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

March 2015

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Top Tampa ISPs Sell Out

March 31, 2015

Last month, Verizon announced that it was selling wireline assets of VZT in Florida, California and Texas to Frontier. Today, Charter announced a deal to buy Bright House Networks for about $5K per subscriber or about 2.8x revenue. [Charter is only buying 73% of BHN, which may be just to take care of the hanging chad that is BHN in the TWC deal.]

Tampa Bay was the market that Verizon tested FiOS head-to-head against cable.

What Business Model Should the VAR Examine?

March 30, 2015

So many keynotes (and channel strategists) have suggested that for channel partners to be successful going forward they would have to do 3 things:

  1. Perform R&D and develop some IP
  2. Build their own cloud services
  3. Go beyond brokerage to systems integration

Storagecraft writes, "According to a study by CompTIA, four out of 10 IT companies are monitoring the impact cloud computing has on the MSP market before deciding to offer managed services."

"ScanSource CTO Greg Dixon explains why it's imperative for solution providers to build managed services into their product offerings in order to boost recurring revenue and expand their value add." [source]

Let's examine each one.

First, the Duopoly doesn't even do research. They have industry labs (e.g., CableLabs) and vendors that do the research and development.

What's With the MSO Consolidation?

March 26, 2015

Charter was the first company to make a play for TWC. Now reports are in that Charter is chasing Bright House. Comcast is still waiting for its three-way deal with TWC and Charter to pass regulatory. The FCC paused the clock again today.

UC is Incompatible

March 25, 2015

Tidbits and Interesting Things Part 140

March 25, 2015

Some interesting services around the sector.

ADTRAN has field services that ITSP's can hire to perform site surveys and install Hosted VoIP deployments. (No idea about cabling, but that seems to be an issue for national providers. Local or regional providers tend to offer cabling for a price.)

UC Trends in Q1 2015

March 24, 2015

Just back from the CP Expo in Vegas, I am still catching up and digesting what is in store for 2014 in the Channel and it looks like the Hosted VoIP space. Most noise at the show was around Hosted VoIP.

Two studies out about SMB trends. One from Intermedia.Net late last year is around mobile trends.

Channel Manager Training

March 20, 2015

The TCA held the second Channel Managers Best Practices forum in Vegas this week. Over 80 registered to listen to three of their peers get grilled by yours truly about the best ways to manage channel partners.

This wasn't recorded, but there are plans to hold another one which will be recorded. Pay attention to the TCA.

Verizon Invites the Channel Once More

March 20, 2015

Jon Arnold wrote up a good review of Verizon's Broad Cloud offering (VCE). One glaring problem is that it targets in the SMB market.

Arnold says that it is presented as a TDM replacement service. Why then is VCE promoted online in VZ Enterprise?

What Happened in Vegas?

March 19, 2015

It looked like the fun days of telecom again at the CP Expo in Vegas this week. The parties were almost constant. I know Vegas is known for drinking but people were holding Bud Light bottles starting way early morning to, well, early morning.

COLOTRAQ rented out Drai's Beach Club - probably the best party at a show I have been to in a long time.

Vonage Buys Simple Signal

March 17, 2015

Big news yesterday at the CP Expo was that Simple Signal got acquired by Vonage. The Big Cheese seemed thrilled. "The deal to buy privately held Simple Signal (and its 1,600 customers, not counting white-label partners) is for $25.25M -- about $20M in cash and 1.1M in Vonage common stock," per Seeking Alpha. That was about 1.5x revenue.

About Product, Startups and Other Things (by Fred Wilson)

March 15, 2015

In this interview of Fred Wilson by Jason Calacanis, they chat about VCs, investing, startups, Apple, Kickstarter, blogging, Net Neutrality and more.

On blogging, Wilson remarks that it helps him articulate what he is thinking (at 48 min). He also later talks about how many people worry if they will end up in his blog

At 19 minutes Wilson speaks about NYC startups.

A Skewed Look at the FCC from the Inside

March 12, 2015

Harold Furchtgott-Roth writes occasionally for Forbes. "From 1997 through 2001, Mr. Furchtgott- Roth served as a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission. Before his appointment to the FCC, he was chief economist for the House Committee on Commerce and a principal staff member on the Telecommunications Act of 1996." He has a history similar to Chip Pickering (who is CEO of Comptel after being a Mississippi Congressman) or Earl Comstock.

Furchtgott-Roth writes, "The FCC set up a casino with federal communications regulation.

The FCC Open Internet Order is Out!

March 12, 2015

What Can You Learn from Target?

March 10, 2015

I was reading a couple of articles about Target. The retailer has not been doing well lately, including closing all Canada stores after its expansion there last year!

"David Schick of Stifel, says [Target] needs to go back to "differentiated discount", which means offering a selection of desirable items--a trendy handbag, say, or a novelty watch--which no rival is selling." Target had a higher ARPU than Walmart due to the differentiator. It was hip, designer, nice place to shop.

Some More Studies and Stats

March 10, 2015

In 3Q 2014, Verizon "global enterprise revenue declined $155 million or 4.4%. Revenue declines in legacy transport services and CPE continue to outweigh growth in newer and more strategic applications which are smaller in scale," said VZ Comm CFO Fran Shammo.

These "Third quarter 2014 financial results are confirming what CMR has been projecting for the past few years: Telcos are losing precious market share in the US Business Services market. The largest players, AT&T and Verizon, have lost close to 3 percentage points each over the past four years, while Cable companies have gained over 7 percentage points in the $104B US Business Services market." [CMR has just released its 2014 Business Services Market Share report.]

What Do You Know About Global Capacity?

March 10, 2015

Opinions on the FCC Net Neutrality Ruling

March 9, 2015

Lots of opinions out there on the FCC Net Neutrality ruling, including this collection from Channel Vision.

Backing up, the FCC wrote a blog explaining their process from comments to rule-making. You can read it here. they had 4 million comments (largely due to John Oliver)

IPR Secure's Channel Chief on Merger and More

March 6, 2015

Managed Security Portfolios Grow

March 4, 2015

In the wake of so much hacking, security concerns are starting to show up in the offerings from a number of providers.

As Trustwave claims, "Threats are growing more hostile. Budgets are tight. Skills are at a premium.

Data Center Trends with COLOTRAQ

March 4, 2015

My pal, Dany Bouchedid, is CEO of master agency, COLOTRAQ. We met during the founding of the TCA. We talk for about 7 minutes about the consolidation in the data center space and the trends for this sector of telecom.

It's funny that we picked today since there was a bit of news today.

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