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

agents

Cramming Star

October 24, 2011

The Telco Customer Experience

October 18, 2011

There has been some buzz on twitter about the telcos working on bettering the customer experience. Despite JD Powers awards, the average customer is not happy.

Those that are still on Telco 1.0 with POTS and DSL do not have a special relationship. And the fees are piling up.

Those with 3G or 4G wish they were actually getting high-speed broadband.

Those with VoIP - not quite Telco 2.0 - wish the quality was better.

Those customers with Hosted PBX - Telco 2.0 - wish the onboarding was better; the features easier to figure out; and that the quality was better.

The promise of Telco 2.0 and 3G/4G has largely been limited at the customer experience end.









The Panel of 5

October 11, 2011

How does an agent distinguish between five CLEC's if the channel heads of those five companies spend much of an hour saying, "I agree" and "What she said".

That's what happened at the carrier executive panel at the Microcorp One-on-One event last night. Donna Wenk, SVP at PAETEC; Blake Wetzel, VP at CenturyLink; Mike Jerich, VP of Global Crossing and now Level3; Cardi Prinzi, EVP at EarthLink; and Carolyn Rehling, Regional VP of Sales at Sprint sat on a panel as Brad Miehl, CEO of master agency Microcorp, asked about plans for the Channel, products and what we might see in the Industry in the near term.

Everyone said MPLS and SIP -- oh, and Cloud - would be core products in 2012 - even Sprint, who mentioned its global MPLS.



TNCI Files BK

October 10, 2011

The reseller that spent so much effort trying to sign agents up for its Equity Plan - cash out when TNCI sells out - went south today by filing for bankruptcy. TNCI owes $10 million dollars to its wholesale carriers - Sprint, CenturyLink, AT&T, VZ and others. Agents are worried about commission payments paid and unpaid.

[That's all I had at the time and not much has been added.]


An update from a Master Agent: "On Sunday, October 9, 2011, TNCI filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection.






How Do You Make it Rain in the Cloud?

October 10, 2011

Here at Microcorp's One-on-One event, I moderated a panel this morning about various cloud services with Level3 (CDN), Cbeyond (Virtual Servers), Intercall (Microsoft 365/Linc), EarthLink (Security), and PAETEC (Visual Messaging). It's an eclectic mix, but that should tell you that there are many ways to leverage this thing called CLOUD to make money.

The Cloud is really a value for IT services. It's about leveraging the technology and the technical skill set of another company in order to let the business focus on their own finctionality, instead of the tech that might help the business operate.

The move to the Cloud by carriers is due to the lack of margin growth in the primary business of access. It's moving up the OSI stack from Layer 1 (wireless, copper, fiber) to Layer 3 (Internet) to Layer 7 (Apps).



What Does an SLA Really Mean?

October 2, 2011

SLA

stands for Service Level Agreement. Basically, an SLA is the minimum level of service that a carrier will deliver to you per your agreement. It is not a guarantee or an assurance that you will get that service.

Conferencing is on the Rise?

September 30, 2011

Analysts often talk about predictions and trends in the marketplace. It seems except for voice, everything is on the rise: Cloud, VoIP, SAAS, mobile, social media and, yes, even conferencing.

What is driving conferencing?

The economy has something to do with it.

Lessons in the Cloud

September 12, 2011

One of the great lessons in the Cloud is how do you sell it?It all comes down to the messaging (marketing or story you are telling) and the sales approach (or technique).

Sitting with Jeff Uphues  of Cbeyond Cloud today at ITEXPO, we spoke about the lessons that Cbeyond has learned about selling cloud services.

Cbeyond has 800 direct sales and about 2000 channel partners, who are taking their Cloud Services to the marketplace – not just in their 16 markets but nationwide. (Cloud can go anywhere there’s decent Internet access.)



Is the Transactional Agent Model Sustainable?

September 1, 2011

This was a topic in Chicago last week: Is the Transactional Agent Model dying? It isn't dying because the telecom business is such a commodity. Dumb pipes will always be a commodity. That's why managed servcies was invented.

Colo Agency is 45th

August 31, 2011

Inc. Magazine has notified Global Communication Networks that the firm ranks number 1,347 on Inc.'s fifth annual Inc. 500|5000. In addition, GCN was ranked as the 45th fastest growing telecommunications company in the nation, as well as one of the fastest growing companies in Florida. (You can read the whole press release here.) I just wanted to take a moment to give props to a fellow agent (and TCA member) and fellow Floridian. Congrats!

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