Recently in communications Category

There are a bunch of debates raging over the telecommunications infrastructure. 

Congress has looked at Open Access bills for cellular networks. By this we mean that a consumer can use any available handset or device on any cell network. This is kind of the Carterphone concept for cellular.

The 700 MHz auction had open access provisions built right in, so VZW's 4G/LTE network will need to incorporate Open Access.

Spectrum is a finite resource. TV, radio, public safety and the cell companies all share access to various licensed spectrums. Other companies, like oil companies to communicate with rigs and ships, have purchased spectrum licenses. There is also the unlicensed bands like 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz, and 3650 MHz that are shared by any and all. We are seeing in the 2.4 GHz band that too much usage causes crowding and in some cases makes the spectrum useless. (Your little blue Linksys wireless AP's use 2.4 GHz, as does quite a few cordless phones and other consumer products). As more and more products and consumers go cordless and wireless, this resource will be used up. It must be allocated better. 

(An aside: Open Access has one advantage: less handsets in the landfill.)

Net Neutrality is based on network management. Both cable and DSL have bottleneck issues in your community. To manage those issues, the service provider uses tools, hardware and software, to prioritize traffic. This same set of tools can be used to degrade Vonage while prioritizing the ISP's VoIP service offering. These same tools can be used for DPI (deep packet inspection) to read every unencrypted packet that passes through the box. This same tool can be used to police the network (or Internet) of child porn, illegal downloads, and the like. Do we really want that kind of Big Brother action? 

At the heart of the NN debate is the fact that a few ISP's have degraded VoIP packets and legitimate P2P (peer-to-peer file-sharing) traffic. As networks go all IP, there needs to be a set of guidelines for peering traffic and network management. I don't think the FCC or Congress should be the ones making these rules. Any rules they come up with will be a compromise that will ultimately solve nothing, but create new problems.

The final debate in DC is about Fair Competitive Access to the telco infrastructure. After court rulings and Forbearance petitions in 2004-06, CLEC's and ISP's have been losing ground in the ability to get access to telco network elements to provide service to customers at a fair and competitive price. In so many cases, the CLEC "wholesale" rate is higher than retail. Make sense? Docket 05-25 at the FCC is the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Special Access Rates. 

While they may seem similar in that they are all about access to the network, they all are about different aspects of the network access. In the end, Open Access Rules and Net Neutrality guideleines will define how we use the networks for innovation, collaboration and communication.

This PowerPoint presentation represents the outline of what my panel was going to discuss at Broadsoft Connections. We were going to make 3 points about Marketing a Profitable UC Bundle: 

1. Does Bundling Work;
2. How do you sell it;
3. What makes a successful bundle

Does Bundling Work? It depends. Are you using a Bundle for Customer Retention or Customer Acquisition? Our panleists included to ILEC's and 1 CLEC competing directly against one panelist.

The big point to make is that if you add one component sold separately between 15-20% of your customer base will uptake that new component (if marketed well). However, if you add it to a bundle, many more folks will take it. Albeit at a less margin, but more overall revenue.

Everyone was in agreement that the only way to sell a UC Bundle was face-to-face. A sales force - direct or indirect - could sell it. The hardware salespeople have a problem transitioning from selling a box to selling the Invisible. But training can fix that.

Upselling an existing bundle customer can work via tele-sales to increase stickiness and ARPU.

What makes a successful bundle? No one is sure yet. The only point that could be made is that it needs to be simple. Small business wants the pain of technology removed from their business life. And Broadsoft's 180+ features, Xtended Apps, and the XML on the phone are an infinite list of possibilities that will confuse the sales team let alone the consumer. Bundles should be created to attack a market segment, niche or vertical.

I'm in Atlanta speaking at the Microcorp One-on-One event about Trends in 2010. The three trends that I see for agents are the following: Applications, Quality of Service (QOS), and Mobile Broadband (MBB). But they are kind of inter-dependent. Ubiquious broadband leads to innovative uses and applications. Applications like on smartphones lead to a greater need for mobile broadband networks.

Mobile Broadband is growing. Smartphones are replacing cellular handsets. Social networks are moving to mobile devices so people can Facebook and Tweet. RIM's Blackberry brought us mobile email, but it is a standard on many phones now. Netbooks and data cards are presenting the US cellular companies with some fits. They like the additional revenue, but have to keep dropping billions on the network backhaul and capacity upgrades. (And another $45B+ on the upgrade to LTE/4G).

