On Rad's Radar? - TCA Archives

Channel Manager Best Practices

2012-02-17T17:10:58Z

On Tuesday, March 27 at 11:30AM PT, the Technology Channel Association (TCA) will hold the first ever Channel Managers Best Practices Forum at the Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas.

TCA's mission is channel education. The TCA holds monthly webinars for members and has developed a Certified telecom Professional program. In Vegas, the TCA will be holding our 5th Channel Chief Summit alongside this Channel Managers forum. With this event, channel managers will have the opportunity to network and learn from their peers. Four Rock Star Channel Managers will discuss some of their best practices such as:

Balancing 80/20

Maximizing the MMR of the Agent

What is your #1 job responsibility?

How do you balance agent business interest with corporate interest?

Internal relationships

Setting Agent expectations

Lunch will be provided!*

The 4 Channel Manager Rock Stars chosen by TCA members are:

Charles Lomond of Airespring

Crystal Farley of Megapath

Sherrie Hiller at Telepacific

Chris Schubert of Telnes Broadband

Space is limited. Register today!

(*Most of the ticket cost is the lunch from Caesars.)

Best Channel Managers

2012-02-03T06:20:06Z

Do you think any of your channel managers are good enough to tell other channel managers how to do better at the job? If so email their name and email and why you think they are so good. (pradizeski @ tmcnet dot com)

BTW, Regan would like some votes.

Look for me in Miami Beach Next Week

2012-01-26T17:59:23Z

Next week is ITEXPO East 2012 in Miami Beach at the convention center. I arrive around 11 AM on Tuesday for Editor's Day. There are a number of all-day events going on Tuesday like InsightPRM's Sales Management training and the Avaya seminar.

Not surprisingly, most of the buzz around the show is on Startup Camp Comms, which is Thursday at 4 PM with keynote from Sir terry Matthews, founder of MITEL. Four start-ups will be pitching as well.

I have 5 slots this time.

Wed. night on the show floor at the CVX Expo stage, three agents - Dan Vidal, Josh Anderson and myself (fueled with cocktails) will answer questions from Martin Vilaboy, Editor-in-Chief of Channel Vision magazine about issues facing the Channel. Consolidation, Competition, Commissions, Cloud, UC, and the decline of the PSTN. The fun starts at 6:30. Straight from the Shooters: Candid Conversations on Issues Facing the Channel. Details here.

Wed. at 11 AM, I moderate the panel, Social Media Channel Integration, about contact centers integrating social media into the work station in room B210. The discussion will be about business drivers for social media; 4 steps to utilize social media in the enterprise; and hurdles to incorporating SM in the contact center.

At 2:30 on Wed., in room B116, I will be moderating a panel titled Educating the Channel with Industry Standard Certifications. It's a topic that is close to me because the TCA, which I helped found, is all about educating the Channel and rolled out a certification program last year. This will be a good conversation about how we need to education the sales channels as well as the marketplace in order to sell services like UC, Cloud and managed services.

The fun panel will be on Friday morning at 9 AM: Does Your Business Have a Social Media Strategy? Chief Head of Lettuce Antony Francis is an old pal, who likes to get cranky with me, so this panel will rock. You will leave with more info than you thought possible at 9 AM on a Friday in room B210.

At Noon on Friday catch me at the 4GWE session about Fixed Wireless as a wireline replacement (in room A109). Do you think fixed wireless can replace copper?

Look for my tweets from @radinfo and say HI if you see me.

End Caps

2012-01-21T14:49:32Z

This was the week that we learned that online protesting can work -- if enough people get involved and if you get the support of some powerhouse websites like Google and Wikipedia. It looks like SOPA was dropped and the vote on PIPA was delayed. (It is still alive due to Democrat lawmakers who are beholden to Hollywood like Florida Senator Bill Nelson. If he knew how to turn on his laptop by himself I could understand it, but come on!)

We don't really need any more copyright laws. If we did, would the feds have been able to fly to New Zealand to arrest the owner of MegaUpload? What was he arrested and renditioned for? Online piracy.

Not for nothing, but don't we have more important things to be spending federal dollars on? We are a nation with lost priorities.

And yet another carrier joins the CLOUD: "US Signal recently released an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) product offering, what US Signal calls Managed Data Center. Customers have increasingly requested US Signal to host their applications, for financial reasons, scalability, security, and more."

