On Rad's Radar? - ISP Archives

Fill 'Er Up

2012-12-11T19:27:13Z

Many business models are at odds with the customer wishes.

Airlines want full planes. Customers don't want to be sardines and have bags checked for them.

Consumers hope that not everyone is using the Internet at 8 PM. The ISPs need over-subscription for their business model to succeed.

Cellular carriers want the radios on towers to be to capacity. The users want to be able to actually use their smartphones as advertised.

Restaurants need to be busy to make money (especially for the wait staff). Foodies hope that there isn't a line to get in at their favorite bistro. Others hope for a seat at the bar.

How does a business model succeed when it has to be full, cramped, stuffed, oversubscribed, which makes the customers miserable? Fact is in many cases the model doesn't work.

Look at airlines, how many have gone bankrupt or needed bailouts?

Restaurants have a large failure rate, even with a great chef.

When you are at odds with your customers' experience or expectations, scale (getting bigger) doesn't mean better at all.

RBOCs Declare War on CLECs

2012-12-06T17:58:29Z

This is a letter from telecom lawyer Kris Twomey to the members of FISPA, an association for ISP's and CLEC's. I know that Politics and Regulatory talk puts you to sleep or bores you or you don't have time for it - but these proposed changes to the Telecom Act WILL affect you!

"One of the questions I am often asked by ISPs considering starting CLEC operations is whether access to unbundled network elements ("UNEs" or "the copper in the ground") will continue in the future. My response has always been something like, "Of course, the Telecom Act guarantees it. Congress would have to revise the Act for any changes to impact UNE availability." Those of you that know me know that I don't get involved in hyperbole, and I'm basically too optimistic to accept any sky is falling-type theories. Now though, there's something brewing in D.C. that genuinely worries me. Turns out AT&T has a plan to wipe out the Telecom Act of 1996, or at least, the parts regulating interconnection.

"I think the next great telecom policy battle is at hand-- nothing less than an attempt by AT&T and others to dismantle the Telecom Act, destroy CLECs, and essentially codify the ILEC/Cableco wireline duopoly. Smaller CLECs need to get organized and respond.

"Debate has begun on all fronts about the future of telecom regulation and I believe we are at the precipice of major change. Over the last couple years, AT&T and Verizon have been quietly lobbying for the FCC to consider rules to transition to an all-IP network, or in ILEC-speak "facilitate a sunset of the POTS network." Verizon is even using a natural disaster to justify removing copper (and therefore interconnection rights) from its network: Other ILECs have been murmuring that the Telecom Act is now 15 years old and needs to be updated.

"On November 8th, AT&T filed the first real proposal with the FCC to "modernize telecom regulation for an IP world." The petition is here [pdf].

"The AT&T petition is a direct shot across the bow of the FCC and CLECs, essentially daring the FCC to act. The petition is breathtaking in its audacity. Here are its main points and suggestions":

Eliminate the availability of copper loops (all UNEs, really) in certain central offices as an experiment and see what happens;
Limit the time that CLECs can object to ILEC notices of network changes;
Reduce state utility commission regulatory authority;
Allow ILECs to remove all copper facilities when the feeder (such as a remote terminal) is upgraded to fiber;
Eliminate legacy ILEC regulations such as carrier of last resort obligations, long distance parity, etc.

"Various stakeholders have responded. The National Regulatory Research Institute, a group representing state public utility commissions, issued a paper on the TDM to IP network transition (here).

"The trade associations have begun to weigh in on AT&T's proposal. CompTel and individual CLECs have lobbied for pro-competitive policies and filed proposals concerning the IP network transition, preserving access to copper loops in fiber-fed ILEC networks, and requiring direct IP to IP network interconnection.

"The cable trade association, NCTA, filed a response to the AT&T petition arguing that the FCC should take its time developing a record. After all, they've actually got a pretty good deal under the current rules. The NTCA, which represents smaller ILECs, filed its own petition on November 19th seeking regulatory relief.

