"AT&T recently announced the "surplus" of 740 union AT&T jobs despite their revenues soaring to $126.7 billion and a CEO that made over $27 million in 2011." Nice!

Yesterday, 2/13/12, "30 activists just entered the AT&T Atlanta headquarters and are refusing to leave until every single greedy layoff is rescinded. Simultaneously, an occupation with tents is being set up outside of the building. Watch the Occupation of AT&T now: http://livestream.com/occupyAtlanta

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Verizon Puts the Move on Video - Feb 06, 2012

The Whole Content System - Jan 09, 2012

2 Data Center Deals and some links - Jan 03, 2012

"At the risk of sounding like sour grapes, in my experience no one who has tried to use old Cisco phones and bring them current with their Smartnet coverage so they can use them on a new call manager has saved money. The sad part is they won't know until each phone's current software level is individually checked to find out how much it will be and that won't happen until they are installing the system which is after the point of no return."

"I have heard that Cisco has received a lot of negative press and attention with this strict sequential updating process and has created a one-time "forgiveness" option where [your customer] may be able to update existing phones at substantial discounts. Any "new" purchases of used phones will be subject to the full upgrade process making used phone more expensive than new. Over time a Cisco solution is never the least expensive."

It's tough when you drink the Cisco kool-aid. Like IBM back in the day, no one gets fired for buying Cisco. Until they do. I worked a project with a Private 500 firm that bought AT&T (and VZ as back up), over-spent about $10K per month. He wouldn't buy alternative fiber because they were unknown (to him). Two months later: FIRED!

I see a few firms who have a Hosted VoIP solution - maybe on MGCP, maybe on Skinny - migrating to another Hosted PBX player (on SIP) and they want to keep the phones. It's usually a mess.

As an Agent, I want to be truthful to my clients, so I tell them upfront this isn't going to be pretty or may be a cluster. However, when other agents or another Hosted VoIP provider comes along and says, "That's not true." What can you do? Well, I usually ask, "How much experience do they have migrating customers over? How often do the phones keep working? Can my client speak with one of your customers that did keep their phones?" You have to have the right questions for all scenarios.

Cheaper seldom is.

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Grasshopper Co-Founder Talks Entrepreneurs - Apr 18, 2011

What to Ask Your Prospective VoIP Provider - Sep 29, 2010

Making Hosted UC Simple - Feb 02, 2012

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Saturday Night Live has a nice video where they demonstrate the confusion that VZW has exploited about 4G, here on the verge or on NBC.

Despite all the ads from the Big 4 cellcos about 4G, "Large portions of the western half of the U.S. do not have access to 3G or faster mobile broadband service, according to a new map released by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission," according to a PCWorld article.

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It's Monday So Lots Happened - Oct 17, 2011

Verizon Puts the Move on Video - Feb 06, 2012

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Please be advised that the FUSF rate for Q1 of 2012 has increased from 15.3% to 17.9%. For further information regarding FUSF Fees and rates please see the FCC website.

RebTel is #2 behind Skype with 15M users doing 2 billion minutes of international calling. [venturebeat]

Both Florida state and federal lawmakers are trying to overturn the NFL blackout rules. Main argument is those stadiums were paid for with public tax dollars. [tbo]

Besides the M5-ShoreTel deal, I saw 2 other acquisitions occur. [radinfo]

Your open wi-fi access point leaves you open to lawsuits. Awesome! [radinfo]

FCC Eyes Google Voice’s Rural Call Blocking - just a part of the whole FCC Rural call completion review and the inter-carrier compensation issue. BTW, it's AT&T that keeps poking Google in the eye at the FCC about this.

It's Halftime America!

EarthLink is still utilizing the AX platform from New Edge Networks (now named EarthLink Business). XCast just set up an NNI (an inter-connection) with that platform for better performance. The AX platform allows cloud providers to connect to EarthLink's nationwide MPLS network for better quality to the users.

TELX is building another data center in NYC, land of not much commercial space for sale.

MITEL has achieved CLEC status in all 50 states. Maybe that's to help it deliver Hosted MITEL UC service to its customers.

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FCC is Busy! - Feb 07, 2012

It's Monday So Lots Happened - Oct 17, 2011

What to Ask Your Prospective VoIP Provider - Sep 29, 2010

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I think some of that money - now $162 M based on the stock - was for Dan and his team to stay on and continue to run the machine. There are a couple of million in accelerators in the LOI (letter of intent), also. Plus what does Shoretel know about running a service or the proprietary softswitch that M5 switched to in 2010? The M5 team had to stay (for a while).

ShoreTel's C-level exes probably saw that the hole in their strategy by not having a CaaS strategy. After that, the decision comes down to build-or-buy. The advantage to buying is that - if done properly - you get revenue, a market proven service offering, and a sales channel. Building from scratch has a big learning curve, capital investment and little revenue.

