22 years later, businesses are catching on.

3 Top Trends That Will Affect Telecom in 2014

December 30, 2013

I was reading the Stratfor intelligence newsletter with its Top 5 Trends That Will Shape 2014. It's an interesting list.

  1. An enduring detente between Iran and the United States
  2. The rise of nationalist and extremist parties in Europe
  3. Russia and Germany bargain over Central/Eastern Europe and energy policy
  4. China's return to strongman politics
  5. Domestic turmoil and economic stress in India and Turkey

Another article mentioned that Israel is having a water shortage. People joke about water being what we fight the next world war over, but it isn't much of a joke.

I am Not a Social Media Guru

December 27, 2013

I don't spend all day with my nose in Facebooking, tweeting, pinning.

I don't spend hours each week trialing new schemes on social media platforms.

I understand that social media is just one component of a comprehensive marketing plan.

Social media only makes sense if you have a goal and your target demographic use the platform.

Sales Tip: Focus on Outcomes

December 19, 2013

Two articles today - here and here - that talk about SAAS and outcomes. In other words, customers aren't buying SAAS for the service but what the service will produce. As I have been saying all year: it isn't the app or the widget or the network; it is all about what people do with it. Focus on the outcome.

Lots Going On

December 19, 2013

Apparently, all will be better when we switch from QAM to WAM

DISH hasn't given up on wireless. It has done terrestrial LTE trials with nTelos. DISH is still looking to buy LightSquared or T-Mobile.

Frontier Buying SNET

December 19, 2013

The big news is that AT&T is selling off its old SNET division to Frontier. I feel sorry for my friends and family in Connecticut as they went from a local RBOC (SNET) to an ambivalent giant to a stingy ILEC (Frontier). Frontier has more public utility commission complaints than either of the evil RBOC twins.

This isn't the first acquisition for Frontier.

The Start-up Money Mentality

December 19, 2013

In the Tampa Bay start-up community, the most popular complaint is that there are enough investors. In the nine months of 2013, $318 million was invested in Florida businesses. That number is up from 2012. "Nationally, venture capital investments declined by 1 percent to $27.5 billion," according to the Miami Herald.

What to Do After Getting Shafted on Commissions

December 17, 2013

As many of you know, being a telecom agent means that at some point in your business, a carrier will stop the commission check. It could be the carrier files bankruptcy or gets acquired or just changes the plan on you. What do you do next?

The normal response is to yell at the carrier; vent at friends; talk to lawyers.

Agent Contract Terms

December 17, 2013

On a call today with an Agent, we were discussing some contract verbiage. Most agent hope for an evergreen commission contract. As long as the customer I bring to you is a customer, you should pay me on that invoice. Obviously, carriers, especially CFO's, dislike that clause.

It Has Been an Eventful Year

December 13, 2013

Wanted Windy West Data Center

December 11, 2013

Windstream CEO Jeff Gardner stated during the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2013 Leveraged Finance conference, "We're really at a time where we can start looking out at acquisitions again to accelerate this transformation focused on the enterprise space obviously." Despite having work to do on the PAETEC integration still, Windstream will be looking for assets to add to its national enterprise system. Likely, this will be a data center on the West Coast. That could prove expensive for the following reasons: data centers are a hot commodity that a number of other CLECs are also looking at for purchase; Windstream's debt load is high and if it weren't for the stock dividend it pays out, the stock would reflect it; and their revenue profile.

Let's look at WIND revenue: 72% comes from broadband.

C Spire Nabs Alabama UC Player

December 11, 2013

C Spire, formerly Cellular South, has announced the acquisition of Callis Communications from Mobile Alabama. Callis Comm is a Broadsoft based unified communications provider who recently expanded as a facilities-based CLEC in the greater Mobile region.

C Spire is the nation's largest privately held wireless communications company, is based in Ridgeland, Mississippi and employs nearly 1,200. C Spire Wireless is owned by the holding company Telapex, Inc., which also owns Telepak Networks, a fiber provider in that region.

Another Cloud Backup Service Closes

December 9, 2013

Symantec decided last week to end its cloud-based backup and recovery services business. It told partners that the Backup Exec software could still be used for premise based backup though.

I am surprised that it closed instead of selling it to any of the many other companies offering backup. There were quite a few who jumped into to tell Symantec partners that they were available to take over the service.

Cloud Companies Call for Surveillance Reform

December 9, 2013

Re-Vamping Telecom

December 6, 2013

The FCC has already made some moves to revamp telecom. There was USF reform, funding for broadband, elimination of a lot of regulations, pilot test with Vonage on direct DID access and the TDM-to-IP migration.

The Broadband money (NTIA, BIP, BTOP) as well as the Lifeline (Obama phone) program has seen its share of abuses, but billion dollar programs will do that. The FCC needs to tighten that up.

Lessons From Avaya EPF

December 3, 2013

Interesting Sales Tips from Avaya's Executive Partner Forum last month

"38% of salespeople understand the customer's issues and are able to identify how the vendor can help." Just 38%. That means two-thirds of salespeople are still selling the old way. Training and sales coaching is needed.

If Mobile is Everything

December 2, 2013

Fred Wilson repeats that Mobile is Eating the World. It might be just what I am reading (my influence bias). It's all about tablets or smartphones. Where does that leave your business in 2 or 3 years?

Featured Events