"I am concerned that there is no organized coalition of smaller facilities-based CLECs to defend its interests and propose alternative ideas. I fear COMPTEL will push the interests of its large CLEC members over those of smaller CLECs. I do not think that necessarily the interests of Level 3, Windstream, etc., that do not purchase many copper loops, will adequately align with those of truly local competitors in suburban or rural markets reliant on central office connectivity at regulated rates. I'm especially worried because, well, those "local competitors" describes virtually my entire client base and the businesses of many people that I consider friends." [RAD's note: Mine too, btw]

"As a preliminary matter on strategy, I believe that it is fruitless to solely fight against a policy without offering clear alternative proposals. I also think that by refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of some opponents' suggestions detracts from the power of our unique ideas. I have several alternative, pro-competitive policy suggestions that would truly represent a modernization of the current system; seek to even the current playing field; and give the ILECs relief from some of the legacy regulatory requirements that are arguably outdated. For now though, it is better that these ideas remain off-list until consensus positions can be developed by a group.

"I have spoken to several of my facilities-based CLEC clients that are interested in forming an organized opposition to these attempts to gut the Telecom Act both at the FCC and to lobby Congress for a true modernization of the Act. I will be hosting a conference call for interested companies on Wednesday, December 12th at 2pm EST. The call is restricted to optimists--those that do not subscribe to the defeatist notion that the ILECs must always get their way. I have some very specific ideas and policy proposals, but am not pre-disposed to any particular strategy. I think it's time for like-minded companies to join forces to protect their interests and I'd be honored to represent them. Please contact me off-list at kris at lokt.net for call-in details."

[RAD Commentary] The RBOCs lost a court battle each recently.

VZW lost in Appeals court its fight to forbear cellular data roaming. It challenged the FCC's authority on this matter and lost.

Meanwhile, ATT lost a data throttling case in small claims court.

Copper clipping will affect Agents because EoC is a big deal - but requires copper plant!!!

XO, TelePacific, MegaPath and other CLECs would lose territories that they could offer EoC and flavors of DSL. ADTRAN, Zhone and Overture Networks make the geat gear that goes in the CO for CLEC's to provide EoC. These companies would be affected as well. Can you see the ripple effect?

How about affordable mid-band Internet Access for the SMB space? That is what EoC is - and it will go away.

HT Picks Off Big Competitor

2012-07-12T21:27:42Z

In many ways, Wavecom was as big a competitor to the incumbent carrier in Hawaii as Oceanic TWC. A facilities-based CLEC, an ISP, a wholesaler and a Hosted PBX player. That's four areas where it was a thorn in HT's side.

Hawaiian Telcom (HT) is acquiring Wavecom Solutions Corporation for $13M.

Wavecom uses Alcatel-Lucent even for Hosted, which makes it look more like Oceanic TWC than HT, but HT is rolling out Hosted PBX and TWC is not.

HT is following the play book of other LEC's: buy a Hosted PBX shop to jump start your Hosted PBX sales division - in revenue, in culture, and in sales. One reason that Bell-Heads (anyone that has worked in the TDM space for a while) can't transition well to Hosted is because Bell-Heads think of everything in time division multi-plexing (TDM :) and replacement services. Net-Heads think about telecom as a component, as software, as a widget in the cloud. That is how the thinking needs to be.

We'll see how HT handles the acquisition. If they were smart, they wouold leave as a stand-alone for a while. Use it as a Sales SWAT Team not the short bus.

UPDATE: Reuters reminded me that Wavecom "services more than 1,700 customers statewide through a six-island subsea and terrestrial fiber network." So not just revenue but intra-state fiber. $13M is a steal.

What's Up With Private Line?

2012-07-03T00:14:58Z

"Private lines are leased point-to-point circuits, which are used for a variety of applications including connecting enterprise locations and backhauling cell towers to mobile switching centers," according to Insight Research.

"The $39 billion US private line services market is expected to show modest 2.3 percent annual growth over the next five years, as demand for higher bandwidth private lines offsets the shift of lower bandwidth private lines to packet-based services, says a market analysis study from Insight Research."

I have no idea how that will happen, unless they also include Ethernet, which the ILEC's do NOT.

AT&T and Windstream won a special access docket at the FCC, but without a vote. The FCC chair says that Special Access Reform is due to be reviewed. AT&T is not done. They have Petitions to Discontinue Private Line Dedicated Entrance Facilities in 27 Markets in at the FCC. According to Comptel, "These are facilities offered at bandwidths of OC-3, -12, -48, and -192, which AT&T contends are being replaced in the market by Ethernet services. According to the Public Notice, AT&T says that alternative services are available from AT&T and other carriers. Existing customers will continue to be served through April 2017." Everything is moving Ethernet.