By scooping up M5, ShoreTel gets a proven business model. At $48 million in revenue, M5 was one of the giants in the Hosted PBX space with a proven sales record that had grown 30% in the last year. Their indirect and direct sales teams were effectively selling the service. Not many VoIP providers are organically growing revenue. In 2010, M5 was doing about $32M in revenue when it acquired Gekkotech, a Chicago based VoIP provider that was utilizing M5's softswitch platform and bringing in about $8M.

M5 left the Broadsoft platform in 2010. This move increased the profit margin by eliminating the licensing fees to Broadsoft. This might have been another factor that made M5 attractive - margin. For the second quarter of fiscal year 2012, ShoreTel revenue was $58.0 million with a net loss of $1 million. Hardware alone is a difficult business to be in, ask Amazon or Dell.

Under the terms of the deal, M5 shareholders will receive approximately $84 million in cash and 9.5 million shares of ShoreTel stock, for a total of about $146 million on stock value at close of sale. Moreover, M5 shareholders have incentives that could realize up to $13.7 million, according to the company's press release.

M5 will be run as a separate division with CEO Dan Hoffman still managing things. This is a smart strategy; the same one that TelePacific took when it acquired Telekenex. The culture of CaaS is different than hardware / premise PBX. There is some rivalry there. Why break either corporate culture?

This transaction is just another example of how the legacy telecom world will have to jump into the new cloud world - mostly through buying since it will be cheaper and faster that building it from scratch.

Why can't the rest of the cloud comm space get this deal? One reason is that investors don't look at companies with less than $10M in revenue. You don't have a proven model at $4-5M. It's a different deal at that size. At over $20M, investors know that you can sell and you can scale. It's proven. Another reason was the average revenue per customer at almost $2000. As Q-Advisors told the crowd at Cloud Comm Expo in Austin in 2011, that number has to be north of a thousand to be attractive. Those are pretty good reasons for the 3x revenue number.

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1. Relying on PowerPoint. When technical difficulties occur as they often do, speakers are not prepared to talk without the slides, the crutch. Be ready to talk without a microphone and without the projector.

2. Don't read me the slides! I have been reading since I was 4. I don't need you to read me the slides. I need you to tell why that slide was included in the first place.

3. Have some emotion. Tired or hungover is no way to present. Energetic or passionate is preferable, but at least speak up and into the microphone.

4. Respect the audience's time. Yes it is your time to speak - and you have something (hopefully prepared) to say - but remember that the audience likely paid money to be there. It has to be valuable; not just your talking points.

5. Tell a story or be Engaging. This speaks for itself. If everyone is heads down on their phones, take the hint. (They aren't all tweeting about how profound you are.)

Is it tweet worthy? Have you said anything worth tweeting? Not the ultimate test, but certainly some gauge of audience reaction is social media.

In the end, would you want to listen to you?

In a previous post I mention that teaching is part entertainment. That may not be what you signed up for (to be an entertainer), and I am not saying be Jack Benny, but your points will come across better if you present them well.

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Social Media Channel Integration - Feb 07, 2012

ITEXPO Day 2 - Feb 01, 2012

Day 1 at ITEXPO - Feb 01, 2012

Look for me in Miami Beach Next Week - Jan 26, 2012

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There are five steps a company needs to take to implement social media strategy in a contact center.

• Monitor social channels
• Decide on Relevance
• Assign employees to tasks
• Establish Policies
• Design procedure for interacting with the rest of the Org

The contact center could be monitoring for leads, complaints or opportunities on social media platforms. These platforms can include twitter, Facebook, Google+, Yahoo! groups, forums, LinkedIn or any of the other thousands of online communities and networks that exist.

It is a way for call center to move from a cost center to a revenue center. Not just by following up on sales leads, but by preserving the brand and reputation of the company.

One item that all panelists agreed upon was that the time for response from a company has shrunk from a day to an hour. It's about speed now.

Another reminder from the panel is that conversations about your service and brand ARE indeeed taking place online (like on DSLReports and GetSatisfaction.com). Ignore it at your own peril.

Monitoring or Listening also includes finding out where your customers are hanging out online. Go where they are.

A final note was that previously most online commenters were anonymous. Today, about 70% are very traceable. That means you can identify them and interact with them. There are many books written about creating raving fans out of disgruntled customers. It is possible online as well.

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ITEXPO in Austin Will Be Hot - Aug 04, 2011

I Think I'm Allergic to Power Point - Sep 13, 2011

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Alteva's cert program is really a sales program that consists of product training and the Sandler method of sales. Haynor did point out that agents need to know about the product but more importantly to sell Hosted UC, you have to re-think how you sell services. The certification helps with that. It is not a one-time program; it is continuing education.

