The plan for the weekend was to use apple wood to smoke two turkeys (for an office party), wieners, andouille sausage, brats, fresh kielbasa, cheese, chicken wings and bacon. All of this fit on the smoker with room to spare and the flavors were awesome. While finding a slab of bacon is not easy and sliced bacon is now cheaper, the result was nothing short of fantastic. I will smoke more of this in the very near future. That leaves the turkeys as the centerpiece for this blog. I know most of you are not going to smoke a turkey for Thanksgiving, but if you have the tools, you should seriously consider doing so.

Normally, I smoke turkey using either hickory or mesquite, but this year, I choose apple wood. Between the three woods, hickory and apple are my favorites. However, in order to have a great turkey, smoked, deep-fried or roasted, you must brine the bird for at least 24 hours and up to 72 hours. The brine should consist of these ratios: 1-quart water, 4 teaspoons salt and 4 teaspoons lemon juice. If you like a little sweetness, add 2 teaspoons sugar. It will take several quarts of water to cover your turkey. Either use a large roasting bag, trash bag or, in my case, a medium sized cooler. I begin the process while the turkey is still partially frozen, and use ice to replace the last quart or so of water. I then add ice every morning and evening to keep the bird cold, removing excess water as necessary. Cook with whatever method pleases you and enjoy a great bird on Thanksgiving!

Healthcare...

As congress moves forward on this gargantuan healthcare bill, I feel a bit of regret. When the topic of healthcare reform became a priority for this congress and the Obama administration, I felt a bit of hope for the many laid telecommunications workers out there that cannot afford their COBRA payments. For those of you fortunate enough not to know what COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) is; it provides an ex-employee the option of continuing their health care coverage until they find other employment or purchase private insurance. However, a laid off worker has no income and budgeting as much as $1500 a month for family coverage can be daunting. Moreover, when facing an extended period where employment is slowed as telecom did in 2002 and now, it is money needed for basic food and housing. It is unclear how the current bill would address these laid off telecom workers.

Next most ISPs and ITSPs are SMBs and providing healthcare to their work force is an ever growing expense. Premiums continue to go up faster than inflation and annual adjustments to employee contributions become necessary. This is not a sustainable model.

The current debate focuses on hot button political issues like abortion, taxing the rich, illegal immigration, etc. The thousands of workers in our industry and other SMBs like Broadvox need legislation that will ease the concerns of the unemployed and stabilize the cost of providing healthcare insurance. At present, I do not believe either of the above will be properly addressed. As usual, I continue to see overreach and partisan positioning. This should be disconcerting to all of us.

Last year I asked you to think of Brianna Sharp as she fought an inoperable brain cancer. Regrettably, she died in July of this year. However, those that knew her celebrated her life and the way she faced her cancer. On Thursday, we should look again at our families and friends and be thankful.

See you next Monday!

Related Entries
• A Whole Lot of Smoke, Food and Health Care - Nov 23, 2009
  
• Shepherds Look towards the Clouds - Sep 28, 2009
  
• Sotomayor and Net Neutrality - Aug 07, 2009
  
• USF and Net Neutrality - Nov 13, 2008
  
• Success with Digium IOT - Nov 18, 2009
  
• Umami in Food and Telecom - Nov 09, 2009
  
• Channel Manager Qualities - Oct 28, 2009
  
• Cloud Computing Applications and Impact - Sep 30, 2009
  
• Service Providers and Business VoIP Security - Jul 17, 2009
  
• Mirepoix, Classic...Next Generation, Priceless - Jul 08, 2009
  

Comments on this Entry:

(Lorna Lyle on Nov 23, 2009 3:31 PM) David, all that smoked food sounds tantalizingly delicious! Your co-workers are lucky to be feasting on those goodies. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

The plan for the weekend was to use apple wood to smoke two turkeys (for an office party), wieners, andouille sausage, brats, fresh kielbasa, cheese, chicken wings and bacon. All of this fit on the smoker with room to spare and the flavors were awesome. While finding a slab of bacon is not easy and sliced bacon is now cheaper, the result was nothing short of fantastic. I will smoke more of this in the very near future. That leaves the turkeys as the centerpiece for this blog. I know most of you are not going to smoke a turkey for Thanksgiving, but if you have the tools, you should seriously consider doing so.