Yesterday, TCA held its monthly agent webinar with Netwolves presenting on Managed Services. With most of the telcos offering Managed Servcies, we at TCA thought it was time to give an overview of what Managed Services are from carriers, who is buying them and how does an Agent sell them. How does an Agent start that conversation with the prospect about managed services? The webinar was recorded and TCA members can play it back at any time.

Nemertes Research predicts a shortage of colocation space in the U.S. beginning this year. That is likely because some colo space is being used for PAAS and IAAS. Also, some colo houses don't want to sell colo any more because there is more cash in xAAS. (Or so they say.) I have seen that trying to find single rack colo slots are getting more difficult. Personally, I thought that when Amazon, Facebook, Google and others built their data centers, a lot of space would be opened up in other data centers.

The other issue with colocation is that Equinix, InterNAP and now Savvis have cut the channel out of selling their space. Other data centers - like Vegas' SwitchNAP - are difficult to deal with. That kind of affects colo sales, too. Luckily, ViaWest and TELX are still agent friendly.

Code 42 Software, a cloud backup service named Crashplan, got $52M in funding from Accel Partners. It seems a massive amount of funding for an online backup company.

Is 5G around the corner? Heck, most of the US is still in 2.5G-3G land.

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.

Agents Need Training

2011-11-01T04:09:18Z

According to David Byrd of Broadvox, agents and VAR's need more training when it comes to SIP. As he wrote in his Wild Mushroom post, "Too often we encounter a situation where an agent sells a SIP Trunk with no understanding of the difference between it and a PRI. This can lead to a disastrous situation. First, an agent needs to understand that the bandwidth require per phone call is more with G.711 not less than a PRI. Second, IP enabled equipment is required. This can be an IAD, IP PBX or, in the best case, the addition of an IP board or card. It is also very important to check the carrier’s interoperability IAD and IP PBX list."

Inter-Op and codecs are just a couple of things that Agents and VAR's need to learn. The world of TDM is defined by standards and pre-set configurations. The world of IP is wide open - no standards, just a bunch of specs that engineers and geeks tweek to get things to work. Being a Net-Head means a world of possibility, but it also means that pre-sales checking becomes paramount.

There are lots of places to get training. Alteva has a cert program that costs about $350, which includes sales and product training. As Byrd mentions, SIP School is around. MegaPath offers MPLS University. Avaya has a SIP for Dummies book. Almost every carrier has training on their product. I know that you get inundated with training webinars, but services today are not what you were selling five years ago. Take the time to take a few. Or lose out to other Agents who DO take the training - and become the Preferred Partners for the carriers.

Agents and VAR's can also test their knowledge with the TCA's Certified Telecom Professional certification program. The program includes subject material that can be reviewed before or after taking the exam. (Testers get 2 shots at getting a passing grade of 70.))

Cramming Star

2011-10-24T16:37:16Z

Cramming is when the carrier's bill contains unauthorized fees (either on cellular or wireline bills). The FCC explains it in detail here.

One agent has been quoted in USA Today about cramming.

"With today's economy, where employees are often doing the job of two or more people, bills are not audited as closely as they may have been in the past," according to Michael Bremmer, CEO of

Add in that there are a number of competitors in the marketplace - Skype, Vidyo, MegaMeeting, Microsoft Lync, Lotus Live, PGi, InterCall, and the Conference Group just name a few - and that probably means that the conferencing pie is large and growing (or it couldn't sustain this many vendors.

Monday, October 3, 2011 at 1:00pm ET, the GCN was ranked as the 45th fastest growing telecommunications company in the nation, as well as one of the fastest growing companies in Florida. (You can read the whole press release here.) I just wanted to take a moment to give props to a fellow agent (and TCA member) and fellow Floridian. Congrats! Chris Palermo!!

GCN is one of the few agencies that handle project management for data centers and collocation. [One other one is my fellow TCA Board member COLOTRAQ.]

Another Florida telecom company on the list (at # 195) is Star2Star - a TCA vendor member - that sells a hybrid Hosted/on-premise IP-PBX systems for SMB. They are doing almost $11M in revenue and just released a new box.

What Did I Miss?

2011-08-26T19:14:29Z

Besides Steve Jobs resigning from Apple (and tanking their stock), what news did I miss? Sprint is getting the iPhone in October. Won't be a big deal, I don't think.

