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

agents

Riding the IPv6 Wave

July 12, 2011

Correction: Verio is now just the name for the NTT hosting division.

NTT America is looking to make a big splash in the IPv6 space in the Channel. NTTA has run a global IPv6 network for quite a few years. In fact, NTTA sponsored an IPv6 Summit in 2007.

TelePacific Nabs Another

June 28, 2011

TelePacific moves into Texas with the acquisition of facilities-based CLEC, Tel West. Tel West is in Central Texas, serving about 3400 SMB customers. This will add to TelePacific's current 38,000 customers, serving 1.2 million access lines in mainly California and Nevada, according to the Sun Herald.

TelePacific has been on a tear lately picking up Orange County Internet Exchange, Telekenex, Nextweb and pieces of O1 to boost its revenues and add assets that it didn't previously have like a data center, nationwide MPLS network, Hosted UC platform and Managed Servcies division. It certainly makes for an exciting CLEC for agents to sell for.

Tel West, founded in 1998, owns and operates 11,000 fiber miles in Texas with offices in San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth and Corpus Christi. This will give the VC's invested in TelePacific - Investcorp and Clarity Partners - the push into Texas that they want.



Why Use an Independent Telecom Broker?

June 27, 2011

What is an Independent Telecom Broker? It's not the preferred title that I like for an independent telecommunications agent but some companies like it. It has variations as Agent, Consultant and Specialist, but at the end of the day the Independent Telecom Broker is hired by the customer to find them the best solution available for their business.

According to the Society of Telecommunications Consultants, "No member shall accept fees, commissions, or any other valuable consideration in connection with those services from anyone other than the member's client." A broker - like a stock broker - makes his money from transactions; in this case, a broker gets paid by the vendor for any sales made.

Is this a Master Agent Dilemma?

June 21, 2011

From the carrier side, Channel executives are looking to the VAR space for growth? Why is that? Has the Agent contribution to channel revenue hit a plateau?

At dinner last night, I was talking about the magic number of a tribe. For consultants, it's 100.

Six More TCA Agent Companies Adopt CTP as Core Training Platform

June 3, 2011

The first industry trade association-sponsored certification program designed specifically for indirect sales agents is gaining momentum. Six more agent companies that are members of the Technology Channel Association (TCA) announced they have adopted the Certified Telecommunications Professional (CTP) program as a core training platform for their carrier sales group--AB&T Telecom, Avant Communications, COLOTRAQ, Microcorp, TBI and WTG.

"Ever since the formation of TCA in 2008, we have aimed to make professional standards in this industry official," said Dany Bouchedid, TCA President and COLOTRAQ's CEO.

Cable is Different

June 1, 2011

When selling cable services, it is different from selling most telco services. For one, the voice services are all digital and SIP. In many cases, voice is delivered on a separate VLAN or even physical path. (It's not a dynamically allocated converged circuit.)

Data services are delivered differently too.

Top 3 Things Affecting Your Agency

June 1, 2011

Your telecom agency has seen some changes over the last 10 years for certain, but the industry is in another state of change. What three things can affect your Agency?

1. Commission changes.

Are VAR's the New Agent?

May 27, 2011

The Channel seems to be turning their back on the traditional telecom agent. All eyes are on the VAR space. Even Master Agents are out chasing the VAR's. (For example, Telephony Partners has a white paper out to explain why VAR's should work with a master agent like TP.)

From talks with cable execs, it appears that the traditional telecom agent scares the C-suite at the Duopoly.

TDCloud Joins the Fray

May 19, 2011

We have seen the hardware distributors moving into the cloud space. We saw that SYNNEX launched Cloud SolvUC as a unified communications play. According to the PR, the first nationwide cloud UC product. Umm, just from that marketing spin alone, I would suspect that SYNNEX did not have its finger on the pulse of this space.

Sales Quota Part 1

May 18, 2011

According to an article in INC magazine, "The report found that on average, only about 50 percent of sales reps made their quota, and more than 42 percent of companies reported that less than 50 percent of reps were meeting or exceeding their quota." Feedback I received on this is that the quota is too high. Well, if half the folks can meet quota, is it really too high?

One thing that few understand about quota is that it isn't about being an arbitrary number set by upper management to meet Wall Street numbers. Sales quota should be set during performance reviews via an agreement between the salesperson and management.

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