On Rad's Radar? - bellsouth agent Archives

Verbal One Year Contracts

2012-07-31T19:03:35Z

ATT has verbal one year contracts available. New service ordered within a few minutes for clients via an Authorized Solution Provider (agent). [This has to be for really simple stuff like POTS and DSL.]

However, ATT doesn't send any TAC (terms) or even welcome information to the customer. There is also a failure to mention that the verbal contracts auto-renew for 2 additional one year terms; thus, it's really a 3 year agreement!

"ATT will send the client a letter 30-60 days prior to the auto renewal, but if the letter isn't responded to, the original verbal contracts auto renews. Now, the client does have a 30 days window after the renewal to cancel and move service or cancel and opt for a different term, but no additional notification is sent after the renewal letter send prior to the end of the term." [ccs]

Agent Exclusivity

2012-06-26T14:06:52Z

There is a lot of talk in the Channel about Agent exclusivity to Master Agencies. Most of the talk is from Masters.

Telecom is an industry of short memory. We forget everything.

We forget that MCI left many agents high and dry when they filed the largest BK in history (up to that time).

We forget that telecom companies have a history of BK - Cogent, Above.Net, MCI, XO, Integra, Williams, Global Crossing, Birch, MacLeod, Winstar, Adelphia, Covad and the other DLEC's (see here and here and here). Over 60 companies have filed BK in our industry since 1996. We may yet see another round of that soon.

Now Master Agencies have not gone BK as far as I know. However, with the increasing pressure from carriers to hit quota quarter after quarter or lose commission points, it is only a function of time before Master Agencies have to "re-adjust" the commissions they pay agents.

Agents learned in 2002 that you cannot have a single source of income. Period. Look what happened with InterNAP just recently!

There are reasons to use more than one Master Agency - other than shopping commission points. I use one for AT&T only - and I have since I parted ways with my BellSouth agent.

My current Masters do not have a contract with MegaPath. MegaPath seems to have an offering that my clients might like. Should I ignore that or find an agency with a contract for MegaPath?

At the end of the day, I have to think about my business, my revenue and my customers. I don't put my revenue above my customers, but I do put it above my vendors and partners.

No one is making certain that my business is doing well except for me.

One other memory loss: there was a time that carriers had exclusive agreements (at least the ILEC's did). What did the Agents do? Set up a different LLC for each contract. There have always been ways around exclusivity. Do you we really have to play that game again?

Better than forcing exclusivity, how about giving your agents enough reasons (VALUE) that they won't look elsewhere? That's the real answer - for Masters and Carriers.

FINAL THOUGHT:

It is funny that this conversation comes at a time when traditional agents are largely being written off for VAR's as the future of the Channel.

Are Telcos Outside Their Delivery Zone?

2012-03-12T13:52:44Z

The ILEC's were really good at delivering a monopoly TDM-based dial-tone product. And later got very good at T1 and T3. Was that the extent of the research that the old AT&T Labs could provide? DSL, while slower than cable modem service, does provide for good, cheap broadband, despite its limitations in distance and speed.

Now the ILEC's are going Cloud with Terremark, Savvis, and roll your own. This is shocking to me, since I was there in 2001 when BellSouth (and other ILEC's) first attempted data center and e-Commerce. At the time, BellSouth had partners like EMC to deliver the managed servcies and IBM for the data center. But this isn't something they knew how to sell or how to market. Certainly, the market has changed to make it easier to sell, but are the ILEC's the right partner for Cloud?

I look at how they are struggling with declining wireline revenue (and mounting debt). They have been grasping at TV for consumer triple-play; tech support for broadband customers; and managed services. A managed router from AT&T is configured and managed in Singapore! The slight time difference affects support. Plus it is by email mainly.

Is that what Enterprise customers want?

Then I look at the Telecom Subpanel talks on Cybersecurity, in which reps from AT&T, Comcast, Century Link and MetroPCS were featured speakers in front of The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology hearing Wednesday morning on the cybersecurity threat to the nation's communications networks. The hearings are about regulation of security of the communications infrastructure - who will have oversight, what will be required, and the like, to be added to a bill. Like that will help. Sheesh!

And, of course, the carriers do NOT want to be regulated. In fact, CenturyLink is petitioning the FCC to forbear from "dominant carrier regulation and the Computer Inquiry tariffing requirement with respect to its packet-switched and optical transmission services" for those services subject to the regulations. "CenturyLink states that, because of recent mergers, its enterprise broadband services are subject to different regulations depending on which CenturyLink affiliate - Qwest, Embarq, or CenturyTel - previously provided (or didn't provide) those services." Whatever. They do what they want anyway. There isn't any FCC enforcement (of merger conditions or forbearance conditions).