The TCA has a certification called the Certified Telecom Professional. It is a baseline education program with a 100-question exam on a two hour timer. It is a challenge, daunting enough that many telecom veterans have anxiety about not passing it.

Haynor spoke about charging - $350 - for the training because otherwise it doesn't have value. It made me think that at $199 for the CTP, it is time to raise the price.

Riley spoke about the value of the cert being that there is economic impact on the Channel, the Carrier and the Customer. While there was agreement that education is vital to cloud and managed services adoption in the marketplace, I couldn't get any concrete examples out of the panel. It's a principle we can agree upon, but apparently can't quantify.

Since on-boarding is integral to a positive customer experience, I asked if that was touched on in the cert. It isn't because Alteva has a team for that. However, properly setting customer expectations is part of the on-boarding process. Many agents and VAR's want to be the conduit to the customer and want to be the one providing the timelines to the customer to manage and coordinate the deployment and on-boarding of the workforce. It seems to me that this should be a part of the training. Haynor said that at this stage, agents are more like referral partners or lead generation. Alteva sales people will close the deal. Smoothstone and other carriers have a similar take. I would suggest that if I paid $350 for training and spent the two days taking it that at the end I should be able to prospect, complete the sale and be involved with the on-boarding.

It is transferrable knowledge though. Alteva is Broadsoft based, so with that training, agents should be able to sell any Broadsoft Hosted PBX service via the Sandler sales process.

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What to Do With a Certified Agent? - Dec 10, 2010

Day 1 at ITEXPO - Feb 01, 2012

Look for me in Miami Beach Next Week - Jan 26, 2012

Agents Need Training - Nov 01, 2011

VARs are Replacing Agents - Apr 03, 2011

A Brief Talk with XO's Tom Gorey - Dec 27, 2010

Why You Should Get Certified - Nov 30, 2010

The Certified Agent is a Go! - Nov 29, 2010

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The FCC is really busy!

The FCC is still working on Inter-Carrier Compensation. It ordered Rural Call Completion.

It approved TWC's $3B bid for Insight. "Time Warner Cable last August agreed to buy Insight for $3 billion in cash. The nation's No. 2 cable operator will acquire control of Insight by merging Insight into Derby Merger Sub Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of TWC, with Insight as the surviving entity, according to the FCC. Insight will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of TWC," according to Multi-Channel.

The FCC is looking for comments on NFL Black out. (So is the Florida Legislature, since the stadiums are publicly supported.) 16 games blacked out this year included 7 by my Bucs. That's not any way to treat fans or build up a fan base.

Engadget reports, "Back in December, the FCC approved the first white space device and database for the lucky city of Wilmington, North Carolina....Spectrum Bridge finally launched its TV White Space (TVWS) network in Carolina, as part of Wilmington's ongoing "Smart City" initiative."

The Lifeline program for low-income households has also been re-vamped by this Commission. There is a $25 million pilot program for Lifeline for broadband to see if there are cost savings. [PCworld]

Clearly, the FCC is working on a lot of business. Here are some other topics:

• USF Reform
• Inter-Carrier Comp rules
• VZW-SpectrumCo spectrum deal
• LightSquared spectrum usage and GPS interference
• Reversal of Verizon's forbearance in 2006>/li>
• Next Gen 911 framework.
• NANPA Numbering resources (access to DID numbers)

A lot to keep track of.

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Not So Shocking News - Jan 20, 2011

COMPTEL Updates FISPA - Oct 02, 2009

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ATIS and NTCA have been hounding the FCC as complaints went from about 100 a month in 2009 to over 1000 a month in late 2010. A group of them sent a letter to the FCC [pdf], which stated:

"the Rural Representatives identified a variety of concerns, including but not limited to: (1) calls that ring for the calling party, but not at all or on a delayed basis for the called customer of the RLEC; (2) calling parties who receive incorrect or misleading message interceptions before the call ever reaches the RLEC or the tandem it subtends; (3) calls that appear to "loop" between routing providers, but never reach the RLEC or the tandem it subtends; and (4) incorrect caller ID that displays to called parties."

Many carriers point the finger at their underlying network operator - another carrier that they dump the rural traffic on. MagicJack and Google Voice have a reputation for not completing calls to high expense rural areas.

The underlying problem is Inter-Carrier Compensation. Rural telcos not only get USF funds to operate, but also get many pennies per minute for call termination. In comparison, RBOC's usually charge $0.005 for termination - a half a penny per minute. As traffic to rural increased due to businesses like FreeConference.com, many carriers including VoIP providers and cellcos, chose not to complete calls to those areas. It was getting expensive.

The FCC rules, "If carriers continue to hand off calls to agents, intermediate providers or others that a carrier knows are not completing a reasonable percentage of calls, or are otherwise restricting traffic, that is an unjust or unreasonable practice prohibited by section 201 of the Act."

