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

November 2016

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Will Amazon Disrupt the Channel?

November 30, 2016

Amazon has been selling Comcast services for a while. Now they added Frontier residential services to the page. What's next?

Like Tech Data's TD Mobility, Amazon already offers cellular plans from many cellcos as well as a wide selection of devices.

The Channel Marketing Dilemma

November 30, 2016

I just read this article about analytics for the channel. It makes sense. I like his opening line: "Are my people spending their time on activities that drive sales?" That is key.

But then the article goes sideways, because, for the most part, channel partners don't do demand generation.

Avaya Has Fallen

November 29, 2016

News out of the Wall Street Journal has Avaya contemplating a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing and selling off its call center unit.

The problem with Avaya is it is over-leveraged, which we will be saying about many telecom companies in the coming two years. The on-premise or hardware PBX business did not fold like everyone thought. However, it didn't grow either.

The Next Two Revenue Streams

November 23, 2016

AT&T is buying TimeWarner. Verizon bought AOL and is buying Yahoo. Comcast invested $200M in BuzzFeed. AT&T and DISH are "partnering to acquire INVIDI Technologies. Ad agency WPP is also part of the deal, which gives AT&T a controlling interest in the addressable advertising technology firm."

Content and ad money is the only area of growth for the Duopoly.

An analyst is projected that Cable companies will be the Incumbent Phone company in 2017 due to the number of cable phone lines sold compared to telco.

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 23, 2016

Sales KPIs

November 23, 2016

If you manage a sales team, direct or indirect, do you have any key performance indicators that you track?

Usually the only KPI we look at is Quota.

Yet we know that daily activity is the most important factor for success. That includes number of contacts per day via email, social media, phone calls.

10 Years of Telco Hubris

November 18, 2016

The year was 2005. The place was the Supreme Court for the Brand-X case. Cable won. Internet was deemed an information service that did not have to be shared.

UCaaS Round-Up (Tidbits 2443)

November 16, 2016

Nextiva, a Broadsoft powered ITSP, announced at their user conference that it has released a new UC&C or Workplace Comms platform that they created internally named NextOS. Nextiva has 100K SMB customers. It is surprising that they didn't make an SD-WAN announcement, similar to Vonage Biz's SmartWAN or TelePacific's UC-X with SD-WAN options.

When asked if this wasn't just a wrapper around Broadsoft's UC-One or other packages, Nextiva replied, "NextOS was completely imagined and developed in-house."

Telecom Tidbits #2442

November 16, 2016

TDS made an acquisition. "TDS Broadband Service LLC, a subsidiary of Telephone and Data Systems, Inc., and operated by TDS Telecom (TDS), announces the signed purchase agreement for InterLinx Communications LLC and its subsidiary Tonaquint Networks LLC in Southern Utah. The agreement includes over 170 miles of fiber optic transport." [PR] InterLinx sells wholesale fiber; Tonaquint Networks is an ISP providing broadband via fiber and fixed wireless.

CS&L, the telecom real estate investment trust (REIT) spun out of Windstream last year, owns the copper and fiber assets that Windstream exclusively leases for its network. CS&L bought Tower Cloud and PEG Bandwidth to add to its fiber portfolio.

Talking Channel and Opportunity with TelAdvocate

November 11, 2016

Tidbits #2441

November 9, 2016

Here are some interesting stories.

The US presidential election is finally over.

So is IPv4!

GTT is buying Hibernia Networks for $590 million (mostly cash). Hibernia adds sub-sea assets to GTT's Tier 1 global network.

Marketing Lesson from the Election

November 9, 2016

A couple of marketing lessons from the campaign. (Non-political).

If your Brand is broken, run a Branding campaign not a negative campaign.

When your brand is broken -- maybe your uptime is three eights instead of nines or maybe your customer service is notoriously awful - the buyer doesn't have trust in you.

Channel Outlook in a Mega-Merger World

November 7, 2016

With all of the deals going on being a telecom partner is a nervous business. Why do I say that? Uncertainty is never good. Less choice is never good. Less competition is unhealthy for an industry.

As the Telecom World Spins

November 4, 2016

It is happening so fast. Here's this week in M&A:

CenturyLink just sold off its data center business that was a combo of Qwest Cyber Centers and SAVVIS to a group of PE firms for $2.15B in cash and C-Link keeps a minority stake worth $150M in the new company. CL bought Savvis for $2.5B in 2011.

Another Acquisition in VoIP

November 3, 2016

This M&A is in what I consider wholesale as the private equity firm that owns Onvoy, GTCR, is acquiring Inteliquent for about $800M, a 37% premium to Inteliquent's closing stock price. Interesting, $90M in revenue for $800M.

Inteliquent was formerly known as Neutral Tandem, with an initial business plan to be an alternative tandem switching platform for CLECs and VoIP Providers. They re-branded after they bought Tinet adding network to their strong voice service.

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