In the broadband world, CenturyLink is looking to bury the Wireless ISP with federal funds because fixed wireless broadband is expensive, metered and unreliable. Hmmm. I just don't think taxpayers' money should be used to compete against small businesses that serve areas that ILEC's chose NOT to spend money - their own money any how.

You want to raise Special Access - okay. CLEC's have to pay what the landlords will charge. When ILEC's don't want to spend their own money to expand broadband, they shouldn't get federal freebies to do so.

Enough on the rant. How wil Private Line grow if the most of the business is going to MPLS and multi-point services?

The New VoIP Giant

2012-06-07T17:21:13Z

8x8 has hit $100 million in annual revenue making them the number 2 hosted VoIP provider (behind Comcast). 8X8 put up some good numbers last quarter.

At $100M, the company has proven that they can organically grow revenue. The churn is coming under control and the company is looking up-market.

Rumor is that 8x8 is a take-over target. I would have to agree.

At a market cap of $282M, that is less than 3x revenue.

When you look at the some of the largest ISP's - Comcast, Cox, Charter, AT&T, VZ, CenturyLink, Windstream - they all have a Broadsoft. And they aren't likely to grab 8x8, although Windstream might want to think about it since $300 million for 27,000 business accounts and $100M in revenue isn't bad.

Of the top MSO's - TWC, Bright House, Insight Comm., - don't offer a hosted PBX product. Bright House followed TWC in buying an Alcatel-Lucent switch. That's like entering NASCAR with a Dodge. Cablevision (Optimum Lightpath) and Suddenlink are Metaswitch customers. What does any of that have to do with anything? Well, I think that service providers make business decisions like they make hardware decisions.

That said the best fit would be TWC. TWC bought Navisite for $230M in early last year (2011). Navisite was running about $120M in revenue. TWC has consumer and small business customers like 8x8. TWC has one of the largest regions in the US (after Comcast). 8x8 customers are nationwide. TWC could put many of them On-Net to improve the VoIP quality (which might lower churn even more). It also makes the TWC customers stickier. Plus 8x8 could go up-market easier with network access available.

As a bonus, the company that acquires 8x8 gets its VoIP patent portfolio that could be used as a lever later.

Frontier could use the help but it is still trying to swallow that deal from VZ. And Frontier's DSL service is not capable of supporting VoIP in some markets. (Agents I know tell me how bad Frontier Internet is business and resi DSL. VoIP Provider have said that they won't sell VoIP OTT in Frontier territory.)

BHN has a small territory and is privately owned by Advance/Newhouse Communications, which also owns Business Journals. BHN hasn't acquired any companies yet.

I don't think a Metaswitch shop would buy 8x8, but I could be wrong.

I think it has to do with who can provide network for most of 8x8's customers and prospects to improve quality (much needed). With TV cord cutting, who needs the extra revenue stream?

Windstream might be a suitor IF they have completed integrating PAETEC, which I doubt. PAETEC was a gumbo of Inter-connects (XETA, Quagga), Energy, Allworx, fiber and CLEC's (CavTel, MacLeod, USLEC). If 8x8 is still single in a year when WIND is done with integration, WIND might date EGHT. We'll watch and wait.

JAB May Buy Keyon

2012-05-31T19:12:22Z

"Its a typical situation in these typical times..." Dave Matthews Band

It seems that ISP roll-ups just don't last long. Volaris anyone? This story has a Tampa flavor, since KeyOn Communications Holdings Inc., acquired Broadsoft's second customer ever, CommX, in June of 2011 (last year).

"On June 14, 2011, KeyOn announced that it acquired a BroadSoft, Inc.-based VoIP business with its purchase of entities doing business as CommX. The strategic acquisition of CommX provides KeyOn with a vertically integrated platform to upsell VoIP services to its more than 20,000 wireless broadband subscribers. It is expected that CommX will add over $3 million in annualized revenues and for the first quarter ended March 31, 2011, on a pro forma basis after giving effect to the two acquisitions completed in the quarter and CommX's results for the quarter, KeyOn would have revenues of approximately $3.4 million and a narrowed Adjusted EBITDA loss of approximately $240,000." [keyon news]

Roll-ups are never a cash deal and neither was this one. And it fell apart. lawsuits have been filed.

Keyon bought some assets of CommPartners from bankruptcy court in 2010. Keyon was put up for sale in January of 2012. "The decision to sell comes after years of acquisitions followed by a quick and steep decline in profitability, combined with frayed relations between the company's founding team and Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a multibillionaire doctor and businessman," according to the Omaha World-Herald. It looks like JAB Wireless will be buying assets of Keyon Communications. Financial details of the deal were not available.

