On Rad's Radar? - PBX Archives

No Traction in Hosted PBX Market

2012-05-25T12:18:09Z

According to Insight Research, independent hosted PBX providers should be able to take some small business market share from the Duopoly over the next five years.

The small business market size is more than 40 millions lines, says Robert Rosenberg, INSIGHT Research president. That will mean even more hosted PBX seats since lines and seats are not 1 for 1. "Our study suggests that thus far, small businesses haven't quite latched on to this new technology so the revenue today is only in the range of one-half billion dollars, but by 2015 hosted services will be nearly a $1.2 billion market and the adoption rate of the hosted services by small businesses will accelerate," Rosenberg concluded.

If the US Hosted PBX space is just $500M, I think that they have calculated wrong or at least not taken into account the hundreds of smaller providers with less than 5000 seats. Phone.com, Pingtel, Flat Planet Phone Co., FreedomVoice, PBX-Change and many, many more providers that you find at ITEXPO and elsewhere.

All the research I have seen states that Comcast is hands down the winner in the US Hosted PBX space with about 300K seats.

8x8 is now reaching $100M in revenue with ARPU of $244 on its 27,000 business customers.

Smoothstone is now West IP Communications after a $120M bid. Smoothstone is probably at $40M in revenue.

M5 Networks, recently acquired by ShoreTel, is doing $48M in revenue.

Telesphere, a member of the Broadsoft-based Cloud Communications Alliance, is doing about $30M.

Admittedly, most Hosted VoIP companies are doing less than $4M in sales, but if you add up hundreds of them at $4M or even $1M, you get to $500M fast. I already listed over $300M in revenue, so that $500M might be low. Still even if it was $1B in pales in comparison to US wireless revenue of $335B in 2012 or fixed network voice revenue that is about $132B or even the $38B in broadband access revenue. [carrier revolution from TIA study]

A Lesson in Value Proposition

2012-05-24T02:41:02Z

This came across my twitter stream this week:

"Must-read for founders: A VC explains how to build a killer value proposition" on VentureBeat by Michael Skok, a Venture Capitalist at North Bridge Venture Partners. His slideshare page contains a couple of really good decks of information about Go-To-Market and Value Prop - two things that I help companies address in this industry.

That's his Go-to-Market diagram.

A Value Proposition is created by filling in these blanks:

For (target customers)
Who are dissatisfied with (the current alternative)
Our product is a (new product)
That provides (key problem-solving capability)
Unlike (the product alternative)

When he asks (in slide 20) "What is your compelling breakthrough?" I think about Hosted PBX companies. None of them have any special sauce. If 400 of you have a Broadsoft, it comes down to a few variables:

sales execution and marketing acumen;
technology proficiency to get all the pieces of UC to work smoothly;
onboarding success, which means customer service too;
integration services with other tech for the customer;

When I look at Agents, the same applies. You don't really have any special sauce either, so to stand out you need to either be great at sales, marketing, customer service, or product knowledge, but really a combination of these.

For Master Agents, it will come down to culture and tools that they develop.

Skok says something that Seth Godin preaches: "Ideas are worth little to nothing without: People to execute; Culture to select the right people; and Vision to attract the best stakeholders."

WOW! to acquire Knology

2012-04-27T19:04:02Z

More cable consolidation. Southeastern Knology is being acquired by WOW!, WideOpenWest LLC for about $1.5B with debt.

"The acquisition increases WideOpenWest's customer base and will help give the operator more leverage in programming contract discussions with content providers." This statement makes sense - scale and scale.

"WOW is paying about $1,875 per customer relationship," according to Bloomberg.

"The combined entity will have over 800,000 customers, and its products and services will be available to more than 2.8 million households in 13 states," according to the press release.

Knology offers Hosted PBX and Knology Matrix, our fully-managed direct-to-the-desktop solution (which looks just like Hosted PBX.)

EarthLink's Sweet Spot

2012-03-14T19:53:22Z

I learned a few things at the EarthLink training today in Tampa. EarthLink has 175K business customers and about 3 Million consumers, most of them dial-up customers, providing $20M in free cash flow per month. So of the $1.3B in annual revenue, about $500M is dial-up. ELNK has 4 data centers - Columbia, SC; Rochester, NY; Marlborough, MA; and 55 Marietta.)

The first (or 70+ slides) shows that Pipe is the foundation for Managed Security and other services. However, despite having 28,000 miles of fiber, they don't want to sell transport on it. Even On-Net gets the response that "This is not our sweet spot".

What is the Sweet Spot? As I wrote here, Multi-Location Multi-Access type across LEC's or cablecos.