That sentiment brings me back to cybersecurity and regulations. It would be kind of joke really. The FCC took over 10 years to come to grips with VoIP, how would it ever regulate something as fluid as security? And what would enforcement look like? Would it be something like CPNI?

There are over 1000 VoIP providers in the US plus the numerous LEC's, cablecos and cellcos. Does anyone really think that enforcement is a priority at the FCC?

So back to telco cloud services.

On the one hand, I like that Savvis is still Savvis and Terremark is still Terremark (without any telco infection, no offense). In fact, "Savvis is poised to lead in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Public Cloud Infrastructure as a Service in addition to Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service and Web Hosting," according to Seeking Alpha. Given that every data center company from TELX to QTS have launched Cloud services, not to mention every CLEC, TWC (via Navisite) and most VAR's, would you rather sell IT services from an IT company or IT services from a telco?

The whole "I don't want to be regulated, I don't want to be a common carrier" is fine if you understand that to stop being a monopoly, you have to stop acting like one! You HAVE to provide customer service. You can't finger point when handling Managed Services or Cloud Services. You have to ANSWERS to solve problems for your customers.

I think that Cloud is going to be a bust for telcos, in general. They have been the pipe, the plumbers, for so long -- and even if you want to reach up to Layer 7 (to grab the money) doesn't mean you have the ability or will be able to deliver on it. Going into cellular was just another Layer 1 project.

Let me point out a few things. Many fiber companies (or divisions) can't find or price out their fiber. A cellco has mismanaged its network to the point of disrupting users and its 4G future. An ILEC has done such a poor job planning Metro Ethernet that it has run out of VLAN's in two major metros!

Cloud may turn out like FTTH and Telco TV: an investment that didn't work out. Or it may work out despite what I think will be glaring holes.

Congrats to AT&T Partners

2011-02-07T16:10:19Z

AT&T announced the 2011 AT&T Business Solution Provider Champions. There are only 3 Gold winners: Cydcor, Presidio and Spearhead. One of the Bronze winners, JBS of Orlando, I have known for quite a few years.

Congratulations to these companies because working with AT&T is a Challenge. It takes hours to do anything with their antiquated systems. Just to get a quote, an agent has to input all the data for the prospect and wait for a DUNS number. (That's usually a day). Then the agent has to ask if the prospect is available to be quoted (Segmentation stuff that takes another day). Then the agent can go through SMART (HA!) to ask for a quote. You have to be a long distance hurdler to play this game. It's ridiculous! So again to get to the Bronze is an achievement in persistence.

We're Sorry

2010-09-07T15:26:03Z

Over an hour to order 14 winback lines from Ma Bell through their Sales Expert system. I have seen this guy telling me sorry for the error more than I have seen the corporate logo this morning.

Drink your Kool-aid and use your systems once in a while to find out how bad they are!!!!

The SMART System

2010-06-08T21:39:12Z

SPOT, SMART, GCSM are all the names of the systems that AT&T Solutions Providers must learn to navigate to put a sales lead into the system in order to get pricing and contracts.

Have they not seen SIMPL? That's the system that ACC Business uses. ACC Business is the step-child subsidiary of AT&T. The system is SIMPL.

The SMART system must mean that you need a higher IQ than me, because I stumbled through it again today while trying to put an opportunity in the system to get an MIS contract. It's hours of work for one quote. 90 minutes to put the lead through to contract request. BAH!

You can always tell an ILEC system: no AJAX, easy GUI, process flow, or any indication that the programmers have actually ever interacted with the system as a user.

Big Changes at the Big Bell

2010-04-20T16:33:08Z

The agent that dragged me into Telecom back in 1999 sold his telecom agency on New Year's Eve. He was a Gold Partner for many years but met with me in November because he saw the writing on the wall. Things were constantly changing behind the wall of the Big Bell, but this time it was going to be disasterous.

2009 marked huge changes with 50 hours of training; separate divisions walled in; and a major push into mobility. And a major shift in commissions to a one-time upfront payment. In 2010, it got worse.

One of the biggest problems with the Bell program has always the numerous promotions and how they are applied. Most big solution providers for Ma Bell cold call ISP's promising a great rate on Internet bandwidth. What they are really offering is the TWT promotion. There is supposed to be a competitive environment and the carrier the agent is competing against is supposed to be TWT. Well, in quite a few cases I have seen, TWT doesn't even have network in that region. And how do you call with the best promo quote first?

