AT&T cancelled their CallVantage service. It will go dark on Nov. 20th. The porting process is probably the most painful part of changing service. If you are a licensed CLEC, it is a little easier. If you are a VoIP Provider relying on another carrier to LNP for you, you have to set expectations for the porting. And by that I don't mean blow smoke up my tush by telling me it could take 45-60 days. Sure that can happen, but I haven't seen that time frame in a while.
One of my clients who took over my VZ number ported it in 3 days. Bang! Done! And that's against VZ, one of the worst possible feet dragging, no-one-home LEC's.
Do you know what On-boarding is? Personnel departments use the term to mean when you bring on a new employee. The process involves getting them email addresses, ID's, parking, a desk, badge, orientation, training, benefits, etc. Most larger corporations have a written procedure in place for on-boarding. Why is it important? Because the first impression the new hire gets is day 1. All to often Day 1 is a mess for the new hire. No desk. No computer. No contact or introductions. Welcome aboard!
Is that what you do to your customers? Because the on-boarding of a new customer is very important too. It's their first impression of your company's ability to provide service. Imagine how that feels when the customer gets no status update for a month. The porting happens suddenly and without warning. Or worse doesn't happen for a long time. (Long is relative).
Did you map out the PBX extensions? Did you check inside wiring and the LAN design? Are the phones programmed? When will staff training occur on how to use the new system, voicemail and handsets? Is there a manual or a wiki?
These are the basics of the on-boarding process. LNP is just a part of it.
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Doug points to Xconnect, Simple Signal, Apteva and Sprint as examples of HD inter-connected ITSP. Big deal. There are 1100 VoIP Providers in the US alone. many not inter-connected with anyone but the PSTN.
To enjoy true HD Voice calling both sides of the call have to be SIP (supporting G.722). Most calls today still land either on a PSTN connected phone or (more likely) on a cell phone. That will break the HD Voice.
Doug dislikes this analogy but Fax over IP still doesn't work 99% today. Years after Brooktrout fixed this issue. Why? There are T.38 compliant fax machines and certainly Edgewater devices work, but the problem is in the WAN. Any conversions of the packet and you break the fax packet. So IP to PSTN, bye bye. The same issue with HD Voice. We do not have too many all IP networks.
Then let's look at the SIP Upstream providers. You mention Sprint. Most ITSP's buy from Level3, then Global Crossing, Bandwidth.com and Verizon. How many of those networks are G.722 end-to-end?
The best way to sell Hosted PBX service is to use the HD Voice demo. However, you need to set proper consumer expectations that it only works On-Net. That when Joe Sales calls in from the field on his cell phone, it will sound tinny, not HD.
When Grandma calls in from her kitchen wall phone, it likely won't be HD either.
Doug thinks you should buy the HD hadnset anyway. Go ahead. But if they are sub-$200 now, think what version 2 will be like price and feature wise?
One reason IP Telephony grew (according to Dell'Oro) 7% to $737M in 2Q09 is because IPT lowers the cost of the capital expenditure (CAPEX) and it also lowers the cost of maintenance and support.
As an industry we have to move away from talking cost savings to a discussion about value to the customer experience. Efficiency, Productivity, Privacy and Security will be key topics coupled with TCO and ROI studies.
The User Experience must be about usefulness, ease of use, reliable and enjoyable. (Something that most folks would not associate with telcos.)
You need to take the technology out of the way of the user. If you can do that, you win.
My thoughts immediately went to GV. Who will be replaced by Google Voice?
- Who is the commodity?
- Who will add Value to the User Experience?
Stop selling on price. If you aren't talking TCO or ROI, you are selling telecom, not apps.
PBX and software companies have had to stop thinking in terms of product and start thinking in terms of Managed Services deployed over the Network. If they are thinking about it as SAAS, should all the Hosted PBX folks be looking at Voice as just another app delivered over the network? Voice is just an app!
You would think that by this time all the patents covering VoIP would be done. I will say that VoIP Providers need to have an attorney examine the patent for any infringement.
All the talk about Hosted VoIP being on the rise, blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, Paetec is on LinkedIn "hiring PBX (Telephone Equipment) Sales Reps for our Raleigh, Nashville, Memphis Offices." For the Allworx product line, I would imagine.
KeaneTel, a Master Agency, is advertising Training on ShoreTel IP PBX Sales. "This is the first of four Training Webinars on ShoreTel by KeaneTel."
All the talk about Hosted PBX and yet premise based PBX sales still seem to be doing alright.
Could be all the FUD. Could be the weekly outages. (Yesterday, it was reported on listservs that Level3 and Cogent had an outage. Level3's outage in Atlanta seemed to even affect VoIP.)
Outages seem to get a lot more press today, but if people are in The Cloud for apps, email, VoIP, data, etc. AND the Internet Access is down, well, you have to consider that. Redundant links - for everyone including the user.
The problem isn't the Agent Channel. The problem is the Channel Program design.
You have to design a program that will work, folks. You have to train your agents on the benefits, how it works, how it will be implemented, and how to sell it. You have to have a USP or marketing message that the salesperson can grasp and re-use.