Normally, I smoke turkey using either hickory or mesquite, but this year, I choose apple wood. Between the three woods, hickory and apple are my favorites. However, in order to have a great turkey, smoked, deep-fried or roasted, you must brine the bird for at least 24 hours and up to 72 hours. The brine should consist of these ratios: 1-quart water, 4 teaspoons salt and 4 teaspoons lemon juice. If you like a little sweetness, add 2 teaspoons sugar. It will take several quarts of water to cover your turkey. Either use a large roasting bag, trash bag or, in my case, a medium sized cooler. I begin the process while the turkey is still partially frozen, and use ice to replace the last quart or so of water. I then add ice every morning and evening to keep the bird cold, removing excess water as necessary. Cook with whatever method pleases you and enjoy a great bird on Thanksgiving!

Healthcare...

As congress moves forward on this gargantuan healthcare bill, I feel a bit of regret. When the topic of healthcare reform became a priority for this congress and the Obama administration, I felt a bit of hope for the many laid telecommunications workers out there that cannot afford their COBRA payments. For those of you fortunate enough not to know what COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) is; it provides an ex-employee the option of continuing their health care coverage until they find other employment or purchase private insurance. However, a laid off worker has no income and budgeting as much as $1500 a month for family coverage can be daunting. Moreover, when facing an extended period where employment is slowed as telecom did in 2002 and now, it is money needed for basic food and housing. It is unclear how the current bill would address these laid off telecom workers.

Next most ISPs and ITSPs are SMBs and providing healthcare to their work force is an ever growing expense. Premiums continue to go up faster than inflation and annual adjustments to employee contributions become necessary. This is not a sustainable model.

The current debate focuses on hot button political issues like abortion, taxing the rich, illegal immigration, etc. The thousands of workers in our industry and other SMBs like Broadvox need legislation that will ease the concerns of the unemployed and stabilize the cost of providing healthcare insurance. At present, I do not believe either of the above will be properly addressed. As usual, I continue to see overreach and partisan positioning. This should be disconcerting to all of us.

Last year I asked you to think of Brianna Sharp as she fought an inoperable brain cancer. Regrettably, she died in July of this year. However, those that knew her celebrated her life and the way she faced her cancer. On Thursday, we should look again at our families and friends and be thankful.

See you next Monday!

Related Entries
• A Whole Lot of Smoke, Food and Health Care - Nov 23, 2009
  
• Shepherds Look towards the Clouds - Sep 28, 2009
  
• Sotomayor and Net Neutrality - Aug 07, 2009
  
• USF and Net Neutrality - Nov 13, 2008
  
• Success with Digium IOT - Nov 18, 2009
  
• Umami in Food and Telecom - Nov 09, 2009
  
• Channel Manager Qualities - Oct 28, 2009
  
• Cloud Computing Applications and Impact - Sep 30, 2009
  
• Service Providers and Business VoIP Security - Jul 17, 2009
  
• Mirepoix, Classic...Next Generation, Priceless - Jul 08, 2009
  

I will always remember when I was asked while participating on a panel during a past IT Expo if Broadvox was concerned about competing with Verizon and AT&T. I immediately answered with a confident, "No". They will, of course, make more money selling IP communications than Broadvox or any similar ITSP. However, they will not slow our growth or limit our market. We control our own destiny.

A carrier like Verizon and AT&T assume that they will maintain market share due to their size and frankly their customers' lack of desire to pursue competitive offerings. My favorite example continues to be Verizon FIOS. Verizon sells it as an alternative to DSL and cable, but they will also add voice services via IP. Now, do they pass any of the savings to their customer base? Absolutely not. In fact, A Verizon spokes person made it very clear that their IP Voice service was not as good as their TDM/traditional voice service. However, they were still going to charge the same for either service. How ridiculous is that? First of all, the cost to provide VoIP is much less than VoTDM. At Broadvox, we are fairly confident that most customers that switch to us will save around 50% versus similar services from a LEC like Verizon or AT&T. Moreover, we also know they continue to play a FUD game when saying that the service is not as good. They do not want to see their business customers rushing to switch to VoIP service as provided by them or us. It would seriously unbalance their networks and jeopardize their revenue streams.