The TCA added TelePacific, TELX, The Conference Group, NTT Americas, and PGi as vendors in the last month. We have verbal commitmemts from Comcast, EarthLink, Peak10 and QTS. Thank you to all of our vendor members for supporting not just TCA but the Channel as well. Who's next?

Vocalocity and Aptela merged. Not much buzz around it because not many people know much about either company.

I heard from both Metaswitch and EarthLink that despite buying STS and its Sylantro softswitch, EarthLink is going Meta (since Deltacom and ONE already had them in place.)

Star2Star released its StarBox 5500 IP-PBX which connects up to 500 extensions and 100 simultaneous calls.

Motorola is sell its Orthogon and Canopy business units to the private equity firm, Vector Capital. The new company will be called Cambium. (Thanks Troy!)

As AT&T wireline ARPU starts to skid, it introduces new charges. Now there is a minimum charge for LD.

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.

Why Use an Independent Telecom Broker?

2011-06-27T21:12:28Z

What is an Independent Telecom Broker? It's not the preferred title that I like for an independent telecommunications agent but some companies like it. It has variations as Agent, Consultant and Specialist, but at the end of the day the Independent Telecom Broker is hired by the customer to find them the best solution available for their business.

According to the Society of Telecommunications Consultants, "No member shall accept fees, commissions, or any other valuable consideration in connection with those services from anyone other than the member's client." A broker - like a stock broker - makes his money from transactions; in this case, a broker gets paid by the vendor for any sales made. Some think that will bias the decision - and in some cases it probably does. Who will pay me better? Which carrier quota do I have to hit? That might be why not all Agents call themselves a Broker.

At the heart of my agent business is the vision that my client will be with me for life. And so far most of them have been - many since I started in 1999! Unwavering Customer Care, doing what's right for the client, and immense product/industry knowledge are what built my business.

Here are the Top 3 Reasons to use an Independent Telecom Broker!

One, it's one-stop shopping which save you Time! The broker will have contacts with many carriers/vendors which means he can quickly acquire the quotes and information that you need - without you having to request them yourself by filling out online forms and repeating the requirements over and over.

Two, product and industry knowledge. The sales rep from Company A isn't going to tell you that it has excessive billing issues and Company B's rep isn't going to tell you that the network in your area sucks or that the product is so new (or old) that delivering it to your satisfaction is not going to happen. A Broker will have that kind of information.

If the customer cares about speedy delivery and least cost, then the Broker can eliminate looking at the operators that don't own network there or who have provisioning hurdles.

Three, the Broker is a Craftsman, Baby! A whole lot of tools in his belt to provide you with the right solution for now and later.

If the Broker does his job right, he is asking the customer all the probing questions to elicit the necessary information to choose not the expected answer, but the best possible solution.

That's why you use an Independent Telecommunications Broker - and preferably one that is a TCA Certified Telecom Professional!

Like Aligned

Is this a Master Agent Dilemma?

2011-06-21T13:19:11Z

From the carrier side, Channel executives are looking to the VAR space for growth? Why is that? Has the Agent contribution to channel revenue hit a plateau?

At dinner last night, I was talking about the magic number of a tribe. For consultants, it's 100. For an ISP, it's 1000 - when they get to 2000 customers they are comfortable and profitable. IF that magic number is a good customer -- that is, one that values your services, pays a rate that affords a profit, and stays with you.

Here's the problem: everything is sold on price! PRI, T1, broadband, voice and TV. These are all flat consumer markets. Even in the B2B space, voice and Internet Access are a flat market. It's all a game of take away.

So the carriers are looking for indirect channel partners who can get them new accounts (take-aways from other carriers) and partners who can solution sell more advanced services than MIS, broadband and voice.
The carriers think that Cloud and Managed Services are where the growth is. Agents have not shown a preference to learn SIP, MPLS, Conferencing or Managed Services; hence, carriers are chasing VAR's.

Where does that leave the Agent Channel?

Where does that leave Master Agents?

Every year,Master Agents have to sign a contract for (usually) higher quota. Meanwhile, organic revenue for most carriers is dipping (hence, all the M&A to juice up the balance sheet for The Street). The price for DIA and T1 are at an all time low -- so how do you sell stuff cheaper but hit a higher quota?

What happens when you can't hit that quota?

Selling the same products (or commodities) at a lower rate requires an Agent to sell a lot more just to maintain the same lifestyle. All of this happening in a slow economy with tight budgets in a marketplace that is hyper-competitive.