Like OpenReach, the other wireless company to BK, Keyon has a $10M - untouched -grant federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to build a wireless network in rural Nevada. I guess JAB gets that now.

As of Sept. 30, 2011, Keyon lost $21 million for the first nine months of the year and racked up more than $48 million in debt.

It's a mess for CommX and for Keyon customers.

,p>"Telecom is an expensive business to be in."

It's not about getting bigger. It's about getting better.

Has Verizon Stopped Repairing Copper?

2012-02-17T21:08:18Z

Over and over, I am hearing that Verizon has given up on copper. From repair issues to DSL to stripping copper out when FiOS is installed, the story seems to point to VZ looking to forget its copper plant.

in a discussion on LinkedIn about SLA's, one agent had this to say, "The absolute WORST cases I have seen have all been in the northeast where Verizon's copper is concerned. Verizon seems to have made the decision to put all efforts and funds behind their fiber build out (a good thing) but have completely sacrificed the quality behind their copper services such as T1. If your copper T1 goes down in New York, you might has well throw your hands up in prayer, because that's the only thing that will get it fixed."

Another commenter wrote, "Verizon in some places is actively ripping up copper as they lay fiber because they are not required to resell fiber to CLECs and ISPs at wholesale rates." This has been widely reported, because VZ doesn't want the expense of running to networks - copper and fiber. Plus the fiber doesn't have to be shared and the copper does. The copper means competition. Fiber means they just have to worry about cablecos, who quite frankly are kicking their butt.

Wholesale used to be a healthy business for ILEC's. Today, neither cablecos nor ILEC's want to wholesale anything. In fact, clients of mine in VZ regions have a lot of issues.

For example, "We had an outage about 3 weeks ago that lasted more than three days. This also affected [another local ISP] as I spoke him last night about the current outage. We [both have] a bunch [of customers still] out of service as well. They have been out of service since Monday. The last outage caused an exodus of customers and this one will do the same. Our guys have put in tickets, called to escalate many times. .... no one at VZ will listen. Ever. They simply close the tickets that we open."

It's a systemic problem - widespread - from the C-Suite down - the story has been that every company -- even wholesale customers - are the enemy and the Union and on-union workers must do everything they can to make it uncomfortable unless you are a direct VZ customer.

We have the case of a BK CLEC who had recorded conversations with VZ employees soliciting a customer who was down saying that it wouldn't happen if they were with VZ. [This has been a problem with both RBOC's since I got into telecom in 1999.]

Verizon faces up to $400,000 in fines after New York's Public Service Commission accused the company of not making service repairs in a timely fashion.

What do you do when the RBOC doesn't want to wholesale, doesn't want to repair, and just looks at the bottom line and the few metrics that Wall Street analysts can understand??

Many states don't even regulate the ILEC any more, so what do they do? It becomes the job of the FTC, the FCC and the court system. Talk about a deck stacked against the customer!

When our underlying telecommunications structure suffers, so too does our economic growth.

here's 2 problems with a fiber only strategy for an ILEC:

One, fiber goes out with power, so no 911 or dial-tone when the lights go out.

Two, the installation period for fiber is wicked long. Copper can be installed within two weeks. Fiber takes months. That hurts businesses. I have one moving in 3 weeks and to get 20MB of bandwidth he has to wait months. That won't work.

Ever think that just nothing in this country makes sense any more?

In the discussion about SLA's, the conclusion is to convince your clients to buy redundancy: 2 pipes. That's nice in theory but not in reality. The thing is that you have to set the expectation that if Internet or VoIP is integral to their business operations, no SLA is going to save them, redundancy and business continuity planning will. Otherwise, an outage will be a disaster that they have not planned for. It is not IF, it is WHEN.

3 Things Agents Need to Look at in 2012

2011-12-30T21:14:19Z

It will be a busy year in 2012 as all the carriers try to synergize their mega-mergers and get their back-office in order so that we can actually place orders.

Besides selling the traditional circuits - POTS, T1, SIP, PRI - there are some interesting things for an Agent to look at in 2012.

M2M is growing. We are seeing that the 3G/4G system is creeping in everywhere - from broadband backup systems to surveillance systems to fleet management to home healthcare monitoring to security monitoring. There are an unlimited number of ways that devices and the wireless network can interact. Think about the Kindle. There is money to be made in M2M.