However, their audacity never ends. In an attempt to explain to the State of Florida why they did not meet the state standards for timely phone line repairs.  John Bonomo, a Verizon spokesperson, pointed to the standards and the consumers or customer-base as being at fault. He boldly noted that when landlines failed in the 1970s most customers voluntarily stayed home from work the next day to wait for repair crews because they had no communication alternatives. Today, however, with cell phones as an alternative, they push back repairs to accommodate their schedules. Can you believe that? It's our fault that they can no longer inconvenience us.

While the standard may have been a bit tight in they should address network issues within 24 hours, where scheduling was not an issue they only resolved 15.5% of out-of-service gripes within 24 hours - down from 50% over the same months in the previous year.

So...does Broadvox relish competing against the LECs in this space? In the words of a well-known ex-governor, "You betcha!

As communication services become more varied and competitive, true customer service and high levels of customer satisfaction will increase as priorities for businesses and consumers. We will continue to see a flood of new business as their markets transition from TDM to VoIP/SIP Trunking. Our 99.99%+ network availability, tremendous cost savings, better feature offering and company culture to deliver better service than expected, should provide us the opportunity for another record year of growth.

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Previously I have stated that Broadvox has successfully completed interoperability testing (IOT) with more equipment manufacturers than any other ITSP. That is still true. In fact, this year's IOT list is very impressive with the addition of Avaya, Mitel, Panasonic, ESI, NEC, Samsung, Xorcom and Zultys. I may have missed a couple and to you I apologize in advance. We recently completed formal certification with Digium after asking for over a year. Frankly, I had just about given up. But, the real question is why do we need to perform all of these tests? And when will they no longer be necessary?

Why?

The Internet engineering Task Force (IETF) is an open community of network engineers, vendors, researchers and service providers. It is open to any interested individual. It is an organization built with the overall culture of the Internet in mind. It includes the large and the small, the influential and the lesser known, the rich and the poor and... This effort is a consensus model, allowing disagreement to exist within the Internet community and the various standardization efforts. The best example is the use of either UDP or TCP for SIP. Either is acceptable although they are completely incompatible. A consensus model makes few demands and offers too many options. The specifics of how things must work do not sufficiently out weight the available options. Therefore, Broadvox and many others must perform IOT or face the unwelcomed situation where a service will not work with an OEM's product. The range of products is enormous when all IP PBXs, IADs and multi-media gateways are included as potential participants. Like most service providers, we use market share to establish who receives priority but we do not exclude anyone. Hence, the largest number of completed IOTs.

When will it end?

The more formal standard organization, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), has only countries as its formal voting members, with companies having a lower level of membership and needing to work through their national delegations. Additionally, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has only nations as members and subdivides their membership based upon their level of standards sophistication and size of economy. The ITU and ISO standards are more rigid and result in, well, standardization. If the IETF remains a consensus driven group without sufficiently defining functionality for richly featured products, then IOT will be a mainstay as a result. The belief that SIP will evolve into a rock solid implementation like T1s or PRIs may be misguided.

The work done by the IETF is very important and impactful. Given the focus and interest of the body is the evolution of the Internet, better standardization would help all of us, including the IP community and ecosystem.

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The past week was a culinary delight. I made Veal Oscar (veal scallops, lobster and white asparagus), blue corn chip smoked chicken nachos, chicken cordon blue and pappardelle with Bolognese sauce. Obviously, some tasty offerings. However, as I have noted to several of you, I normally cook without a recipe. Therefore, I have to decided prior to making a dish that I am going to record ingredients, amounts, temperatures and cooking times. I did that for the Veal Oscar but there are too many separate elements to the dish (asparagus boiled in milk, butter poached lobster (this was great! I am definitely poaching in butter again), and a Béarnaise sauce). It seemed a bit much for types of recipes I have been sharing. So, it fell to the side dish for the recipe of the week, Potato and Leek Gratin. This was a surprising winner. In fact, because it won, I may need to share with you a potato and bacon gratin sometime during the winter. What made the dish so special was the addition of the leeks and crispy cubes of pancetta. This is dish will become part of my regular rotation. Meaning, I will probably make it twice in a given year. J So to all you potato and cheese lovers out these, please make Potato and Leek Gratin.