Sure VoIP is growing but at the expense of wireline voice.

So markets aren't growing; quotas are increasing; revenue is dipping; customer acquisition costs are rising. It's a perfect storm.

Carriers and Masters have to find more people to sell services, preferably newer, higher value services that bring in more ARPU and more margin. It's one reason that you see M&A in the VAR and master space. It's also why you see some newer masters, like COLOTRAQ, appear with a specialty or niche.

Microcorp's slogan for their agent confab is Invest in Yourself. At TCA, our main goal is to educate the Channel to be valuable to the carriers. The TCA CTP is about education for the agent community so that we can continue to provide value and make a living in this new telecom space.

Six More TCA Agent Companies Adopt CTP as Core Training Platform

2011-06-03T18:34:40Z

The first industry trade association-sponsored certification program designed specifically for indirect sales agents is gaining momentum. Six more agent companies that are members of the Technology Channel Association (TCA) announced they have adopted the Certified Telecommunications Professional (CTP) program as a core training platform for their carrier sales group--AB&T Telecom, Avant Communications, COLOTRAQ, Microcorp, TBI and WTG.

"Ever since the formation of TCA in 2008, we have aimed to make professional standards in this industry official," said Dany Bouchedid, TCA President and COLOTRAQ's CEO. "With the growth of the CTP program in the past several months, we see that this was necessary to provide agents with the credentials to reassure vendors of their expertise."

Over 100 professionals have enrolled in the CTP program. This certification reinforces industry standards, technical concepts and business practices and is viewed within the industry as a critical step toward strengthening members' business relationships. Exam applicants must be members of TCA. The association is waiving membership dues for agents who are interested in joining the group right now. In addition, TCA has created a set of prerequisites that CTP candidates must meet based on a combination of industry experience and advanced education.

"Our agents are incredibly knowledgeable and this proves we can provide another level of service and expertise. I believe we will be stronger as a company thanks to this certification," said Ian Kieninger, CEO of Avant Communications.

"Being CTP certified certainly helps set us apart. I feel the program helps verify that our agents have a solid understanding of industry fundamentals and how they apply to end users and vendors," said Emmet Tydings, President of AB&T.

For information on the CTP program or to join TCA, call (609) 799-4900 or email info@tcasite.org.

Peter Radizeski of RAD-INFO INC (the writer for this blog) is a founding Board member of TCA and current VP. Radizeski is also a CTP.

This press release was written by Kaitlin Friedmann of CMA Solutions, the management company of the TCA, the only non-profit trade association for the Indirect Channel.

Top 3 Things Affecting Your Agency

2011-06-01T16:18:54Z

Your telecom agency has seen some changes over the last 10 years for certain, but the industry is in another state of change. What three things can affect your Agency?

1. Commission changes. They happen often, even without M&A.

2. Your biggest carrier gets acquired (and that destroys your business plan). Just as bad is that you lose your largest client (and the associated commission stream).

3. You fail to add new services or service providers to your toolbox. This means you cannot add more revenue from your customer base -- and you can't go after a new vertical.

The concept is to adjust your sail to the changing winds of our industry. It's a challenge because it means almost constant change. Many business folks are head down all the time; and by the time they pick their head up they are wondering what happened?!

Traditional telecom is shrinking. Landlines are shrinking. Broadband, cellular and voice are flat markets with little growth. It's all take-away business now, meaning moving from carrier to carrier. Unless you want to be a quote machine, you will need to become familiar with terms like UC, Managed Services and Cloud. Or you face losing prospects, clients, commissions and sub-agents. This also means that you will have to talk to new service providers (like GreenAppX, InContact or NetWolves) or dive deep into traditional carriers who are delivering new services, like TWC and XO. (TWC bought Navisite to get into Cloud. XO has been a hosting (old name for cloud) provider since it was Nextlink.)

A final thought:Certification. Today, the customer is looking for a Trusted Advisor that they can bring in to help them through this tech transition to attain more efficiency, productivity, and flexibility (mobility) for the business.. Certification helps to demonstrate that you are serious about your profession. That you are disciplined. That you studied, spent time on, have a base of knowledge of a your subject matter.

To sum it up, you just have to set the sail anew. Trying to do business the same old way won't work much longer.

Karin Fields at Microcorp says "Invest in Yourself."