More wireless but mixed with TEM. If you haven't moved your big accounts to TEM, 2012 may be the year you think about it. Auditing has increased in the last two years as governments (local, county, state) and medium businesses look for ways to reduce the ever-increasing telecom bills. (Cellular/3G/4G is big and growing, which is increasing the total cost of telecom spending.) Telecom Expense Management (TEM) can help accounts that spend more than $5K per month. It also makes the Agent the point person all the total telecom spend. It's a great way to become vital to the organization.

In addition, you can add Mobile Device Management. If a company has more than 250 employees, it likely needs help tracking laptops, data cards, cellphones and the like. There are software platforms for this to make an Agents life easy. This is yet another way to become integral to a clients business. Notice I'm not suggesting selling cellphones, but manage those assets for the business.

Lastly, there is Cloud and Managed Services. I'm going to skip cloud unless you want to sell apps to businesses. If you sell within a vertical, I would suggest that you certainly start selling apps into that vertical, because it will add revenue for you and make you the go-to person for all things IT and Telecom for that Vertical!

In Managed Services, we are seeing a few trends: hacking is increasing; security is lax; IT is pervasive in today's business environment but there is not enough money or staff to handle it all. That's where managed servcies comes in. If the company has a lot of empployees and a small IT staff, managed servcies would be a fit. Things to ask:

"What task would you like to relieve yourself of?"
"What routine task could we outsource to your ISP to free up your staff's time?
"You are consuming a lot more bandwidth, what are you doing about firewall and other security?"
"How are you tracking wireless spending and devices?"
"What would you do if a company laptop was stolen or lost?"
"How much private company data is on a smartphone or laptop? How much access does either device have to your network?"
"Do you backup your data regularly and off-site?"

You have to adjust for the changing times, unless you just want to push pipes. But your customers are under a strain to handle devices, billing, auditing, tracking as well as security and more. You can make some extra money -- and become more than just a sales guy -- if you move beyond the pipes and help your customers with the rest of the story. HUH? They buy those pipes from you for a reason. Help them with that.

Happy New Year!

How Good is BYOB VoIP?

2011-12-12T16:15:13Z

One of my coaching clients has had some issues with BYOB (bring your own broadband) ITSP's (VoIP providers) over the last couple of months. I have too. My Aastra IP phone died and I moved to an ATA, which has added an incredible amount of echo and tin to the line. He says that he has one way calls and the two of us have experienced garbled calls.

All that makes it difficult to sell VoIP to businesses.

Some of it - like the echo - is the CPE. Some of it is the configuration by the ITSP. Some of it is the broadband.

The ITSP should correct all issues with the CPE and the configuration - without doing finger pointing to the broadband. If you deliver BYOB VoIP, you can't spend all your time blaming the ISP.

If you buy and use BYOB VoIP, you can't expect POTS quality service either. Seriously. VoIP isn't POTS. And Voice over the Internet (which is what BYOB VoIP is) is going to have quality issues. Period.

My ISP has been giving me indigestion over congestion issues for a while, but what can you do?

The Duopoly – cable and telco – want to meter broadband because they want more revenue. They don’t want to upgrade the networks any more unless they can make more $$. They need the ARPU to go up, which in the current economic climate is just not going to happen. So the result is to decrease CAPEX spending on network upgrades. We see this on cellular networks. Despite spending $7-9B per year on the cell network, the cell networks still experience congestion and that is after the cellcos have capped consumer usage too! What happens when the wi-fi offload to broadband hits the point of congestion? Metering. (We already have capping in place on consumer broadband.)

How is this going to affect business down the road?

More and more workers are working from home. That means day time broadband networks are being used like never before. (It used to be around 3 PM when the broadband would get hit as kids came home from school.)

Smartphone users are switching to wi-fi when they can to save dollars and the broadband networks - more than 60% cable today - are congesting - at a few points. The bottlenecks are in the neighborhoods and in the peering points.

When David Byrd was talking about BYOB in his blog and stated, " For the most part, 90-95% of the time, this works out very well and an overwhelming majority of our customers are very happy," I believe he was talking about DIA not broadband. Big difference. A business broadband circuit of 10MB x 2MB is not the same as a T1. The numbers look better but broadband is best effort, shared bandwidth and DIA is a dedicated circuit. The quality of bandwidth is degrees different.