Big Bell is trying to cut out all but the value producing agents. Umm, to do that, your own channel management would have to give a hoot about more than quota. Big Bell in Florida has had the same jack, er, people running the show for years. Want to know how well that has gone recently? Look here. Slamming as an Agent Strategy to scoop commissions. This is exactly the kind of behavior that TCA forbids with membership, since you have to sign the TCA Code of Ethics.

It's a corporate mentality though. Big Bell has promotions to squash competition; agents who when favored can do no wrong as long as they are bringing in the sales; and lobbyists to insure state and federal agencies are in pocket. The management that looks the other way until someone higher up the food chain says something. Then the agent will be thrown under the bus. And on to the next one. When will all this end?

Is This a First?

2010-02-04T14:02:19Z

The guy who dragged me kicking and screaming into telecom in 1999 has sold his agency and gone to real estate. Usually isn't the transition the other way?

But It's In the Tariff!

2009-09-16T13:49:49Z

I've been trying to order Dry Fiber out of the AT&T Southeast FCC Tariff # 1 for over a month.

The Service Inquiry used to be manual paper - now it is a system called NSS. No idea how to access that system.

I tried to order it through the Channel. It is not on the commission schedule so my Channel Manager wrote me, "We need to concentrate on products we get paid for, dry fiber is not one of those products." So nevermind helping the customer. Or sell product and bring in some revenue. Or that the customer has a huge spend with AT&T already. (Or that I just need an SI done - nothing more).

Product Management indicated that AT&T is no longer offering the Dry Fiber product. "The product was removed once the merger between AT&T & Bellsouth took place." But that is erroneous as the following filings will prove.

BellSouth filed to discontinue Dry Fiber service in July 2007 (see letter PDF here). Then AT&T filed with the FCC to withdraw its Section 63.71 application seeking to discontinue its provision of Dry Fiber service in Jan. 2008 (see letter PDF here). It currently is written into the FCC Tariff # 1 as 4-strand fiber transport (see PDF Tariff here).

Next it's over to the CLEC side of the house where the Wholesale account rep says that she only handles UNE. The other Wholesale rep handles FCC tariff items, but not a word out of her yet.

My big problem is that this service is listed in the tariff. It shouldn't be that hard to order service.

Next step for the client is a phone call. Either to call a telecom attorney (either Kris Twomey or Jonathan Marashlian); or to call the FCC Wireline Competition Bureau (202) 418-1500.

Could They Make It Any More Difficult

2009-08-23T17:03:17Z

A client who ordered a 2xT1 MIS in March wants a stand alone Internet T1 at the same location to segment some traffic. Trying to pull a simple contract for this customer is a bear. Why?

DUNS number given to me by the carrier in March. Not found. Please request a DUNS number. HUH?

Nothing can be input without a DUNS. No where to just pull a contract. Why does it have to be so difficult? Why do agents have to spend hours in your systems to sell a sub-$500 standard service? Why do we have to take hours of training on these systems?

My first reaction is because RBOCs don't want agents. They keep cutting commissions and adding more requirements. Making it more difficult to make a living as an agent for them.

It is simply easier at this point to just sell resellers - Acces2Go or NIT or WBS. It's residual based commission. It's roughly the same rate. And it's so much simpler.

Are You Still an ILEC Agent?

2009-04-07T21:51:20Z

This from Telephony online and the Convergence Consulting Group:

The latest in an annual study of the bundled services market shows US telecom service providers are losing wireline voice customers at a faster pace and being transformed in the process into companies that will look very different from their traditional telecom roots. The Battle for the American Couch Potato: Bundling, TV, Internet, Telephone, Wireless, released this week by the Convergence Consulting Group, shows maintaining a broadband connection is increasingly important to telecom providers, as wireline voice services become much less important.

If you look at the numbers in that PDF report and you still think that the QBPP is a viable option or that the last 400K businesses in the BellSouth region will somehow see the light and convert, I have some land for you in South Florida.

I have written about this in years past: the telcos have finally hit the wall. Everything is flat or down now: TV, wireline, cellular, and broadband. Granted most numbers are for residential, not business accounts which agents sell, but this will affect the entire telco business. Telco moved from the most profitable service - Voice - to Internet (the 2nd most profitable) - into TV, which is te least profitable. Why? Set-top boxes cost $400 per pop. How do you recoup that $5 per month rental? Most of the pricing goes straight to the content. You know, Disney and ESPN want their dough. Then there's the network upgrade for TV (and high-speed internet), which although VZT says is under $900 per home passed, the numbers I see are closer to $2000. Let's factor in the advertising. I get something almost everyday from VZ. At even $0.75 per mailer that's $15 per month. Times how many homes passed? See how that may slow the telco engine? Plus MSO's moved from the least profitable service (TV) to the most profitable (Voice). And MSO's are getting into mobile data and maybe cellular voice with Sprint.