All this means that there are new uses for the mobile broadband, like the Kindle. Sprint's Wispernet allows Amazon to instantly download books, magazines, newspapers and blogs to Kindle devices. Machine-to-machine devices can utilize the cellular data network to provide connectivity for ATM machines, security cameras, and a host of other devices that need to communicate with a NOC or remote server.

All of this is a cycle of applications driving network usage. Ubiquious broadband driving more apps. It's one reason that the FCC needs to maintain open network and Net Neutrality guidelines in place.

Applications - like email, databases, office suites, CRM - are creating a demand for managed services, such as an outsourced IT department. In addition, businesses are looking at the Cloud - moving applications to a data center for redundancy, security, and availability - as a way to save money and stop worrying about the IT department. With applications being delivered in the Cloud or by way of SAAS or even Virtualization, Agents have a chance to offer more than just Internet Access or WAN circuits, like private line. Agents can sell Layer 2 to Layer 7 - pipe to apps. It's a way to get deeper into accounts. It's a way to offer a complete solution. It's a way to deliver on the label of Trusted Advisor.

Applications are driving sales. Voice and email are just the primary apps. Business critical data is also driving mobile broadband. Ubiquious broadband is allowing for innovative ways of accessing data. The problem becomes reliable access to the data. That's where Quality of Service comes in. QOS on the WAN is what is needed to access data reliably and quickly. The MPLS trigger is the Class of Service reliability and prioritization of data over the network. This is paramount for businesses running a truly converged network with video, database, VoIP, email and Internet riding the same pipes. WAN Optimization is selling due to the cost containment and the performance enhancement. Big bang for the buck.

So the agents can sell mobile broadband, applications via Virtualization or SAAS, and add QOS to the WAN to provide reliable access to these business critical data.

This will be a strange post but Alex Balashov and I had a Twitter exchange today about the telecom industry and its relentless pursuit of arbitrage plays. From long distance to calling card to SIP trunking, it's all about changing the bucket of minutes for something cheaper so someone can make some short change coin. Kind of ridiculous.

I asked where the Purple Cows are. Where's the HD Voice in my Hosted PBX? Where's the mobile component that is stupid easy? 

Alex doesn't like Hosted PBX. "As for Broadsoft, it's an overpriced waste of time. Not because it sucks- it is a very feature complete multitenant engine...its cost simply doesn't scale to what people are willing to pay for hosted PBX and dial tone. Shot up by commoditization." 

I think that there are two camps: one that thinks Voice should be free - and I hear that more from folks IN telecom than from buyers. And these folks simply do not grasp the stranglehold that the ILEC's have on the PSTN, which for years to come will still be the network of the final mile to end user. Yes, cellular is large and cable voice is growing, but most of that traffic still resides on the ILEC operated PSTN. ENUM and Voice Peering domestically in the US has not  reached a level that will cripple the PSTN yet, luckily. (What will we do when that happens?)

The other camp will gladly pay to reliably and clearly communicate with family, friends and customers. 

Maybe I am in the minority but I can't hear folks well on Skype, Magic Jack or cell phones. I for one would like less computer features on my "smartphone" and better clarity, volume controls, and speaker. But that's just me.

Alex does make a good point that all ITSP's need to pay attention to: "No process, no standardisation, no infrastructure = no chance of making money, on something that is a red sea to begin with."  What's a Red Sea? A bloody marketplace built on price, not value. "Develop business processes that can be replicated at decreasing marginal cost, standardize." That at least helps when you live in a Red Ocean.

The Starbucks of Telecom. Who is it? Alex suggests that it is "Ifbyphone, Callfire, and various niche call center and dialer vendors (far from all)." And certainly these companies offer a value add on in a niche way. However, who is providing the dial-tone while delivering a communications experience? (I don't know). I have a laundry list of stuff I want from my Hosted PBX vendor:

• HD Voice
• Easy access on smartphone
• Easy transfer to/from mobile/desktop
• Presence
• Video capability
• IM/Chat
• Email-Voicemail Integrated mailbox
• Voicemail text 
• UM (unified messaging)
• User portal
• Click to call

Alex thinks that the Duopoly is getting better at delivering smaller transactions. I think that they still suck at it and it is costing them a fortune in acquisition cost. Then a fortune more in brand deterioration when people get frustrated with the experience. (Part of is it the B.S. marketing that they have been doing for years that raises the level of expectations to beyond the network to deliver. Can you say More Bars or No Dropped Calls or Best Network?)

