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

CLEC

What Will You Be Selling in 2012?

November 16, 2011

Most channel executives will tell you that the 2 biggest products for 2012 will be MPLS and SIP.  It makes sense since the PSTN is being phased out as the telecom infrastructure turns to an all-IP network. It also makes sense that not all traffic can travel (safely, securely or timely) on the Internet, so MPLS becomes the WAN solution for control and privacy.

Ethernet will be the product of choice. No more T1.

So Who is Going to Buy XO?

November 3, 2011

I got asked this question again today: Who is going to buy XO? I think we can almost all agree that Carl Icahn would like to sell his company.

XO had 2010 revenue of $1.5 billion, only $8 million more than 2009. So that's flat.

EarthLink Buys Some Synergy

November 1, 2011

EarthLink is buying two divisions from Synergy Global Solutions: its IT Solution Center, a 24-7 help desk and network operations center, and its cloud-hosted application business, according to Buffalo News.

EarthLink gets relationships with about 120 VAR's that laready sell the Solution Center and hosted application services. That's probably as valuable as the NOC itself.

"In addition to the Solution Center, EarthLink is acquiring Synergy's cloud-based application service which provides end-to-end hosted IT capabilities for the environmental services vertical market.

Will Paetec End up in the Wind

October 11, 2011

PAETEC has a bid on the table from Windstream for a stock swap. The board of PAETEC will vote on it at the end of October. Some shareholders are so not happy with the bid value that lawyers and analysts have been hired to evaluate the deal.

Meanwhile CNBC reports that Level3 will be putting in a competing bid for PAETEC despite the fact that L3 is currently in the process of acquiring Global Crossing.

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.



360, OpenRange and Hosting.com

October 11, 2011

It looks like Zayo Group is going to buy 360 Networks. Back in May, Zayo and 360 entered into a long-term dark fiber deal that must have set off talks of an acquisition. (It explains why 360 was too busy to keynote this week.) Zayo, backed by M/C Ventures,  reported sales of $77.8 million and a profit of $11 million in 4Q11.  Instead of being acquired, Zayo is grabbing its 17th sale.

Hosting.com acquired Neospire, a Dallas based mission critical, managed hosting provider.

What Does It Say About the Reseller Model?

October 11, 2011

TNCI filed BK, owing $10M. There have been a number of resellers over the years in this industry - and there will be more. Reselling is THE business model that everyone jumps on it telecom. What was UNE-P after all?

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.






The Banker Speaks

September 16, 2011

At Cloud Communications Summit at ITEXPO this week in Austin, Q Advisors a luncheon keynote. Q Advisors has been involved in quite a few M&A transactions this year with Cloud Comm companies. Micheal Quinn was the speaker. He said a lot of stuff that I have been saying (so I naturally liked the guy, even though he is a banker.)

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.)



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