Many ITSP's have moved to looking for bigger deals where the business will buy DIA or MPLS or a dedicated VoIP circuit. Converged is a nice idea for a network, but at the end of the day, it is about quality, ease and of course price. With the cost of customer acquisition increasing, no company wants to lose a customer over quality. (Besides that churn number makes Wall Street unhappy. 2.8% is not a friendly number.)

For businesses with less than 25 handsets, BYOB VoIP may be the way to go, but think about having two broadband circuits - something to alleviate the VoIP quality issues that may arise.

Look for an ITSP that is connected to your ISP as that can alleviate some of the path quality issues.

Try a demo phone for a day or two to see what it will be like.

Fax, alarm circuits and other special needs lines will still have to be POTS for now, but that's okay - you'll have a back-up line in case something happens to the VoIP or the Internet or the power.

Is All Broadband Going Metered?

2011-12-05T20:56:30Z

Many rural fixed wireless ISP's meter their service for network management and costs reasons. The spectrum is finite, which means that wireless ISP subscribers can only get a set amount of bandwidth from that tower. The backhaul from the tower would be the other limiting factor.

In cable systems, the backhaul to the neighborhood is the bottleneck. The next bottleneck is the Internet gateway - how big is the pipe to the Internet that the cable system uses locally (and just how congested is it).

The DSLAM is the bottleneck for most neighborhoods. And the backhaul is the next bottleneck. It's tough to backhaul a 48 port mini-DSLAM with 2xT1, but it is done. Often.

As you have seen on the commercials, VZW and Ma Bell limit your mobile data to 2GB and 5GB. Sprint does too, except on your smartphone, but according to reports today, will be stopping that practice and moving to caps as well. T-Mobile has caps.

Ma Bell and TWC both trialed caps on consumer broadband. Supposedly this bombed but we know that Comcast and others have bandwidth caps for consumer broadband.

Now CenturyLink is capping DSL. CenturyLink is announcing the following Excessive Usage Policy (EUP), which will become effective in February 2012:

CenturyLink's EUP applies to all residential high speed Internet customers and is only enforced in the downstream (from Internet to customer) direction. Video services provided by CenturyLink PRISM™ TV are not subject to the usage limits. The policy has the following usage limits per calendar month:

• Customers purchasing service at speeds of 1.5Mbps and below, have a usage limit of 150 Gigabytes (GB) of download volume per month.
• Customers purchasing service at speeds greater than 1.5Mbps, have a limit of 250GB in download volume per month.

This will be one more pinch point for the consumer. Consumers are streaming music, movies, TV, living on social media, and sharing media with their friends. Stores this holiday season are selling TV's and DVD players that are all Internet-enabled to stream GoogleTV, Netflix, HuluPlus, Pandora, YouTube, CinemaNow and more. (Heck, you probably read my rant about all the buffering I go through with BHN.)

Not only that, so many tele-workers are using consumer broadband from home, working in The Cloud (so to speak).

VoIP, web/video conferencing, Skype, Citrix and virtual desktop, VPN and security wrappers, CRM, backup, virus and software updates - that cap will be hit quick in 2012.

The funny thing is that most of it was poor planning on the network operators part. And because they are a slave to The Street, who still see telcos as rate-of-return dividend checks, the consumers will get pinched. So too will providers, when the consumers find out that the backup or the VDI app or whatever is costing them $10 extra a month, it's out. Watch.

Well That Was Unsatisfying

2011-12-02T16:47:51Z

Tuesday night was kind of the last straw. While watching CinemaNow through my LG Blu-Ray player, the movie - 30 Minutes or Less - must have stopped to buffer 10 times and actually stopped 3 times - in 90 minutes!

I called my ISP, BHN of Tampa Bay, which is always interesting. First, they remotely re-boot the modem. Then you call back if that didn't fix anything. Then they make you do a speed test from their local site, which showed 8 MB x 0.8 MB. As I explained to tech support, that test doesn't mean anything except that last mile is good. I'm testing from Tampa servers that are On-Net! Then I tested with the FCC speed test site and DSL Reports test, which all gave different answers. Natch.

So the tech sets an appointment for today. "Maybe it's the modem." The tech shows up, looks at the modem and my router, and has me run a speed test from BHN. It comes back at almost 10MB x 1MB. "We're good here," he says and starts to leave. "What?!" I said. "I'm just the middle man here. The test shows you are getting your speed." with that he left.