And now for the final two of the Top 5 most ridiculous things I have ever heard:

4.       "The Paperless Office" 1980s, 90s, 00s and forever; a paperless office is neither achievable nor desirable. Simply put, there are uses for paper. Now before, you think I am a paper person, most of my co-workers, business associates and family, will advise you that I seldom want to see anything printed. I prefer it electronically, then I can carry it with me wherever I go. I like the idea of electronic books, I just don't want to carry another device other than my laptop. The last time I heard the phrase "Paperless Office" was just two weeks ago during the Partner event held by Adtran. One of their hospital customers was describing a recently deployed solution that was described as a step towards a paperless office. His point (and mine) is that going paperless is not possible. There will always be valid irreplaceable uses for paper. However, minimizing the use of paper and maximizing the portability of information is a highly desired goal. So why does the concept of paperless office continue? I believe it is lazy marketing. Every marketer that has pushed or used the phrase "paperless office" knew the thought was compromised before it ever left his or her lips. They were more than likely reading it on a printed report, distributing it on a printed brochure, contracting for its ad placement using a printed contract in order to advertise it in a printed magazine. So much for a paperless environment.

5.       "Everybody ...has one...does this...or uses that" Since the dawn of time; I am going to go out on a limb and say that the first use of the phrase was when a prehistoric human (troglodyte) told his significant other that everyone had a bigger spear than his and sought her permission to procure a bigger spear. I heard this phrase used in September during IT Expo and I bit my tongue. The presenter was saying everyone used Gmail and was looking forward to Google Voice. I am going to out myself now...I do not use Gmail. I have had a Yahoo! email account since 1993 and see no reason to change. I do not own an iAnything. I do not have an iPhone, iPod nor have I downloaded from iTunes. I do not consider my anti-technology or a late adopter. In fact, I research new technology constantly. However, I require real value to get me to change my behavior. I quickly made the transition from Yahoo for search to Google. However, while I have a twitter account, I do not tweet nor follow anyone on twitter...yet. Most of us do not use Google voice, Android, Picasa or Chrome. Feel good. You are not alone. Beyond Google, most of us also do not visit Hulu, Second Life or regularly maintain a Facebook account. Remember it was probably your mother who first admonished you to consider a reason other than "everyone" for doing almost "anything". "Everyone" is not doing "anything".

All right, enough of the fun stuff. I will get back to Broadvox and IP Communications on Wednesday. See you then!

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I have been in telecommunications for nearly thirty years and it seems that every year I hear yet another ridiculous forecast regarding future behavior or technology. It seems we can always find a way to overstate or overhype just about anything. Here is my Top 5 list.

1.       "With video conferencing, air travel will be eliminated as a business expense" 1980s; obviously, this did not occur in the 80s, 90s or 00s. Yet, today, we continue to hear how video conferencing will eliminate the need for face-to-face meetings. The term for the next few years is video presence. A Video presence experience is said to be the "same" as being in the room together. Perhaps that line should be added to the list. When I assumed sales at Broadvox, I proposed the sales team get together twice a year. Our CEO, Andre Temnorod, vetoed that and decided upon once a quarter. Currently, we have a weekly call and that could indeed be enhanced by a video presence solution except that it would really eat into their time and my budget to find and rent video presence rooms for people scattered across the country working from their home offices. Moreover, the team building and camaraderie developed by the quarterly meetings would be lost using video presence technology. Video conferencing has its uses for collaboration, interviewing, meetings, etc. However, it will not eliminate air travel.

2.       "With the Internet, people will not need to leave their homes" 1990s; this went hand in hand with the supposed demise of brick and mortar. Why would anyone need to go shopping ever again? Just sit by your computer and purchase whatever you need, communicate with anyone on the planet and eliminate maintaining personal hygiene. Okay, the last is a bit of an overstatement but the point is there was the assumption that because this new technology existed, people would change their entire behavior. I knew this was going to be impossible. First of all, people who love to shop find the activity of going to the mall/store as more of an event than the pursuit of item acquisition. The activity is about research, connecting with family, friends and community, eating and sometimes adding entertainment (going to a movie). No matter how fast we make the internet, no matter how rich the medium becomes, people will still want to shower and leave their homes.

