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

CLEC

US Government Suing AT&T for Fraud

April 26, 2012

Is Fraud rampant at Ma Bell?

ARS wrote an article titled, AT&T collected millions from taxpayers in fraudulent charges, US says. "AT&T improperly received millions of dollars from a government reimbursement fund by ignoring fraudulent use of the IP Relay call system provided free of charge to hearing- and speech-impaired US residents, the US government alleged this week."

Another item ripped from the headlines:

Basic Math for TNCI

April 26, 2012

TNCI (Trans National Communications International) filed for Bankruptcy in October of 2011, owing Sprint ($5M), AT&T ($1.66M), Verizon ($1M) and Qwest ($1.9M). VZ and AT&T have liquidated CLEC's before for less than $2M. I'm not trying to be pessimistic here, but realistic. Commpartners was liquidated for less than $2M and AstroTel was forced to sell for less than $1M.

Why PR Is Important

April 20, 2012

On a call today talking about the value of different CLEC's and ILEC's and why some are trading so low and some so high. For the most part, it comes down to Wall Street's perception of the business. Actually, a large part is what the stock traders think the business is.

For example, Cincinnati Bell is an ILEC with declining wireline revenues like  Frontier, Fairpoint and TDS.

USTelecom Wants Forbearance for all ILECs

April 9, 2012

We once fancifully debated if the ILEC's would LET the cablecos get ahead just so they could get out from under regulations. This was 2006. Apparently, that was the plan.

USTelecom is an organization made up of ILEC's.

The Telecom Ecosystem is Shifting Rapidly

April 2, 2012

The telecom ecosystem consists of a number of pieces: RBOC, ILEC, RLEC, CLEC, ISP, MSO, IXC, ITSP, MSP, data centers, Master Agents, Agents, VAR's. It is shifting.

As carriers migrate from a commodity access business, so too must the master agents, who - more and more - are tying their business models to the preferred carriers.

Master Agents have morphed into a supermarket of services: CLEC, ILEC, MSO, VoIP, MSP and even hardware (like Shoretel).

What is the Market Expecting?

April 1, 2012

Tuesday I was in Vegas at the Channel Partners Conference mainly for the TCA events. At the TCA Channel Chief Summit, Tiffani Bova of Gartner and Rauline Ochs of IPED Market Bridge Alliance presented research. The take away for me was in perspective.

No one buys the way most service providers sell.

Zayo Buys AboveNet

March 19, 2012

It was a big surprise this morning to hear that Zayo bought AboveNet for $2.2B. My first thought was "Where did Zayo get the money?" I mean, the Dealbook writes, "As of Dec. 31, Zayo had about $25.9 million in cash and short-term investments, along with $682.7 million in long-term debt. It currently has a credit rating of B2." Apparently, Zayo backers and bankers went into their reserves to buy AboveNet. I guess the heady days of Bain LBO is back, thanks Mitt! (LBO is leveraged buy out).

EarthLink's Sweet Spot

March 14, 2012

I learned a few things at the EarthLink training today in Tampa. EarthLink has 175K business customers and about 3 Million consumers, most of them dial-up customers, providing $20M in free cash flow per month. So of the $1.3B in annual revenue, about $500M is dial-up. ELNK has 4 data centers - Columbia, SC; Rochester, NY; Marlborough, MA; and 55 Marietta.)

The first (or 70+ slides) shows that Pipe is the foundation for Managed Security and other services.

Are Telcos Outside Their Delivery Zone?

March 12, 2012

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.

What Else Are You Going to Sell?

March 4, 2012

TDM is running out of runway. Agents have already switched to selling Ethernet, MPLS and SIP Trunking. What else can they be selling?

Back-up, like Conferencing, is a cash cow that Agents just don't sell.

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