The partner portal is in development. The customer portal, called myLink, seems cool they way that you can drill done on customer locations in Google Earth and open a trouble ticket.

Agents in the room, called T1 Slingers, asked about DSL, since EarthLink resells ADSL out of 10K end offices through 12 providers. As a resell service, a 1FB is required. And since neither RBOC is really supporting their copper plant and especially not DSL, it leaves the business DSL customer hanging for days when there is an outage. [See my post about Is DSL Done?] 3G/4G wireless backup is my answer for that. There are cool routers that even do it automatically.

The other question centered around T1. "You just are not going to make a living slinging T1's at $400 any more." PRI's are available east of the Mississippi still, which actually IS an advantage for ELNK. TDM PRI's are still the preferred reliable way to deliver voice to a PBX, especially with alarms, faxes, and elevators.

It was an hour on MPLS. I still find it amazing that almost 9 years after my first MPLS class, we are still presenting the Fundamentals of MPLS. For Agents, it will be about layering on services to the MPLS network. The sticky stuff is value added services.

Retail needs a voice line, some Internet, credit card processing, payroll and data backup. That should actually be a bundle that someone offers. ELNK has the old New Edge AX platform that connects payroll and cc processing to the MPLS Network. Add on a VoIP line and some data backup and there's a bundle. Want to make it stickier? Add network DVR to the service so that those IP surveillance cameras can be viewed from anywhere (and can't be erased locally). Bingo! (Do you have an opening in Product Management? My resume is here.)

The team mentioned POS, Inventory, HR and Loyalty programs. Do you have those on the AX platform? Those would make some excellent sticky add-ons.

"So we have an Internet T1 service that connects you securely to one of 4 data centers, Mr. Prospect. Do you currently have a payroll service? Are you looking to upgrade your POS? Are you worried about security on your credit card data (PCI compliance)?"

That's where the conversation has to go. Even though the customers just want the access - as cheap as possible - Agents will have to steer the conversation to: applications on top of that access (AOTTA).

So back to MPLS with Type II access. Ethernet is delivered over a Type II DS3 from the LEC. T1 is delivered over the ILEC copper pair. DSL is a resell of the ILEC product offering. Then for outliers to attach to the MPLS network, there is an IPSec GRE tunnel with BYOB (bring your own broadband). Blended Access.

EarthLink is a Sprint MVNO, but it is more for 3G access where there isn't DSL to attached to the MPLS. Also, for the MPLS customers that want to have one bill that included cellular.

Something else I learned: ELNK bought STS because Rolla knew the Mark Amarant, CEO of STS, and STS had a reputation for best practices in on-boarding customers in the Hosted PBX realm. That's smart, because Hosted PBX (like VDI, another product that ELNK is rolling out), requires a detailed on-boarding process from pre-sales through post-sale, including mapping extensions to desktops, extension attributes, handset type, employee training and some on-site installation. EarthLink is not selling Hosted PBX as a stand-alone. You have to buy access from ELNK.

So in summary word of the day: "Blended Access".

Key association: Multi-location multi-access MPLS.

I Can Do It Myself

2012-03-06T14:37:09Z

I hear this all the time: "I can do it myself!" Backup solution? No, I'll build one myself. Outsource your email? No, I can run my own email server. White-label VoIP? Nope. I'm going to spin up an Asterisk box and use that.

You think I am kidding, but I'm not.

Yesterday it was: We needed to re-do our Broadsoft portal. After shopping around, we decided to build it ourselves.

It makes me wonder about a couple of things:

Are you a hobby or a business? A hobby is when you like to tinker with technology. A business is something else.

Do you know what your time and effort is worth? It takes a lot of time and effort to build a solution, maintain that hardware and software, and support it. Add in licensing, backup, redundancy and security to that budget number. Factor in that while spending your time and effort on Building Your Own, you could have been doing something else -- some other priority, some other revenue generating activity, or personal time.

There is always a debate about buy versus build. There are many reasons to buy: faster to market, outsourced skill and support, no CAPEX, knowledge base, etc. Yet there are reasons to build: you want more control, special features, proprietary, etc.

In today's world, where most service providers don't market very well or brand themselves (or their servcies), buying is the way to go. Why? It isn't about you or what you want. It's about your customers and what they want. It's a speed to market. It's about capturing wallet. And you can't do all that by yourselves. You just can't.

When I examine VDI, VoIP/Hosted PBX, UC, backup and conferencing, there isn't any special sauce being pitched. To the marketplace, it's one big nosie box about the tech and its features. That's why it doesn't sell fast and that's why you don't have to spend the effort building your own (in my opinion).

Can you put a competitive service together that your customers will be happy with in the most efficient manner?