3.       "The next wave of employees entering the workforce communicates in 140 characters per session." 2000s; oh really...most studies show that it is the current group of employees that are using Twitter verses teenagers. In speaking to our youngest employees in the office about this statement, they unanimously (two to zip) reacted with a strong no to 140 characters being enough to communicate their varied interests. A more accurate assessment of the next generation is that they will use more forms of communication than any previous generation. They will need more bandwidth, adopt new technologies faster and find more value in communication tools and media than any previous generation. Think about the means used today by the current group of teenagers; texting, email, IM, virtual communities, Facebook, Skype, Google Voice, FileDropper, Picasa, iPhoto, Twitter and this list goes on and on. 140 characters cannot nor will not support the diverse communication requirements for the next generation. Employers should prepare for the introduction of these and future communication means into their IT infrastructures and business practices.

I am running a bit long. I'll hit four and five on Monday along with another new recipe. Have a great weekend!

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Perhaps, I was a bit hasty in describing the growth of SIP Trunking last week. Yes, a SIP Trunk is expected to be the second most installed type of trunking service (behind T1s) and a majority of medium to enterprise businesses has plans to install SIP in 2010. Additionally, the global market for VoIP is now described as having exceeded $20 billion for the first six months of 2009 (Infonetics). Finally, the number one driver for the transition to VoIP/SIP Trunking is the dramatic cost savings which during these economic conditions can make a CIO a hero within the company. All is true but are there other reasons?

SIP Trunking by its nature provides several highly desired capabilities and they are usually available at no cost (at least from Broadvox). These include dynamic load balancing, business continuity/disaster recovery and a foundation for Unified Communications (UC).

Dynamic load balancing can be provided based upon capacity, available resources, time and geography. I think too few of our customers actually look at their call centers and support organizations with the expectation of engineering the SIP Trunk to reflect the organizational requirements. However, a SIP Trunk can divert traffic between multiple locations/PBXs upon arrival, rotating or balancing the work load between locations. It can also send traffic to multiple locations in an unbalanced way if the resources or number of people varies between the locations. Finally, traffic can be moved to different locations in conjunction the starting and ending of the business day or more specifically, where the receiving and calling organization is on the planet. Utilizing dynamic load balancing results in better call distribution, service delivery and customer satisfaction.

Business Continuity is often associated with disaster recovery because it is an obvious capability meeting an obvious need. However, Business continuity can also be engaged to address business expansion. When a business decides to upgrade equipment, open a new facility or even perform scheduled maintenance, business continuity can be used to minimize service interruptions and downtime. SIP Trunking can be used to maintain priority and routine business processes during these kinds of projects. Business continuity can be provided on a continuous basis (disaster backup) or as needed basis (transition or project activity).

Unified Communications is definitely a buzz word. However, the roles that SIP as a protocol can play in support of UC are not. The protocol was always expected to do more than support improved VoIP calling (described it as "Business Ready VoIP"). Consequently, SIP has been designed to manage instant messaging, video and collaborative conferencing calling (Genius Room) and other UC related applications.

Never to forget the cost savings; remember Broadvox sells a basic line for as low as $12.75 which is usually at least 50% less than a legacy service provider. And being able to minimize or eliminate underutilized PRIs can product significant savings as well.

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While we were educated with the understanding of four tastes (sweet, sour, salty and bitter), umami has been recently added as a fifth basic taste. The word is Japanese and in English we sometimes refer to umami as being savory. Foods that deliver umami include meats, broths, cheese and mushrooms (dried have more than fresh). The recipe for today includes a flavor that I also consider umami, smoke. The apple wood smoke cheese used in the Macaroni and Cheese was made in my new smoker. Smoked foods are clearly not in the basic four taste groups and the savoriness of something smoky certainly pushes it towards umami. If you do not have smoked cheese you can use other cheeses. I will also add things like bacon, chopped tomatoes, shallots and cheese mixtures to this recipe. The basic recipe supports all kinds of baked dishes. So make take and look and enjoy umami with this Smoky Macaroni and Cheese recipe.

Umami in Telecom

As the sides begin to square off on net neutrality and access charges, it comes to my mind that we need more than two opinions. The left vs. right, Republican vs. Democrat answer to these issues is too simplistic and off base. As the FCC considers the best way to address Net Neutrality, the large carriers and cable companies, need to be viewed differently from the smaller ITSPs, like Broadvox and ISPs. Moreover, the FCC should take note of how the product was sold and what features or services were identified with the offering. It is not right that Verizon can decide to give priority to applications sold under its FIOS offering over those a user adds. If I want VoIP to have a higher priority than video, it should be my choice. If I want a gaming application to have a higher priority that again should be my choice. As for managing the packets to maintain network performance, I would approach this argument with caution.  Carriers are over stating the risk to performance in delivering the services consumers have either ordered or subscribed.