All of this could be solved by reform to the Inter-Carrier Compensation but the RLEC's and State Utility agencies are actually holding that up (and likely will for years). Just another example of (A) Arbitrage, which the telecom industry is built on; and (B) an industry that doesn't want to adjust to the Internet and its ripple effect on its business model.

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FCC is Busy! - Feb 07, 2012

What Twitter Told Me This Week - Feb 10, 2012

COMPTEL Updates FISPA - Oct 02, 2009

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Comcast buying NBCU was a little different, but cablecos have owned channels before, especially sports channels (MSG, YES, BayNews9).

Maybe the TV-cord-cutting crowd is scaring the cablecos, despite the rhetoric to The Street. Content is expensive to license and to deliver. And getting more expensive all the time. Meanwhile more video is being delivered as bits and bytes by Netflix, Amazon, the networks (USA, Comedy Central, ABC, CBS and CW - all have shows that can only be seen on-demand from thier website) and apps (HBO-on-the-Go and TWC Anywhere, for example). This means that TV revenues WILL decline.

How does the Duopoly make up the money and pay off the $250 Billion in debt it has accumulated????

Metering is one way. It increases the ARPU.

BTW, I find it interesting how the RBOC's have basically given up on DSL.

So VZ is now partnering with the Coinstar subsidiary, Redbox, to launch a video streaming service to compete with Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu.

This means that ATT will HAVE to go after DISH. Why? The wireless spectrum primarily but also DISH owns Blockbuster, satellive TV service, and Slingbox. Telco is a me-too industry. Unless ATT is going to abandon theh consumer space, relinquish it to the cablecos, it will have to make a move soon.

While Echostar owns Hughes Communications, the DISH company bought up spectrum from DBSD and Terrestar that DISH plans on utilizing to offer a hybrid satellite/terrestrial mobile broadband service. Today, DISH has a market cap of almost $13B, while Netflix is at $7B. Since spectrum is finite and like real estate, the extra $6B seems like a steal. Consider that AT&T bought spectrum from Qualcomm for $2B. That spectrum, which, according to Huffington, "Qualcomm stands to make a handsome profit on the spectrum. It paid $38 million for one slice of nationwide spectrum - the former UHF channel 55 - in 2002, then another $558 million in 2008 for UHF channel 56 over New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, and San Francisco." Qualcomm was using that spectrum for FLO TV, which failed. It consists of six D-block and five E-block licenses in the Lower 700 MHz band, giving AT&T post-transaction holding between 6 and 80 megahertz of spectrum below 1 GHz. Holding is key, because, like all cellcos whining about spectrum, AT&T HAS spectrum it has not deployed.

AT&T says it needs the spectrum, especially if VZW gets the SpectrumCo deal to go through whereby VZW buys all the AWS spectrum from the cablecos. So do the Rural Cellular Carriers. Makes DISH a big target for acquisition. However, Charlie Ergan still owns 51%.

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Well That Was Unsatisfying - Dec 02, 2011

Let's Clear Up AT&T 4G - Dec 21, 2010

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See you at 9 am and Noon today in my sessions!

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Look for me in Miami Beach Next Week - Jan 26, 2012

Growth Starts Here - Jun 08, 2011

5 Tips for Speakers - Feb 08, 2012

Social Media Channel Integration - Feb 07, 2012

ITEXPO Day 2 - Feb 01, 2012

Day 1 at ITEXPO - Feb 01, 2012

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Look for me in Miami Beach Next Week - Jan 26, 2012

Level3 2012 Channel Strategy - Jan 06, 2012

Channel Ethics: Part V - Nov 01, 2011

Agents Need Training - Nov 01, 2011

Conferencing is on the Rise? - Sep 30, 2011

Colo Agency is 45th - Aug 31, 2011

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Savvis Changes Comp Plan - Jan 10, 2012

Channel Ethics: Part V - Nov 01, 2011

Why Accurate Paperwork is Necessary - May 12, 2011

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My cranky b@stard pal Antony Francis from Head of Lettuce Media who is on my Social Media Strategy panel at 9 am tomorrow.

Melanie Sunahara of Cbeyond was quizzing Greg on Data Foundy and GigaNews, while chatting with Mike Grossman from Netwolves about the Channel. Grossman has a new position in Biz Dev with Netwolves.

Anthony Jett from IIS Group spent the evening talking M+A and Hosted VOIP.

Good food, good conversation. It's why I like ITEXPO. Off to Mangos!

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Accolades - Dec 13, 2010

So Can You Re-Use Those Cisco Phones? - Feb 13, 2012

Making Hosted UC Simple - Feb 02, 2012

Look for me in Miami Beach Next Week - Jan 26, 2012

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