When you look at the summary from Convergence Consulting Group, it looks bleak.

We estimate Cable's double play base of TV and Internet subscribers YE2008 at 61% (we forecast 79% YE2011). The RBOC/Telcos residential telephone to broadband overlap was 33% at YE2008 (we forecast 54% YE2011). Hence, it's easier for Cable to add voice customers off this overlap than for the RBOC/Telcos to add TV customers.
2008 RBOC/Telcos residential wireline telephone line loss was 10%.
Wireless Substitution was responsible for about half the loss and Cable for the other half.
We forecast Cable will have 23% of residential telephone subscribers by YE2009.
We estimate wireless-only households at 20% at YE2008.
Wireless annual subscriber additions continue to slow, 2008 saw 15.6M (2007 saw 22.4M) and we forecast 13.9M in 2009.
Data continues to drive wireless ARPU growth (voice ARPU is declining). We forecast that price competition, which intensified in 2008, will continue to increase going forward.

Telcos are building out high-speed networks for TV and Internet, which is costing a bundle, at the same time that they are forklift upgrading the cellular networks to 4G. Have they even paid off the debt from constructing the 2.5G and 3G systems? Meanwhile, Charter is bankrupt and the rest of the MSO's have to upgrade to DOCSIS 3.0 while also constructing WiMAX networks. All while the ARPU is decreasing and the customer acquisition costs are increasing.

With these kinds of pressures on the RBOCs, imagine the pressure on the ILECs without a cellular division like QWEST, Embarq, Windstream, Frontier and Fairpoint. Landline losses that cannot be off-set by TV or cellular revenues. Yikes! Basically, the EarthLink strategy right? Cost cutting as the primary executive decision. Right out the knitting until its over.

Where do you think Agents come into that play? With losses, an easy cost cutting measure is to stop paying agent commissions. Think about your Channel Partners in 2009.

Times They are Re-Channeling

2009-03-17T03:27:43Z

At the Channel Partners Expo, on individual calls with agents, and on a conference call with a bunch of agents today, I noticed something big: the Channel is shifting.

I have known for a while that VAR's would replace the traditional telecom dialing-for-dollars, save-you-10% agents. It's coming because sales cycles are longer; the product set is very different; and it's all about IP and Apps. (Net-head versus Bell-head).

There's another shift happening: agents are banding together every way they can to get leverage against the carriers, who hold too much power. It started bubbling in 2007 with my post called What's a Partner Worth? In the 2 years since that post, there hasn't been much change on the carrier side.

Agents first started bonding together as Master Agents. Then came the experiment called the Agent Alliance - a group of master agents banding together for group buying. I guess its a master master agency. None of those entities speaks for the agents.

"There is a serious disconnect between many agents and their suppliers on the expectations they have for each other in developing a mutually beneficial partnership," says PHONE+ Editor Khali Henderson. "Some of this may be a failure to recognize the changing dynamics in the telecom industry and their impacts on the participants in the value chain. Starting a formal dialog in the industry may help to overcome these gaps in understanding."

The dialog today starts when commissions aren't paid. You look at the situation for agents with MCI when Verizon bought them and changed the MCI Agent contract. Over 100 agents got screwed out of commission because the new contract was unfavorable or untenable. It happened with Cable & Wireless. Many mergers have had similar results for agents.

I will have to say that most of these issues are contract related. The quotas and other issues are spelled out in the contract - IF you read and understand the fine print. If you use a Master Agent, you don't even get to see the fine print, because this Industry loves the NDA (non-disclosure agreement). It's why agents can't get a fair shake - they have no idea what is availble to negotiate. Cisco just lost in court with the judge declaring that Cisco's partner agreement was unconscionable, meaning that the contract is too one-sided. I think that if that precendent stands, agents will have a leg up.

I've been on the receiving end of a carrier (BellSouth) taking away a boatload of hard earned commissions, so I understand the frustration. (After 5 years, therapy, anger management classes, blogging and drinking, I can almost move past it). But at the end of the day, what band of agents has $1M to hire an attorney to fight a carrier over a contract dispute? That's what it would take. About $1M and a long time (7 years). What do you do in the mean time?

Not to be mean, but the industry is almost tipping over with bad debt, rising costs of goods, lower margins, and, let's face it, failing strategies. By that I mean, how many carriers have a solid long-term strategy?