Don't look at the cost (unless you factor in your time saved), look at results.

Why SIP Trunking is Not a PRI

2012-02-21T18:11:07Z

"Integra Telecom has lab-certified the Fonality trixbox Community Edition (CE) IP PBX system to operate with its SIP Trunking service. The certification helps ensure interoperability and seamless operation between trixbox CE and Integra solutions" - see how specific that is? That's the difference between SIP trunking and PRI. PRI has 2 configurations on the switch. The NI-2 protocol was the primary configuration for RAS boxes and PRI cards on PBX boxes. National ISDN 2 is a standard.

SIP is made up of about 30 RFC's (or opinions if you will). So each carrier configures SIP differently. That's why for SIP trunks inter-operability is so important! Down to the model number.

So Can You Re-Use Those Cisco Phones?

2012-02-13T19:14:55Z

From a VAR:

"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.

Why Did ShoreTel Buy M5?

2012-02-10T15:48:57Z

Recently, M5 Communications was acquired for about $160 million by ShoreTel. The premise PBX vendor had a bad quarter and caved to the pressure of Hosted PBX. Avaya, Interactive Intelligence and MITEL have hosted offerings. At some point, ShoreTel had to jump on that bandwagon - due to the big opportunity (ask any analyst) and the threat that cloud comm places on premise only sellers.

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.

M5 Bought by Shoretel

2012-02-02T19:10:16Z

So news at ITEXPO is that Shoretel bought M5 Networks last night for $145M, which 3x revenue. Hope shines anew in the Cloud Comm Alliance.

UPDATE:

According to the WSJ, the value of the deal is up to $162M, including $84M in cash and the rest in stock. M5 has about 2000 customers and revenue at about $58M.

M5 Networks migrated off the Broadsoft M6 platform to its own softswitch in 2010. It is a good sign for the Industry that a premise PBX maker sees the light and buys a Hosted PBX provider.

Day 1 at ITEXPO

2012-02-01T05:31:06Z

I had a couple of good conversations today. One was with Greg Plum who has embarked on a new chapter in his career at StartMeeting.com. Plum is exciting about building the channel for this start-up conferencing company for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that he believes that StartMeeting.com will be a disruptor, a serious game changer in the conference space. They offer conferencing - audio and web - like so many others, right? It is HD audio though. There is file and desktop sharing. We'll see. The launch is at the channel show in Vegas.

I met with ONYX today. ONYX is a distributor of value added products - like Grandstream IP phones and Digium - to Latin America. Headquartered in Miami, ONYX is turning a corner, realizing that Education and Local will be the keys for growth.

On the Local side, ONYX has offices in four Latin America countries now. A local presence is needed for distribution and support and a local presence. ONYX has plans to open offices in every country in Latin America.

The second key is education. With 20 years of experience, ONYX is rolling out how-to videos on its products, developing a knowledge base, and offering product and know-how training to its VAR's and others on IP-PBX, IP Phones and Asterisk - in Spanish too.

A final note about ONYX is that it migrated its back office computer systems to the cloud in order to utilize tablet based access for real-time inventory and more. Accessing the back office over an Android smartphone or tablet is speed to market.

Globecomm was next up to discuss their TEMPO product - a managed platform for streaming video specifically for Fortune 5000 companies. Analytics and whatnot are included in the platform. For corporate training and webcasts.

Another Broadsoft Merger

2012-01-21T17:19:30Z

In a surprise move (to me anyway), Megapath acquired IP5280 Communications, a Colorado ITSP. Both Megapath and IP5280 utilize Broadsoft, so that will make some of the transition easy. (And likely was a factor in the acquisition decision.) IP5280 had 1000 customers. Megapath, a combination of Speakeasy, Covad and Megapath, has 62,000. IP5280 has a dozen employees, all of whom were offered jobs with Megapath's 1,000 employees.

Megapath offers Hosted PBX service, but the Megapath portfolio has mainly been about transport and transit, including DSL, Ethernet and T1 in 4200 Central Offices. After the combo, Megapath did try to re-brand as a managed services provider. However, I think they are still mainly looked upon as a DSL shop. This merger will add some more voice cred and voice revenue.

A little speculation: There are way too many VoIP Providers. Most do wholesale and retail - anything to drive revenue. Most are barely eking out a living. Most deliver poor service because they don't stick to doing one thing really well. More consolidation is needed. I wonder how that consolidation helps Broadsoft. It has to mean less licenses being sold in the short term and in the long term less licensing due to volume discounts, but I may be wrong.

