economy

Will the Dial-Up Trend Affect VoIP?

March 31, 2009

Ars technica doesn't believe the articles in CNET and AOL-Tech about people switching back to dial-up. Well, info from dial-up aggregators indicate that dial-up is on the uptick. As some angry comments mention not everyone needs broadband.

Last year we saw the plateau of broadband subscriber numbers.

Posted in broadband, economy, saas, voip

Level3 Board Selling Shares

March 9, 2009

In an article in Tulsa World, Level3 CEO Jim Crowe, Vice Chairman Miller, CLO Stortz, and CFO Patel all sold shares of Level3 for about $0.70. Each still holds over a million shares. (Crowe owns 8.9M shares).

Posted in economy, telecommunications

Biz Travel Trends Are Annoying

March 9, 2009

USA Today has the latest business travel trends. While it looks like prices are dropping, in fact, it's only the base airfare ticket price that is dropping. With all ancillary fees airlines add, you are likely paying more for your ticket - and according to what I hear at airports, your final ticket price is unknown until you get home and add it all up.

Airlines are cutting schedules which means we are back to bumping on flights (as I saw in Vegas). Also, if you get bumped or miss a flight, see you tomorrow.

Posted in economy, off topic

Airband Says Bye-Bye to Channel

March 7, 2009

This was in my email inbox today:

Airband has decided to move in a direction which doesn't require Channel Managers. In this economy, tough decisions have to be made, in an effort to reduce SG&A expenses I will no longer be employed with Airband. Airband has an awesome product, granted it appears Airband is on the "bleeding edge" of the WiMAX space. They are attempting to get the processes in place to make the bleeding edge comment disappear. I am sure you will be contacted and served possibly by Direct Sales. I trust you will give them assistance in learning how we, Agents, conduct business.

Correction written here. (It was just a re-alignment of the channel).

Posted in agents, channel, economy, wimax, wireless

Two Big Problems in DC

March 4, 2009

Arnold Schwarzenegger was on ABC's Sunday morning news with George. he had the best analogy I have heard:

As a patient, when the oncology team diagnoses you with cancer, you want a unified solution, not a bunch of doctors arguing over the best treatment for you.

This is what we have now: party politics.

Posted in economy, off topic, politics

An Excel-lent SUTUS Bundle for SMB's

March 2, 2009

SUTUS, the maker's of the Business Central 200 office-in-a-box, have announced inter-operability with Excel SIP Trunking. The real news for the marketplace is that Excel and SUTUS (along with Polycom) are bundling a system for small business.

The Business Central 200 is developed specifically for businesses of up to 25 employees, Sutus Business Centralâ¢ comprises a wide array of advanced telephony, data and networking functions. It includes a business-class phone system, file server, email server, router, firewall, wireless access point, VPN remote access server, and automated backups. It has the ability to simultaneously support both standard phone line and VoIP connections and comes with an array of business productivity features.

Posted in PBX, VAR, agents, channel, economy, sip trunking, smb, telecommunications

Reignmaker Smashed by Standford

February 24, 2009

Stanford International Bank is the other Madoff. While Madoff burned people to the tune of $50B in his Ponzi Scheme, Stanford wiped out $8B in its investors money. In its wake, it has erased the credit line of Reignmaker Communications. It is reported that Reignmaker laid off 19 of 25 employees. It looks like this Broadsoft based VoIP provider will be closing.

Reignmaker is an Atlanta based ITSP that purchased a CLEC with a Broadsoft switch. It back-ended into Tampa-based CommX, a wholesale Broadsoft ITSP. A good dose of its employees came from Cbeyond, down the street.

Posted in economy, voip

Level3 Profits

February 16, 2009

L3 released 4Q08 numbers last week. Remember at Christmas, rumors swirled about a possible bankruptcy. Now it rings up a profit.

Level 3 Communications has recorded its first quarterly profit in six years for the fourth quarter of 2008.

Posted in agents, bandwidth, channel, economy, telecommunications

Nuvox and Google Team Up

February 12, 2009

Nuvox says that they are all set for this economy. It looks like they have $30M in the bank, re-financed their debt, and are looking for a possible acquisition.

Nuvox is now offering Google Apps to its customers.

NuVox business customers can now access Google's popular Web applications on their own domain such as Google Docs to create, share, and collaborate on documents, presentations, and spreadsheets in real-time and can even gather a variety of business information in one place from Google Sites which brings forth videos, calendars, presentations, attachments, and text -- and easily share it for viewing or editing with teams or as a company intranet.

Posted in economy, sip trunking, telco, telecommunications

Resellers on SIP Trunking

February 6, 2009

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.

Posted in Marketing, agents, broadsoft, communications, economy, expo, sip trunking, voip

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