[I deleted my FiOS is a losing strategy rant here]

Let's just say that I look at many CLEC's who are so obviously selling underwater that I want to take a SCUBA test. And it isn't just the Channel - the direct side is drowning in there too. In fact, the direct side is usually the one that starts the price war against the agent side. And where are the policies and guidelines in place for that Not to Occur?

Some carriers (like the ones on Moody's Death Watch list) may not be around in a year, so agents need to watch that to. Agents need to be aware of how inter-connected the whole CLEC and Reseller market is. Reseller A buys from Carrier V and Reseller B and D, who buys from Carrier Q and Reseller A and D. When one collapses (like Alphared did recently), it cripples the rest. And there isn't enough margin - room - for that kind of error.

At the end of the day, the agents need to band together - to do more than swap tales of woe and vent - and that's why a bunch of us have put in many hours in the last year to create the Technology Channel Association. Join now! It's free through the end of March for agents and we offer group health insurance for our members.

Can You Guess the Carrier

2009-03-13T14:22:42Z

Telecom is broken. I can't remember the last time an order went smooth. Well, wait, I can actually, it was a BellSouth Metro E. The REUC order center for BellSouth FCC circuits really knows how to work an order. For 10 years that group in Sunrise FL has been outstanding to work with. (The former DSG and the MEOC had some great people who made my life easy too. Those grooups are gone now).

This week just trying to get quotes has been a struggle, but the topper on the cake has been an Internet T1 install. It was delayed for weeks due to address mismatch -- not the street address, the suite number. (The customer was moving into a bigger office space in the same building). Eventually, I just submitted without a suite number. On install, client was told that the tech would come back. Waited two days, no tech - then told by provisioning that no tech was coming. We finally get to the turn up and I walk the customer through the install on the phone (twice actually, two different people). We get through turn up.

The managed router did not have NAT or DHCP turned on. One day just for that. No phone number for router configurations. You have to order changes by email!!! And only from the 2 email addresses on the order form. WTH?

Then we add the IP Phones, but we need to modify two lines of the config. We are waiting again. This is too convoluted for me. The ROI is negative. The turn up alone was 20 hours of time.

Can anyone guess what carrier this is?

AT&T Striking and Hiding

2009-03-11T20:56:23Z

It looks like AT&T is heading for a strike. Most people at AT&T I know have already been cross trained (I use that term loosely) to handle union jobs. A wholesale account manager will be heading to Michigan to be a T1 installer. Nice. Glad I don't have any AT&T orders in the system.

Also, it looks like AT&T is keeping its sales meetings quiet. (No logos. No banners.) I guess they are afraid that if the union or press get wind of the mega-bucks parties that they threw in Dallas in January and next month in Miami, that there might be trouble. The 94 Solution Providers that won Champion awards are set to meet at the Diplomat in April.

There has been much discussion about ethics in the channel. How ethical is it for carrier channel managers to poach agents and deals away from master agencies to move them to "preferred" Champions? This has been going on for some time. It doesn't say much about the Integrity of people in the Channel. And if you are a Master Agent who benefits from poaching, it comes around. The only thing anyone at Bell is loyal to is there own pocketbook. When you start slipping -- and they all do -- you will be thrown by the wayside and picked apart -- to help build up the next "preferred" partner.

The Rotten Apple in the Channel

2008-11-04T20:34:03Z

In its latest financial filing AT&T claims that they sold 6.9M iPhones and added 1M new cellular customers in the quarter due to the iPhone 3G. (Apple says that 39% of quarterly revenues were due to pushing out 200M iPhones so far.) Here's the funny part: Agents can't sell the iPhone. Agents can sell Blackberries and other phones but not the iPhone.

Once again AT&T spends money to create a "Solution Provider" Alliance Channel that demonstrates preferences to AT&T sales employees over its Channel agents. On its Alliance website, AT&T writes "Targeted customer sets to minimize channel conflicts" That's some messaging there.

Speaking to the Channel Champions, more than one is worried about what the new year will bring. One never knows what the RBOC Channel will look like year to year.

Not being able to sell the hottest phone to business execs is just one example of how the direct side is treated preferentially over the Indirect Channel. Another is on pricing. Last week, I received a phone call from AT&T about my posting pricing to my client blog. They wanted it removed immediately. Well, I am a sub-agent of a Solutions Provider; I am not direct. (Been there done that; have the scars to prove it). But the pricing did not come from an AT&T website. The pricing came from one of my customers who got it from his account exec. At that point, it's public domain. Just another example of AT&T and its control issues.

AT&T is a wireless company. If that was really true, agents would be able to sell all of its wireless products.