And So The New Year Starts

2012-01-02T20:39:02Z

NY's Broadsoft based Hosted VoIP Provider, Stage 2 Networks, started the new year with the acquisition of the Hosted VoIP Division of Consolidated Technologies, Inc., a New York City area Avaya partner. Stage 2 needed the growth is my take from the PR comments from CEO Joe Gillette. There will be more of this in 2012, because there are too many VoIP Providers and most have very little growth. This transaction is similar to Telovations grabbing FeatureTel. It costs money to run a Broadsoft. Organic sales aren't coming fast enough to hit scale, so buy some customers and some revenue.

With 2012, the market will see the MSO Giants - Cox and Comcast - start crushing it in the Hosted VoIP space. They own the network to deliver QOS and to price beat any competitor.

IN data center news, the REIT (real estate investment trust) Gladstone purchased the 20K square foot data center at 810 Parish Street in Pittsburgh, home of Expedient Communications, for $4M.

11 Top Stories in Telecom in 2011

2011-12-15T17:41:31Z

Here's my take on the Top 11 stories in telecom of 2011.

1. Shane McNamara being named VP of the Indirect Channel at XO. It was a shock pick for many in the industry.

2. TNCI Bankruptcy! I understand that the reseller model has been taking a huge beating in the last 3 years, but when you start off hawking "Agent Equity", you need to be better fudiciary stewarts than this.

3. WIND-PAETEC merger - I just didn't see that one coming. It did prove my point about the difference in running a private company as opposed to a public one, who is a slave to Wall Street.

4. Qwest getting bought by CenturyLink - and then CL buying Savvis. It was a big shopping spree. I thought it would have been wiser to buy a cell company, but CL is going all-in on the Cloud.

5. The TCA's Certification program. This is kind of self-promoting because I am a Board member and founder of TCA, but I have seen how the carriers are looking at certification for the indirect channel. I think for agents the CTP (or some certification) will be necessary.

6. The Cloud M&A - there was so much of it! The big one was VZ buying Terremark, which might have been the same plan that CenturyLink used when scooping up Qwest CyberCenters and Savvis. I think the one least spoken about is the TWC-Navisite deal.

7. InterNAP killing its Channel. I don't think this story is over, since the agents have to keep fighting this one or risk more crap like this from carriers who need to rightside their balance sheet like some kind of lipstick on a pig. Cloud companies don't want to see it, but it is this action by InterNAP (and Equinix with Switch & Data before it) that keeps Agents from running to the Cloud. Fear of being cut off at the knees. Not that telcos - remember MCI? - haven't sliced the channel (hello RBOCs!)

8. TelePacific's buying spree - Telekenex, Tel-West, Covad Wireless, and Orange County Internet Xchange. It was fast and furious and quick.

9. Dan Foster leaving then returning to MegaPath to take over for Bruce Chatterly as President of the Business Markets Group. That game of musical chairs was confusing to watch, coming on the heels of the merger of Covad's two largest customers - Megapath and Speakeasy - into one company.

10. Since 2011 seemed like the year of serial acquisitions from companies - Megapath, TelePacific, CenturyLink, Windstream, TDS - let's give a hand to EarthLink, who took New Edge Networks and combined it with One Comm., DeltaCom, and STS Telecom to make a nationwide business CLEC play, then added a bunch of IT/Managed services/Cloud services to that CLEC with Logical Solutions, Business Vitals and the Synergy Global Solutions deals. We'll see how that integration works out in 2012.

11. Comcast hiring Craig Schlagbaum to build and run its Channel indicated that Cable was coming to play in the business space. CLEC's need to take note, because most CLEC"s don't OWN or operate their own network, but lease network from ILEC's and Cablecos. Also, Cox and Comcast are rolling out Hosted PBX nationwide, which means the ITSP space better wake up and get its house in order, since cable has a brand and a network to go with that Hosted PBX service.

I'm certain we will see more M&A in 2012 since companies are flush with cash and can't organically increase revenue. And I am also certain that Cable will be making a big impact in the SMB space in 2012, much to the detriment of CLEC's and VoIP providers.

The Telco Customer Experience

2011-10-18T18:39:30Z

There has been some buzz on twitter about the telcos working on bettering the customer experience. Despite JD Powers awards, the average customer is not happy.

Those that are still on Telco 1.0 with POTS and DSL do not have a special relationship. And the fees are piling up.

Those with 3G or 4G wish they were actually getting high-speed broadband.

Those with VoIP - not quite Telco 2.0 - wish the quality was better.

Those customers with Hosted PBX - Telco 2.0 - wish the onboarding was better; the features easier to figure out; and that the quality was better.

The promise of Telco 2.0 and 3G/4G has largely been limited at the customer experience end.