The speed test only tests last mile - the controlled loop that is On-Net. The Internet is off net! My issues are that I have congestion to most streaming sites, which means that BHN network management is pretty poor. I don't know if they peer with YouTube or Level3 or Limelight or if they purchase transit from Level3, but that pipe is maxed out.

I get a mailer from VZ thrice a week to move to FiOS.

I pay $141 for triple-play plus an extra IP and the HD DVR. Granted the VZ price will be over $100 with fees, but I will get the NFL Network just in time (BHN doesn't carry it) and maybe an a better Internet experience. Who knows? The downside is that it will take VZ two days, a lot of holes in my walls and 4 pieces of equipment to install it.

Without a bundle, like buying DirecTV and Internet separate, the consumer gets raped. Way more than $100 per month.

I don't mind paying the money --- just give me what I pay for! BHN in 2 years has replaced the set-top box twice and visited 3 other times now. That's expensive for BHN and no fun for me. BHN didn't even try to upsell me to wideband or lightning or anything.

Anyway!

Today, VZW announced that it will buy SpectrumCo.'s 122 advanced wireless services (AWS) spectrum licenses, covering 259 million users, for $3.6 Billion. SpectrumCo. is a joint venture between Comcast Corporation, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks. This deal needs FCC approval.

Does this mean that cable is giving up on 4G? No. According to the BizJournal, the cablecos will become authorized agents to sell VZW products -- and at a future date become wholesale customers (MVNO).

FYI, ISP's are going about data caps the wrong way. Nice article.

XO Comments on L3-GC but not T-T

2011-07-13T19:20:57Z

XO Communications filed comments with the FCC that some media outlets said ripped the merger of Level3 and Global Crossing. Rodrego A. Byerly tweeted that it smacked of a spurned suitor. Maybe it was. XO issued a statement that the L3-GC merger was not in the public interest.

When I saw the tweet from @XOComm, I asked if they had filed comments against the AT&T-T-Mobile merger. The reply: We did not.

HUH? How can you say a merger of 2 of the 10 Tier 1 ISP's in the US (VZ, ATT, Qwest/C-Link/Savvis, XO, Cogent, NTT, Level3, Sprint, Global Crossing, Comcast) will affect public interest, but that the merger of 2 of the Top 4 cellcos isn't? Except that it doesn't really affect XO's business, since they aren't in the cell business, but are in the ISP backbone business. Just plain interesting.

I ripped on Sprint since Dan Hesse is everywhere jawing about the cellco merger, but no one is minding the Sprint store of fixing its own troubles to better compete, especially during the integration. (And get back to branding the wireline business you have. Sprintlink DIA is awesome!)

I'll rip on XO here for a similar reason. Carl Icahn has spent so much time and money playing Board politics that the XO boat has been sitting idle in the harbor. Icahn just won the ability to buy the last of the outstanding stock so maybe he will poo-or-get-off-the-pot at this stage. Meaning: sell it or invest in it. The employees and the marketplace distrust uncertainty. That would be more effective defense against a hyper-competitive backbone marketplace than a PR blitz against the merger.

Riding the IPv6 Wave

2011-07-12T21:54:03Z

Correction: Verio is now just the name for the NTT hosting division.

NTT America is looking to make a big splash in the IPv6 space in the Channel. NTTA has run a global IPv6 network for quite a few years. In fact, NTTA sponsored an IPv6 Summit in 2007.

This year is the start of a push to convert over to IPv6, the latest addressing scheme for Internet devices. Why are we switching? This year marks the exhaustion of available addresses in the IPv4 space. The old 192.168.0.1 has basically been used up because every household plugs too many Internet connected devices in: TV, laptop, Xbox, Blu-Ray player, set-top box, OTT video appliance, wireless access points, media servers, and even refridgerators. Of course, most of these do not carrier a live IP address but are numbered via NAT from that broadband router your ISP rented you. The router has a live IP address that looks like this 206.225.20.204. So does every smartphone. And every VoIP phone. So because everything has to be always-on, we exhausted the old numbering system (globally). The ISP's still have numbers to give out to customers, but soon they won't.

At some point, like now, we have to start selling IPv6 Internet bandwidth. The problem is that many devices are not IPv6 capable. That very thought makes Cisco drool.

In the meantime, we will have dual-layer boxes that will run both IPv4 and IPv6 -- just to make it really confusing for the over-worked IT staff. So NTT is pushing that Agents should start selling IPv6 now. In fact, the August TCA agent education webinar will be with me and NTT talking about IPv6 and why anyone should care.