You can blame the agents, but most times companies don't spell out who the target prospect is and how that prospect will benefit. VoIP is not a replacement service. And you VoIP companies have over 1000 competitors all saying the same thing. It's like trying to differentiate between CLEC integrated T1's.
There's is also the whole compensation issue. Maybe you aren't paying enough to make it worthwhile for the agent. Again a VoIP sale is longer than a TDM sales and there are inter-operability and implementation issues to deal with, especially for PBX replacement.
There's a bias towards having a direct sales team in telecom. That bias is due to the huge expense - the office space, desks, laptops, utilities, cell phones, benefits, salaries and management structure. If you examined your direct team the same way you examine your indirect channel, you'd likely fire that division as well. Personally, I would put up Agents against AE's any day. I can pick 5 and outsell your direct team all day, any day - with less churn.
By the way, did you examine the channel sales process? How hard was it to get a quote or a sales engineer or a contract? What was the time from contract to install to commission check? All this will play into it. You look at AT&T's Channel sales process and it's just too freaking painful.
In Internet Marketing, you can analyze the sales process to find out where the hurdles are, where the shoppers drop out. Is there a process in place to figure out the sales hurdles in the physical world? Do you track any of it?
I've been in the VoIP space since 2004, so many companies have imploded; not delivered; messed up; changed things again and again. With this kind of history, it gets more challenging to find agents willing to bet their business on it.
I'm in Atlanta speaking at the Microcorp One-on-One event about Trends in 2010. The three trends that I see for agents are the following: Applications, Quality of Service (QOS), and Mobile Broadband (MBB). But they are kind of inter-dependent. Ubiquious broadband leads to innovative uses and applications. Applications like on smartphones lead to a greater need for mobile broadband networks.
Mobile Broadband is growing. Smartphones are replacing cellular handsets. Social networks are moving to mobile devices so people can Facebook and Tweet. RIM's Blackberry brought us mobile email, but it is a standard on many phones now. Netbooks and data cards are presenting the US cellular companies with some fits. They like the additional revenue, but have to keep dropping billions on the network backhaul and capacity upgrades. (And another $45B+ on the upgrade to LTE/4G).
All this means that there are new uses for the mobile broadband, like the Kindle. Sprint's Wispernet allows Amazon to instantly download books, magazines, newspapers and blogs to Kindle devices. Machine-to-machine devices can utilize the cellular data network to provide connectivity for ATM machines, security cameras, and a host of other devices that need to communicate with a NOC or remote server.
All of this is a cycle of applications driving network usage. Ubiquious broadband driving more apps. It's one reason that the FCC needs to maintain open network and Net Neutrality guidelines in place.
Applications - like email, databases, office suites, CRM - are creating a demand for managed services, such as an outsourced IT department. In addition, businesses are looking at the Cloud - moving applications to a data center for redundancy, security, and availability - as a way to save money and stop worrying about the IT department. With applications being delivered in the Cloud or by way of SAAS or even Virtualization, Agents have a chance to offer more than just Internet Access or WAN circuits, like private line. Agents can sell Layer 2 to Layer 7 - pipe to apps. It's a way to get deeper into accounts. It's a way to offer a complete solution. It's a way to deliver on the label of Trusted Advisor.
Applications are driving sales. Voice and email are just the primary apps. Business critical data is also driving mobile broadband. Ubiquious broadband is allowing for innovative ways of accessing data. The problem becomes reliable access to the data. That's where Quality of Service comes in. QOS on the WAN is what is needed to access data reliably and quickly. The MPLS trigger is the Class of Service reliability and prioritization of data over the network. This is paramount for businesses running a truly converged network with video, database, VoIP, email and Internet riding the same pipes. WAN Optimization is selling due to the cost containment and the performance enhancement. Big bang for the buck.
So the agents can sell mobile broadband, applications via Virtualization or SAAS, and add QOS to the WAN to provide reliable access to these business critical data.
Google has more video on YouTube than any DVR or cable company can match currently. Google Voice is the online VoIP service many people wish that an innovative telecommunications services company would have delivered years ago. But Ma Bell isn't innovative. heck, they don't even own the Labs any more - that went out with Lucent.
PC World has some coverage of the fight. The LA Times and 399 other news sources wrote about the complaint. Many in the blogosphere think that this is just AT&T's way to deflect the FCC from pinning them to the ground and perhaps delay a Network Neutrality NOI.
Google responded on their blog quickly.
Note to Randall and Crazy Ivan: Consumers just want you to be a fat pipe to the inter-webs. Not the Weight Watchers version you currently offer and over-charge for. A 10MB super-info-highway. Get out of the way! We want to choose our own content, apps, and Layer 7 providers. You had your chance, but as always greed kept you from doing anything. Heck, you are closing the doors on CallVantage on Oct. 20. And that was such a great service. (Oops, did I just say that?) You could have givrn us Google Voice just like you could have given America fiber-to-the-home in 2000 when you promised many states you would if they would let you have a rate hike.
Keep pouring those billions into TV and 4G. If Sprint and T-Mobile could get out of their own way, they would own your ass already.
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