The telcos want to get into Managed Services, but customers wonder what that engagement will look like.

So far the Managed Router has been a dud. Quite a few times, the password is lost; reporting is either extra charges or non-existent; and it ends up just being a dumb box that succumbs to being a new demark.

Telcos tried e-commerce. Fail whale.

On an XO partner webinar today, Steve Carter went over the onboarding process for SIP trunks and other VoIP services (like Hosted PBX). SIP isn't a standard, so it isn't like PRI. There are inter-operability issues to think about. There are LAN concerns along with mapping extensions and devices.

As an Agent, you have to own the onboarding process. Why? Otherwise the customer will have a bad experience and your name (brand) will be mud. At the least, the agent has to properly set expectations for what the customer can expect and what the customer site prep work is.

Since the Telco Customer Experience is not optimum, the Agent is in a prime position to be the glue there. The telcos can not improve the customer experience while performing cost cutting (laying off) and integration of acquisitions. Domain knowledge is disappearing. Any customer relationships are terminating. It is in this void that the Agent can make the most impact.

It's Monday So Lots Happened

2011-10-17T17:21:24Z

Polycom bought Vivu, a video collaboration company, to help Polycom push it's Presence gear. Video, video, video. Yet I never have video calls or video call requests. To me, I wish you would work on the phone part. Give me a great looking phone that is easy to use and where the voice quality is awesome. Can you do that? Not really.

All the companies in this space are running to the Video. Why? Deployment and usage are challenging enough without trying to hook up video and make myself presentable. Fax over IP and HD Voice are still just a promise - and video conferencing off platform doesn't work.

It's kind of like talking about Cloud or UC, you are hoping for a stock bump or a PR bump.

Folks are at the Broadsoft show today being introduced by a 3D presentation. Then they will be peppered with alcohol to dull their senses so they can listen to BSFT talk about Video Conferencing (iLinc acquisition) through BroadWorks (Don't get your own; Buy more licenses from us!). Then I'm sure it will be about Mobility and Integration from the vendors that ponied up big $$$ to pitch their wares.

The one thing that gets lost in all this: there are too many VoIP Providers in the marketplace (over 1100 in the US alone). All of them are still trying to figure out how to sell more seats! Sure, they can sell SIP trunks but that is low margin commodity business. Hosted PBX is a higher margin (if sold correctly) business that is about to heat up as the cable giants - Comcast and Cox - roll it out nationwide and give away access in the sale. How does a Hosted PBX provider who doesn't own a network compete then?

And selling UC&C (unified comm and collab) mixed with video is a specialized sale. First, you need a base of Hosted PBX clients and a set procedure for deployment and on-boarding customers. Then you can have a process to upsell or chase a specialized market.

Meanwhile, we are all waiting for the FCC to make some decision on both USF Reform and Inter-Carrier Compensation. ICC will actually change the VoIP market a little. Not that anyone noticed, but the TRA is now a requirement for Inter-Connected VoIP Providers. Why not utilize the video and collaboration components to solve TRA and Communications for Disabilities? Then at least you would have a hot button.

I was going to rant about USF Reform -- like how we should kill the whole program -- like that would ever happen -- because spending tax money to outfit rural areas with broadband is kind of crazy, in my opinion. And its only 15 million Americans. How many will actually buy broadband? Maybe 67%? So 10 million? At a cost of 15% of the bill every month? That's crazy.

Anyway, on to M2M. Sprint is big in Machine-to-Machine wireless solutions and "has targeted four high-growth segments as the umbrella focus of its M2M development activities and offerings: Connected Transportation; Connected Meters, Sensors & Alarms; Connected Machines, Screens & Things; and Connected Personal Devices." [pr] Meanwhile, Sprint is hoping the iPhone bouys up their subscribers.

VZ is getting into home energy monitoring and testing 3G/4G networks nationwide. I'm sure that it will be an unbiased study of the 3G/4G world (MetroPCS, AT&T, T-Mobile, Cricket, Sprint and VZW).

And in another blow to privacy, VZW "has made a change in its privacy policy that clears the nation's largest wireless carrier to track its subscribers' Web browsing, location and app usage habits," according to the LA Times.

Did you know there is such a thing as Hardware-as-a-Service? Chartec and Outreach offer it in a partnership.

NTS/XFONE grabbed 1800 cable customers in West Texas from Reach Broadband.

ABRY Partners bought data center company XAND, who is either a hosting company or a data center infrastructure company. To tell you the truth, the way these press releases describe the companies involved, I know two things: (1) the PR firm has no clue what they are talking about; (2) the marketing department or firm has no clue what they are talking about either. Keep It Simple!