Very few Purple Cows in our Industry. And if you think you are one, I suggest you talk to your customers. Why? Because while you may think you deliver a great service, your competitors are taking your customers.

Alex and I did agree that the way SIP Trunking is sold is yet another arbitrage play. "So, I think we agree - trunking in itself is a very mathematically exacting but mostly pointless waste of time.  As far as who captures the value in the non-enterprise VoIP space, you're absolutely right - the very few value-add vendors." 

It's food for thought from twitter.

Alex talks further about TDM - that it is still the winner in reliability, inter-operability, and call quality. 

"From a cost perspective that is a hard OPEX formula to meet. TDM is still the only reliable means of PSTN access. Stuff just doesn't work well. Eventually the smart ones widen up and get cheap TDM circuits, and ISDN gateway boxes. ... 90% of their technical overhead drops off, churn slows, but the margins take a dive unless they got a really good deal. "good deal" usually means meeting an IXC in a hotel and not paying loop on the circuit, just blended usage."

This leads me to wonder what ever happened to Voice Peering and ENUM? Well, one thing is that everyone wanted to start one. There wasn't just one. The rules and connection costs get in the way. Why didn't COMPTEL force its membership into a Voice Peering arrangement in 2005? Add in the Cable Industry, VoIP players, and Sprint's network of cellular minutes and you take a lot of the minutes out of the ILEC's PSTN. Costs drop. Or would they? Seems that the CLEC's would still want Inter-Carrier Compensation since some have this built into their financial model (as it were). Because Bell-heads (traditional telecom execs) don't think the same way that Net-Heads (IP execs) think. The settlement model would have to be forced on them. Even the FCC has balked at that for 10 years. 

Alex doesn't get my Peering point so let me spell it out further. Take Sprint as the manager of the Voice Peering Points in Dallas, NYC, LAX, CHI and maybe VA. CLEC's, cablecos, ITSP's could drop traffic either as TDM or IP on the switch and not pay for termination. A flat rate if you will. But Alex is correct that the settlement issues just won't float. Too many Bell-heads left in charge. 

To mean VoIP was able to take off for 3 reasons: broadband deployment, expensive TDM, and cellular acceptance of crappy call quality. We haven't come much further than that.

HyperOffice is holding a webinar about Email and Productivity. It follows up on the LinkedIn Poll that Shahab Kaviani, VP of Marketing at Hyperoffice, held last week on reducing your Inbox with Online Collaboration.

This is of interest to me because I get so much email, including listserv messages and social networking notifications. There is so much noise to filter through - Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, email, IM/chat, voicemail, and text messages - it is becoming overwhelming.

There are days that it takes 6 hours to shuffle through all this communication. I think this hyper-connectivity is a bad thing. Notice how people in a restaurant or a bar spend more time on their phones than actually talking / interacting with the people right in front of them?

Crackberry was a joke, but it turned out that it is very difficult for people to unplug. I successfully did that for a couple of hours each day this weekend, but then right back online to see what I missed. It's nuts. I'm going to start a 12-step program.

Are you overloaded with email / communications? Is email bankrupt? (After getting 500+ spam messages this morning, I think the answer is obvious, except that email is primary communications tool).

Obviously, there are tools that can be used to make business communications more efficient, but some that I have tried slow down Outlook so much or eat up so much memory the laptop slows down that I had to delete them. Suggestions are welcome.

1. Are you overwhelmed?
2. Can you un-plug?
3. Do you un-plug?

A productivity consultant I know, Matthew Cornell, says that he has a zero inbox. I can't even envision that because some projects, like a fiber build, can result in over 400 emails. I leave them all in the inbox until the project is finished, so I can search in one spot. That's probably not the best way, but I also go through both my sent folder and my inbox monthly to make sure that I have contacted people regularly.  Again, I would be happy to hear of a better way.

Acting FCC chief Michael Copps celebrated the 75th anniversary of both the FCC and the Communications Act of 1934 that birthed the agency. In a speech, Copps said, "How do we take this 75 year old agency, charged with implementing our formative communications law, and make sure it is up to the challenges of the 21st century? Born in the world of primitive radio sets, raised on plain old telephone service, now trying to manage high-speed broadband and orbiting satellites, can we make it an agency for all seasons? I'm glad you're thinking about this."

After that Copps kind of digs at Martin's feral grasp on the communications and free flow of information. (In other words, there was none).

