voip

XO all about Expansion in 2009

June 22, 2009

Expanding network into Charlotte and Raleigh was just the start of expansion for XO in 2009.

XO's been adding even more services to its too-big catalog lately. (I say too big because even XO sales folks don't remember half of what they sell or can brief prospects on more than a handful). The catalog is RBOC sized including Hosting, wireless, IP, VoIP, PBX, SIP trunks, transport, collocation, TDM, Ethernet, and Managed Services.

Oh, I forgot wavelength services too. And in a deal with Pacific Crossing, XO extends its reach to the Asia.

XO is back to pushing Fixed Wireless that it relegated to the old Nextlink brand. It was mentioned recently when XO announced that it was adding new speeds to its Hatteras based mid-band Ethernet service.

XO is also pushing Concentric, its hosting brand, with the announcement of a Managed Backup Service. According to Phone+ magazine, the service will be sold via a new VAR Channel Program (as well as current XO Business Partners).

Beyond transport, XO added Hosted IVR, labeled as an Inbound Teleservice, and XO Connect, which is a mass notification service. I guess, they are taking lessons from Ifbyphone to use SIP to do more than make cheap calls.

And finally XO has an agreement to extend VoIP to 2800 LSO's in the US.

Posted in Internet, agents, channel, disaster recovery, voip, wireless

The UC Conversation Continues with XO

June 19, 2009

Tech Data's Senior Product Sales Champion for UC was at the event last night. I spent a few minutes chatting with him about his position, but couldn't really get a definition of UC out of him. Polycom and tele-presence are what he pushes - to me that's not really UC. HD Voice?

Posted in CLEC, PBX, broadsoft, sip trunking, technology, tele-presence, telecommunications, unified communications, voip, xo

XO at the Tech Data Expo

June 19, 2009

I received an invite yesterday from XO to come down to the Tech Data Expo at the Don Cesar Hotel in St. Petersburg FL. ADTRAN shared the booth with XO at this event. Surprisedly, the other two carriers that distribute through Tech Data had assigned booth space, but were absent.

XO is a good fit for Tech Data. While I think the XO catalog is too large to know well - wireless, hosting, IP, VOIP, transport, collocation and more - the VAR's at Tech Data vary so much in what they do and what would complement their business that the wide selection helps - IF you can get in front of them and remind them throughout the year how they can take advantage of the additional revenue stream.

For many VAR's the advantage of XO through Tech Data is that there's no contract (especially for those VAR's already under contract with Ma or Pa Bell) and with Tech Data as the "master agency", it isn't likely you need to worry about your residual check. (And now that XO has converted their debt, it is in a good position going forward, which other debt laden CLEC's can't say).

Many VAR's are already in the PBX space and were asking about SIP. I wasn't sure if they actually grasp the concept of SIP or that they just know enough to be dangerous. The biggest difference between a PRI and a SIP Trunk is Inter-Operability.

Posted in CLEC, VAR, agents, broadsoft, channel, sip trunking, voip, xo

How to SELLECOM VoIP

June 16, 2009

Posted in sales and selling, voip

Twitter Exchange on Arbitrage

June 15, 2009

This will be a strange post but Alex Balashov and I had a Twitter exchange today about the telecom industry and its relentless pursuit of arbitrage plays. From long distance to calling card to SIP trunking, it's all about changing the bucket of minutes for something cheaper so someone can make some short change coin. Kind of ridiculous.

I asked where the Purple Cows are. Where's the HD Voice in my Hosted PBX?

Posted in PBX, communications, sip trunking, smb, telecommunications, twitter, voip

Dangling Phone Numbers

June 8, 2009

I have a problem with a dangling phone number - my home phone. It's the number that my parents, in-laws, friends, doctors, bank, etc. has - plus all those tele-marketers. My wife and I each have a cell phone, so what do we do with that home phone number?

RCF (remote call forwarding) from Verizon is about $40.

Posted in telecommunications, unified communications, voip

VoIP Is Taking Off

June 7, 2009

The financial activity in the ITSP sector that I am seeing leads me to believe that the ITSP sector is taking off.

Cypress buying up Reignmaker assets.
Telesphere got $15M for expansion.
XCast collecting a $2.7M investment.
Forbes publishes an article titled The Value of VoIP.

Although there have been analysts who think that IP Lines will slow down, I have to think that in the economic reality we are facing, the distributed workforce, the tele-worker, and the mobility of employees, more and more lines will move to VoIP. For cost savings as well as productivity reasons.

If lines do slow down it will be due to the following reasons:

layoffs - less employees = less lines needed
mobility means less landlines needed
email, social networks, IM/chat, texting is replacing phone calls.
over all trend for less phone calls.

There are so many reasons for small and medium businesses (and self-employed persons) to migrate to VoIP that I don't see it being stagnant for long.

Who to go with?
The one issue is the share number of VoIP Providers (with little differentiation) makes the decision difficult for the business owner.

Premise versus Hosted
The premise hardware guys are selling their gear as if it was hosted at your site. Many business owners aren't familiar with having such a significant communication service outsourced (off property). It's a strange concept to wrap your head around.

Posted in Marketing, PBX, economy, sales and selling, smb, voip

Transformational?

May 29, 2009

I'm watching two conversational threads right now. One about Google Wave, which as Andy Abramson writes:

I'll refer to Wave as transformational, as its not revolutionary, but moves work flow from asymmetrical to both symmetrical and asymmetrical universes simultaneously, changing how you work both in real time and offline time.

Google has built a "communications" object that is full of capabilities that creates hybrid communications that are going to be a blend of games, email, IM, blogging, wikis, and a lot more.

I haven't seen the Wave demo (see a review here), but the reactions have been nothing short of WOW, even more than when Google Voice launched.

Posted in cellular, telecommunications, voip, wireless

8x8 Co-Brands Aastra Phones

May 26, 2009

Posted in voip

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