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

October 2016

You are browsing the archive for October 2016.

Is UCaaS Growing?

October 31, 2016

The latest financials came out in the last week. Let's examine if UCaaS is growing.

RingCentral Office annualized exit recurring software subscriptions (ARR) grew 39% year-over-year to $316.8 million. RC says they are growing margins and revenue, while also increasing their losses.

Mobile Eats World

October 31, 2016

Everyone says that mobile will win. A former executive at Synnervse believes that 5G will trump fiber. When your career is wireless, you think 5G is going to be awesome. When your career has been wireline, you don't think anything is better than fiber.

Broadsoft Goes Deep in White-Label

October 31, 2016

These acquisitions are coming faster than I can type!!! Sheesh! Broadsoft is buying VoIP Logic!

This is ironic because when BSFT bought Intellinote and made a bunch of announcements about spreading BroadCloud and BroadBusiness, I remarked they should just buy VoIP Logic.

CenturyLink Buying Level3: Dumb Idea

October 31, 2016

The rumor on Friday turned out to be true: CenturyLink is buying Level3. CenturyLink has its roots in the RLEC business. It has acquired a number of smaller RLECs throughout the years including VZ and GTE assets. In 2002, it started making mistakes when it sold its cellular business to ALLTEL.

Your Webinar Sucks!

October 28, 2016

As an agent I get invited to too many webinars, training, lunch-n-learns and events. Here is where you go wrong:

Vendors try to puke every ounce of information at me in 40 minutes! UGH!!!

Rumor: Level3 to Merge with CenturyLink

October 28, 2016

This was the big rumor yesterday that the Wall Street Journal started. There was speculation back in July about Level3 being up for sale. There even was the rumor that Comcast was going to buy L3.

Level3 has a bad quarter financially and the C-Suite says, "Don't look here!

Musings on Ma Bell

October 26, 2016

On my other blog, I linked to two WSJ graphics that show all of the consolidation in telecom. There is also a link to the fact that 6 companies own 90% of the media in the US. Consolidation under Obama has been unfettered.

I wonder back to when AT&T tried to buy T-Mobile in 2011.

4 Quotes from Gary Vee

October 26, 2016

Gary Vanderchuk is a social media /digital marketing expert and author of a couple of books. He puts out an incredible about of content on Facebook, twitter, instagram, snapchat, kik, podcasts and YouTube (where he came to fame on Wine Library).

Four things he has been saying really strikes me lately:

"Too many people are playing checkers when the game is chess." I think about all the me-too channel strategy going on that is NOT producing the results for the money and effort spent.

2 Big Mergers and a Smaller One

October 24, 2016

In 2000, AOL bought Time Warner for $164 Billion, an outrageous amount of money fueled by the dot com bubble. It was the worst merger in history. AOL was spun off in 2009 and was acquired by Verizon in 2015 for $4.4 Billion. Now, AT&T is looking to buy Time Warner for $85 Billion ($109B with debt included).

The InterWebs are Down!

October 21, 2016

The last couple of weeks have been very trying. Level3 had a VoIP network outage. The last two days have been DDOS attacks against DYN and others has left many sites unreachable (like Twitter, Reddit and others).

Krebs experienced an IOT botnet attack earlier this month.

Can You Lower the Price?

October 19, 2016

When a partner asks for a lower price what is he saying?

  1. He is selling a commodity.
  2. He is presenting a couple of quotes.
  3. He is not selling your stuff exclusively on this deal..

Granted in many cases, network IS a commodity. And so is Internet Access! And clients indeed DO buy on price.

Are You Managing Hours or Outcomes?

October 18, 2016

Another consultant is having a trying experience with a client. The client wants to see the consultant in the office more, but not pay for it. It seems that the client is used to buying hours, not outcomes.

I have run into quite a few companies that have never hired a consultant before.

The Pressure of Price

October 17, 2016

I have spoken to many in the industry this year who are upset that the channel isn't bringing in more deals - non-network deals.

As one CEO told me, "Luddites are still selling network. And the price compression is killing everyone." I know. Revenue and price compression are working against everyone.

The Data Center Market is at a Peak

October 17, 2016

It's quite the claim to make: that the data center market is at a peak. Here's why I think it is.

"Today's IT industry is dealing with data explosion. Therefore, companies need a data management system to manage the huge amount of generated data.

Doing Business in a Busy, Blurred Environment

October 13, 2016

Logging on to LinkedIn these days, I have to remind myself that it is in fact LI and not Facebook. The feeds look the same.

I know we have blurred the lines between work and life, but come on. I often wonder if that isn't a symptom of why we are so unproductive.

Channel Partner Enablement Tools

October 10, 2016

It seems that Channel Enablement is starting to become a thing again. "What is the definition of Channel Partner Enablement? Sometimes also referred to as Channel Enablement, Sales Enablement, Partner Enablement or Channel Management, it is the process whereby you enable and empower your channel partners to sell your services or products. It is a way to increase sales and expand your business by creating partnerships and adding to your workforce." [Pulse Learning vis CSG]

Tidbits #2440

October 6, 2016

Consolidation continues in the VoIP space.

Velis4 has been acquired by a company called Globalgig. Ernest Cunningham will be the CEO of the combined company, while Anthony Jett, Velis4's current CEO, becomes the COO. Globalgig brings a global vision to Velis4, who will be expanding into Europe and Australia soon.

Copper is Coming to an End

October 5, 2016

After writing about outages being the new normal, I received a letter from the cableco about battery replacement for my voice line (SIP from separate cable modem).

As I watch Hurricane Matthew, I wonder how many elderly and infirm still have POTS lines.

Verizon workers can now be fired if they fix copper phone lines for DSL, according to reports (and HERE). Verizon wants people to buy fixed wireless and 4G LTE-A in place of anything copper.

Are Outages the New Normal?

October 5, 2016

Yesterday was a big outage on Level3's voice network nationwide. On any given day DownDetector is working overtime to track the numerous outages at banks, network operators, email, social networks and more.

This year I think every major carrier had an outage that lasted more than two hours. Some lasted all day.

Your Commissions Were Cut

October 4, 2016

This is a mix of a news + humor + rant + snark.

How are your commissions holding up? You know, on that legacy stuff you sold?

According to reports from agents, Sprint is cutting legacy commissions to 5%.

Tidbits #2439

October 3, 2016

Sonus bought Taqua for about $20 million. Taqua builds a Class 4/5 voice switch that has been around a long while with 400 customers globally (a little less than BSFT). "Total revenue was $28.3 million and $25.2 million for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014, respectively. Total revenue was $16.8 million for the trailing twelve months ended June 30, 2016." Taqua had pivoted to Voice over Wireless recently.

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