I do think it's time for our agency to take a good hard look at our mission. Indeed, I think every independent agency ought to be required to do this. I have always believed that our government's independent regulatory agencies were set up to serve the public interest. But many of them, my own included, have sometimes strayed-- strayed pretty far -- from that purpose. At the FCC -- and I single out no specific regime or individual -- our processes over time have become opaque rather than transparent. Too often we spend our days refereeing disputes between powerful interests, with consumers and other non-traditional stakeholders pretty much left outside the loop of discussion and decision. Even the public record is difficult for the public to access.
The new Administration's Open Government Initiative is music to my ears and offers a wonderful opportunity to make this happen. At this 75th Anniversary, we should be revisiting the vows and obligations we took back at the beginning. What I'm talking about today is not rocket science. To a large degree, it's just having our goals clear in our mind, and then creating the process and management to achieve them in an open and transparent way. Or, as my old boss, the legendary Fritz Hollings, used to say: "On the way through life make this your goal--keep your eye on the doughnut and not the hole."
"...the Commission has just been charged with a truly important job. With enactment of the Stimulus bill, we are called upon by Congress and our new President to develop a national strategy to get high-speed, opportunity-creating broadband out to all our citizens. This is a very big deal -- the Commission has seldom if ever had a greater summons to action.... How we do on this will have a lot to do with how we fare in future years -- both the country and the Commission." [at least He gets this.]
We must start thinking more rigorously -- and I mean all of us -- about the profound impact of so much of our communications moving to the Internet in the years ahead. How to keep that Internet open and dynamic is an important part of this dialogue. But so is how to ensure that as the Internet becomes our primary vehicle for communicating with one another, it protects the public interest and informs the civic dialogue that America depends upon for its democracy? That's a huge question."

I moderated a SIP trunking panel at Microcorp's event in Atlanta in Sept. of 2008. The result was that the carriers were pushing SIP Trunking as a cost savings replacement for PRI. There was no differentiation among the 4 carriers - whose names I will not print. So then I am at the IT Expo in Miami for the Reseller panel on SIP Trunking titled "The Service Provider Perspective" hoping for something different. It was different. I was bored to tears by the middle of the 3rd presenter.It was one commercial after another about the company and how they could save money.  It was a shame too, because it was a packed room with people eager for some meat. (Lots of notepads and pens poised).

I know I run negative, but wouldn't they have been better served to engage the audience? How about starting with a question: "Has anyone heard of BandTel? Can you tell me what you have heard?  Really. Well, that is somewhat roight but here's the rest of that story. ....  " Then one minute later: "Do you know where our sweet spot is to our resellers?"

There were four carriers up there. Not one talked about productivity, benefits, sweet spot, differentiation, or interoperability.

Productivity: If you are a Broadsoft based ITSP, your SIP trunk allows you to provide Broadsoft Anywhere and API-based software to your customer as a SIP overlay on the trunk. That is a huge deal.  It adds much value to a what a PRI can do for the customer PLUS it extends the life of the PBX while adding missing features as an overlay.

Benefits: the advantage of SIP and SIP endpoints like a softphone. A SIP trunk can extend the PBX to remote sites.

Differentiation: I'm not sure anyone in telecom with a VP of Marketing title understands that term or knows who Jack Trout is. (Trout and Al Reis wrote the book on Positioning in 1981).

Interoperability: PRI is a time tested standard and SIPconnect (SIP Trunk) is just a SIP Forum recommendation for a specification that contains numerous RFC's. This allows for various interpretations of the configuration. The IP-PBX interface must be checked for interoperability with the carrier's switch. Not every IP-PBX card can work with every SIP trunk unfortunately. There is also the necessity for high-quality Internet access for the SIP trunk to work reliably.

One other issue I have is that it is sold on price. The costs are much lower than PRI. There is still a port needed. there is still an access line needed unless it is all over going to be carried over the Internet, in which case, the quality will likely be sketchy. Even the long distance rates are cheaper, even though the costs to th ecarrier aren't much different from TDM LD rates.  Go figure.

The revenue side is mentioned because PRI is TDM and can fetch higher revenue than anything with IP in its name. IP means cheap, which means less revenue. Less top revenue for the service providers books, less ARPU, and less commissions for agent or sales guy selling SIP Trunking. All with the extra headaches of inter-op.

Bruce Kushnick of New Networks Institute released a response to the Deloitte & Touche report about New Jersey, Broadband Opportunity - Job Creation, Healthcare, Education.

The report states that Broadband is:

• "essential for the State to achieve the level of employment and job creation in that state;
• "advance the public agenda for excellence in education,
• "improve quality of care and cost reduction in the health-care industry."