There was a World IPv6 Day on June 8 to "conduct a 24-hour test to demonstrate the ability of selected Web sites around the world to move to a global IPv6-enabled Internet". It faired well. Now we just have to get out and sell a bunch of IPv6 bandwidth.

Another Hosted PBX Merger

2011-07-09T19:38:09Z

Tampa-based Telovations acquires North Carolina based FeatureTel, combining two Broadsoft providers. No financial details were released. Could this be a sign about the viability of the US Hosted PBX space?

Many of the Cloud Comm companies haven't grown as fast as their backers would like. Mainly it's a sales problem. As I mentioned yesterday, it's sold on price in many instances. There aren't that many ITSP's with a notable value statement or with a chief differentiator. This leads to a commoditization.

It's expensive to run a sales organization - paying sales people even when they aren't closing enough business to cover their expense. It's also expensive to brand your company nationally (as many have tried to do). Still others don't really do any marketing, marketing that might establish at least a regional reputation, which makes sales easier. Even better would be a marketing campaign that produced inbound sales calls, but let's not get crazy.

The funny thing is that the worst examples of VoIP IMO - MagicJack, SunRocket and Vonage - did spend on marketing and branding successfully. The marketing even overcame their customer service issues and quality.

Just as Unity Business was acquired by Telesphere and Geckotech was acquired by M5, there will have to be more consolidation of this type for a few reasons. The Broadsoft providers can merge almost seamlessly (at least on the customer side). The Broadsoft providers have huge amounts of cash invested in the softswitch, the complex licensing and their current customers - which doesn't leave a lot of cash for acquisitions and marketing campaigns.

And time is running out. Comcast, TDS, Windstream, and Cox have started rolling out Broadsoft-based Hosted PBX to the SMB market with two notable difference: each has a brand and each is a network operator, which means it controls the voice quality and has the price advantage.

We have seen what happens when the ILEC's enter a market late. DSL was brought to the nation by DLEC's - Covad & Co. Then dial-up ISP's got into the game. Then the ILEC's came in and grabbed it all up. The ILEC's were not just the vendor for the ISP's and DLEC's, but their chief competitor, who dropped retail pricing below wholesale rates (and caused the CLEC and ISP expensive challenges through its usual games of billing, install and repair problems). I fear that Hosted PBX will be the next DSL as the Duopoly marches in and takes the lion's share of the market.

As TV Slows, The Cloud?

2011-06-13T14:22:12Z

As I have been spouting for a while, telcos are getting into TV (and spending billions to do it) too late. The TV market is saturated - DirecTV, DISH, cable, telco and OTT. The economy isn't helping either as people ditch landlines and TV for mobile and Internet (bundles that the ISP's just don't seem to want to sell for some strange reason).

The cablecos tried wireless, but have dropped that notion in lieu of just partnering with Sprint (and Clearwire) again. (Still no Quad-Bundle actively being advertised.) The mobile and broadband space are both growing slowly (if at all). So where will growth come from?

For MSO's, the SMB space. [Even Bloomberg agrees.] The ILEC's - especially Ma and Pa Bell - have given up on small business. This leaves a great opportunity for regional CLEC's and cablecos to target and win that market. For cable, it's all about delivering cheap bandwidth and cheaper voice. The voice revenue is free money for them. (And money that keeps slipping out of the ILEC pocket.)

TWC made an interesting move in buying Navisite. It opens up the world of hosting, I mean Cloud, to the cableco. It gives them an edge in chasing B2B services, if they train their sales force on how to sell it. Selling transport and transit is easy. It's mainly upgrades and replacement services. But Cloud and managed services are a whole different ball of wax. At least 2 cablecos - Cox and Comcast - have jumped into the Hosted PBX space. The one advantage an MSO has over another cloud comm provider like Packet8 is that the MSO owns the network and can deliver quality of service on hosted PBX (or other cloud apps).

The Bloomberg article mentions that Cox is going to build its own electronic medical records platform. That too is an interesting move.

The article mentions that Ma and Pa Bell have bigger network footprints. Cablecos are inter-connecting. BHN and Comcast have NNI's in Florida. Soon the top 7 MSO's will be inter-networked enough to sell to most of the US.

This gives agents and VAR's a great opportunity to sell to the SMB space again. How Cloud will fit into this, we will just have to wait and see, but things could get interesting in 2012.