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Proactive Care Puts Operators One Step Ahead

By Thomas Fuerst, Senior Director, Multimedia Solutions MarketingAlcatel-Lucent

Monitoring and analyzing network data proactively saves operators time, money, and customers.

When a network service fails, it makes headlines, ticks off customers, and costs that network operator money. When a failure is headed off in advance, on the other hand, there might not be praise-laden headlines, but it's newsworthy nonetheless.

The traditional approach to customer care has typically been: a disgruntled customer calls customer service and complains of a service interruption or problem; the rep, learning of it for the first time, sends out a technician the next day, and eventually finds a resolution. Often, customers are left feeling put out, and the operator has spent significant time and money resolving the problem. Even worse is the customer who doesn’t call and just feels this is ‘typical’ of their network experience. That is a customer at risk of leaving.

Proactive care flips this dynamic on its head by using predictive analytics to identify potential outages or errors in the network and stop them before they occur. It consists of three main parts: one, constantly monitoring and measuring data on the network; two, real-time analysis of the data; and three, the most important, acting on that analysis to fix the problem.

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Tagged Alcatel-Lucent, big data, customer care, KPIs, network monitoring, procativecare | Responses

10 Lessons from Volleyball

By Peter on Monday, May 20

I've played volleyball for over 25 years. I have traveled around the US to watch the pros live - both indoor...

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Tagged hiring, strategy, volleyball

Emerging Threats Combats a Million Plus Pieces of New Malware a Week

By Rich Tehrani on Friday, May 17

There are 250,000 plus new pieces of malware being produced each day equating to one piece per person in the US in...

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Tagged emerging threats, interop, malware, security

NFV-Based Software Telcos Need OSS/BSS Interoperability

By Rich Tehrani on Friday, May 17

One of the goals of ETSI NFV is to allow new entrants to provide solutions to carriers based on software instead of...

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Tagged bss, carrier, ericsson, huawei, interoperability, nfv, nokia siemens networks, nsn, oss, sdn, software telco

SysAid's Lifshitz: The Cloud Will Dominate ITSM Market

By Rich Tehrani on Thursday, May 16

Cloud computing has really become a household word with mainstream media outlets running stories on television about the growth in the space...

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Tagged help desk, itsm, mdm, sysaid

Avaya Takes Networking Lead in SPB

By Rich Tehrani on Wednesday, May 15

At Interop Las Vegas 2013 Avaya was demonstrating their real-world Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) solutions and while interoperating with Spirent, HP and...

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Tagged alcatel-lucent, avaya, hp, interop, lucent, mpls, networking, spb, spirent, zeus kerravala

Alianza Wants to Host Your Software Telco

By Rich Tehrani on Tuesday, May 14

The software telco(r)evolution representing the move from hardware to software is perhaps the biggest trend in the world of carrier telecom this...

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Tagged acme packet, alianza, etsi, hosted ims, nfv, oracle, software telco, software telco congress, virtualization

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Strategic Thinking Necessary for SPs

September 26, 2012

Strategic Thinking is needed for service providers to get through the upheaval of the next couple of years. The last couple of years have been all belt tightening and cost cutting -- to the point that service delivery, sales and customer support have suffered greatly.

Google Says Mobile Operators Have To Think About Service Delivery, Not Data Plans - "meaning they have to go beyond monthly subscription fees and add value to the types of services OTT players, content providers and others are currently driving."

In an ITEXPO panel about Hosted versus Premise, the panelists were discussing business drivers such as BYOD, Security, lack of skills, and integration of BPI (business process improvement) as reasons that businesses are moving to UC&C (unified communications and collaboration).

Posted in mobile, unified communications

Tagged: byod, customer service, strategy, UC : Related Tags: service providers, service delivery, strategic thinking, couple years, service, providers

snom Takes an Aastra Approach

September 26, 2012

A couple of years ago Aastra launched a small form factor PBX based on Asterisk, the AastraLink Pro 160 Small Business IP PBX. This was a sub-$1000 solution for small businesses. The IP-PBX is XML based so that it can be customized for small businesses. As I have written before, I think the numerous ITSP's are missing out by not taking advantage of the XML in the IP Phone handsets.

Posted in PBX

Tagged: hardware, lync, pbx, phone system, snom : Related Tags: aastra, phone

More Agents Getting Certified

September 25, 2012

The Technology Channel Association has announced hitting two milestones: over 500 members and 200 members registered for the Certified Telecom Professional certification program. Those that have passed are listed on a special page. Why? Pride in being an Agent who takes this business seriously.

Posted in TCA, agents, certification, channel, sip trunking

Tagged: agents, certification, certified, channel partners, CTP, sip, TCA, tdm : Related Tags: telecom, takes, education, certified

Size Matters

September 25, 2012

Paetec and USLEC combined in 2007 for 45,000 medium-sized and large business customers. Cbeyond has 60k now. 8x8 has 30k now.

That means that you shouldn't be hoping to scale to millions. (And "make it up in volume" as they say!) Start with just 1000 satisfied customers, then 2000. It is all about finding the first 1000 people who will find value in purchasing the services you offer from you at a profitable rate.

Posted in organizations

Tagged: strategy : Related Tags:

Selling VoIP and UC via Channel Partners

September 21, 2012

One of my ITEXPO panels is on 2 PM on Thursday about Selling VoIP and UC via Channel Partners with Chad Krantz from Broadvox; Joel Maloff from Phone.com; and Joe Schurman from Evangelyze Communications.

VoIP services are clearly in the process of replacing traditional TDM and LEC services, yet the sales approach may be very different. This session will focus on the sales of VoIP services via indirect channels such as sales agents and partners. It will also differentiate between selling to larger or smaller organizations as well as sales of complete unified communications solutions, SIP trunking, and hosted PBX. The target audiences will include prospective sales partners as well as service providers looking to enhance their market distribution models.

Posted in agents, channel, hosted uc, sip trunking, unified communications

Tagged: agents, channel partners, hosted pbx, itexpo, sip trunking, UC : Related Tags: channel partners, sales, partners, selling, services

Grow Your Business Without Sacrificing Options

September 21, 2012

One of my ITEXPO panels is on Wednesday @ 11 AM with Kevin Kelleher of ICON Voice Networks; Bobby Mohanty of Vertical; David Scult of Fonality; and Debbie Jo Severin, the CMO of 8x8.

With three leading options in the market for IP-based phone systems - on-premises, hosted (cloud) and hybrid-hosted - consumers may have a difficult time deciding which model best fits their business needs. We will be discussing four issues facing businesses today - BYOD, BPI, Mobility and Security - and how the premise and cloud options deal with those issues.

Posted in PBX, hosted uc, mobile, security

Tagged: byod, hosted pbx, itexpo, mobility, pbx, security : Related Tags: options

The CLEC Space is Changing

September 21, 2012

The FCC has removed its rules against CLEC-Cable mergers. Right now the M&A department at Comcast, flush with cash, is picking out its next target. "Hey, Guys! Call me if you need help with valuations or choices!"

Posted in CLEC, FCC, cableco, cloud computing, mergers, outage, telco

Tagged: att, cable, clec, ilec, outage, strategy : Related Tags: metro ethernet, business, revenue, cable, inteliquent

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