The report was written in 1991! Dubbed "Opportunity New Jersey" (a Verizon state), the Deloitte Report details how rewiring the state of New Jersey with fiber optics would be an economic boom and help health-care, employment and education. In fact, by 2010, 100% of New Jersey is supposed to have 45mbps bi-directional broadband, open to all competitors.

According to Business Week, the Obama Administration is planning on giving $20 to $30 billion in financial incentives, most likely aiding the incumbent phone companies, including ATT, Verizon and Qwest.

In fact, Qwest has just asked for a chunk of the financial incentives as well.

Some other plans, such as the Free Press proposal, want to deploy 'open broadband', but would add $30 billion in taxes by raising the Universal Service Fund, now a corporate slush fund of billions of dollars hard-wired to the phone companies.

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation's (ITIF) plan is incumbent-friendly. They want to simply throw money/perks and let's not worry about competition.

NNI's belief is one of those inconvenient truths --- America is 15th in the world in broadband because RBOC's have already received massive financial incentives state by state-- billions per state --- using the promise of broadband. And the money is still being collected today in the form of cost of service increases and other perks, yet services were never delivered.

Think of it as this, Kushnick writes: We hired a contractor to upgrade the roads. We paid them billions based on the specifications and instead they simply dressed up the place, pocketing billions. We estimate the total to be over $280 billion and growing. By 2009, 113 million homes should have been rewired in the US. Combined, AT&T and Verizon have only 2.2 million upgraded fiber-optic TV customers.

History reveals that we'll just be throwing money at the problem instead of fixing what's broken and answering the fundamental question:

How does America create and pay for ubiquitous, competitive, very fast networks?

This is the question being debated on Tom Keatings blog.

What should be done about the companies who were the caretakers of America's essential infrastructure? Where's the Accountability.

You can read the rest at New Networks Institute website.

There has been a deep discussion that started on Tom Keating's blog about the Broadband Bail-out plan (known in various circles as a Bell hand-out, Stimulus package, Information Highway Infrastructure Development Funding).

Attorney Jim Baller has more on the House Stimulus Bill:

• $2.825B for USDA RUS, mostly for rural open access broadband grants, 50% to be awarded no later than Sept. 30, 2009;
• $2.825B to NTIA, including $1B for Wireless Deployment Grants and $1.825B for Broadband Deployment Grants for the deployment of basic broadband service or advanced broadband service;
• $350M to fund state broadband tracking initiatives; NTIA to develop and maintain broadband inventory map of U.S.;
• $1.85B for wireline to be split 75% for advanced broadband in underserved areas and 25% for basic broadband in unserved areas
• $1B for wireless to be split 75% for advanced broadband in underserved areas and 25% for basic wireless in unserved areas

definitions

• "Advanced broadband service"=45Mbps/15Mbps;
"advanced wireless broadband service" = 3Mbps/1Mbps;
• "basic broadband service" = 5Mbps/1Mbps
• FCC to define "unserved" and "underserved"
• Recipients must provide "open access" (except for providers of basic wireless broadband);
• bill also lists numerous preferences (text of bill)(House Report)

Coverage and reactions:

• Wall Street Journal: "So much for the broad- band tax breaks" 
• Declan McCullough: "Democrats sneak net neutrality rules into 'stimulus' bill" 
• BroadbandCensus
• Telephony Online
• Broadband Reports
• Ars Technica
• Exchange

NATIONAL BROADBAND STRATEGY "President-elect Barack Obama may want broadband for all, but it's not going to happen just with the $800 billion economic stimulus plan being debated in Congress right now...the economic stimulus package is meant to address very short-term goals, and should not be read as including provisions for addressing the long-term goal of universal broadband." [exchange mag]

BTW, a Draft UK government plan "will guarantee broadband coverage with minimum download speeds of 2 MB per second to every household that wants it." [Inquirer]

I am on quite a few committees that meet mainly by email and the occasional  conference call. Neither email nor conference call are highly effective collaboration tools for an ongoing committee. So I have been looking at other ways to work.

One idea that comes up is Yahoo! Groups (and Google Groups). It's basically email but with the message archive. It also has a file upload area; polling; and who's online. But you have to register (using a Y! account).

I have had a cursory look at Stixy. It has notes and to-do lists, which makes it like a wiki only better. (Most committees I work with don't like wikis and have tried to use Google docs instead). We may try this one.

Another one that looks good is Genius Room.  It has a good review here.

If you have other ideas, please let me know. Thanks!