Telecom News Tidbits Part 2927

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

Telecom News Tidbits Part 2927

A few things going on besides the color of a dress and the FCC orders (here and here). Here are some telecom tidbits.

Windstream didn't have good results this quarter. The former CFO/ new CEO had some explaining to do, including about the SMB market:

"CLEC SMB opportunities remain "challenging," said Bob Gunderman, Windstream CFO and treasurer, according to a transcript from Seeking Alpha. Here's the important part: "Given the less profitable CLEC SMB opportunities, we are placing less emphasis on sales distribution on these markets, and we'll focus on strategies to maximize the cash flows. As a result, we expect revenue from CLEC SMB to continue to decline at double-digit rates in 2015." Windstream's CLEC SMB business comes from acquired companies including NuVox and PAETEC, which were heavily channel-centric. What might this mean for channel partners in 2015?" [source: CP]

Cable is crushing Windstream in the SMB space, despite WIND being the lowest priced CLEC in the market. What does that mean? Well, The RBOCs gave up this market for the most part, except in pockets. The key is a bundle of bandwidth, voice, and cloud apps - coupled with customer care and thoughtful deployment. So far only a few - like C-Link and Sonic - have noticed this and are experimenting with it.

Channel Partners can do this without the carrier, especially MSPs and VARs willing to bill the services themselves. Agents would need to package different vendors (or they can package one carrier who has a wide portfolio).

The CFO mentioned pricing pressure in the Enterprise space too. Level3, C-Link, ATT, VZ and a host of resellers are chasing that market for network services, so, yeah, there is pricing pressure. Also, when you turn from the SMB market that just leaves Government and Enterprise, the home of the next pricing battles. Good luck with that!

Frontier - yes, Frontier - has gotten innovative in the TV bundle space. Frontier is teaming up with Tivo to provide over-the-air and OTT TV content for subscribers. Telecompetitor has some details but it looks like a creative play. Almost as creative as DISH's Sling TV streaming play.

Quite the read: The Economist's Digital Editor predicts Wearables will kill the Healthcare Insurance industry. Most folks have a myopic view of things because they are caught by the shiny tech object or can only see it through a camera lens. It is rare for someone to step back, put down the lens and see the waves and ripple effects. Also, to account for other actions or moves that may converge or connect or smack into each other.

Granite Telecom hit a billion in revenues. -- Warning: billion dollar CLECs usually end up selling out like Intermedia Comm and Paetec.



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