The Internet in the 90s was often described as having the rules of the "wild west". I believe in both an open Internet and one with reasonable guidelines. The current rules as proposed by the FCC should concern any and all facilities based IP communications carriers. The FCC should be looking at multiple factors prior to advocating government involvement in how networks are to be deployed, operated and managed. I am not one who believes that everything the government touches fails. However, there are too many examples of where failure was caused by over-reaching or over legislating. The IP community or ecosystem has many players with varying priorities. Let us hope that as net neutrality and other contentious issues are addressed, the FCC can find umami or another point of view that is better than the suggested yin and yang.

See you on Wednesday...

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Adtran held an interesting partner event this week in Huntsville, Alabama. Broadvox was invited to attend as we are one of their SIP Trunking service providers. I went with relatively modest expectation and no specific agenda. Upon landing I shared a shuttled with one of our better VARs from the Dallas area. This allowed us to get caught up on some deals that have been languishing for several months, enterprise, of course. The first person I saw in the lobby prior to registering was Rich Tehrani. Of course, he and I speak at each of the IT Expos but this week it gave me a chance to discuss a little about the industry and my new smoker. And finally, our Adtran host for the two days, Ted Cole, VP Channel Sales, was an old friend and co-worker from my days at Tandem Computers, now the HP Non-Stop product line. But what did I learn?

Adtran put on a good event with Tehrani discussing current and future industry trends. The Adtran product managers positioned their offerings with the support of end-user testimonials, and Adtran gave us the opportunity to see their campus and visit with other executives. Broadvox has been sold in conjunction with the Adtran 900 series for quite a few installations and we are certified with the NetVanta IP PBX supporting the SMB market. Broadvox is also a customer of Adtran with its products integrated into our private IP Network. It was a good two days.

Jawbone, What a device!

Returning from our vacation last week, we had a lot of laundry. I mistakenly left my Jawbone earpiece in a pair of my shorts and it went through the full wash and dry cycles. My wife handed it to me hoping it would be okay. I had little doubt it was toast. My first attempt to turn it on failed. I decided to charge it. Surprisingly, it indicated that it was charging and three hours later, it turned on. It works just fine, and it is cleaner; an amazing device.

SIP Trunking

Broadvox has had an amazing year of growth with SIP and market is seeing its adoption rate accelerating. According to Infonetics, 39% of respondents representing medium to large companies have deployed SIP Trunking and intend to expand the deployment across their companies. In a separate report the entire VoIP Market is reported to have grown to $20.7 billion for the first half of 2009. Whether the growth is attributed to current economic conditions or acceptance of the technology remains debatable. My opinion is that the economy is driving the business adoption rate and broader deployment of technology options (Skype, Google Voice, VoIP via Cable or Fiber) are improving the residential adoption rates; comments are welcomed.

See you on Monday!

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• Success with Digium IOT - Nov 18, 2009
  
• Potato Cheesiness and the Top 5 Most Ridiculous Things I Have Ever Heard Part II - Nov 16, 2009
  
• The Top 5 Most Ridiculous Things I Have Ever Heard - Nov 13, 2009
  
• The Rise of the SIP Trunks - Nov 11, 2009
  
• Umami in Food and Telecom - Nov 09, 2009
  

My weekend was fantastic! Great food was eaten and my new smoker was delivered. 84 inches of smoking prowess, nearly 800 pounds of steel and 3269 square inches of cooking surface. Okay back to the food, we had a nice pasta dish on Saturday with fresh mozzarella and cherry tomatoes and Sunday bacon wrapped filet mignon with a smoky pepper sauce. However, the recipes of the day are a pair of appetizers. We were shopping in my favorite grocery store, Central Market, and offered a taste of a smoked shrimp and cream cheese spread. My first sample tasted only of the supporting cracker. Therefore, on my second sample I ate only the spread. It tasted only of cream cheese. I could not discern either shrimp or smoke. With a new smoker begging to be broken in I decided that my first efforts would be to cold smoke a few items and make my own spread. According to the manufacturer, the smoker should be operated for four hours empty to burn off the impurities on the metal. After a thorough cleaning and rub down with peanut oil, I lit a fire and heated the smoker to its rated hot temperature of 275^o for six hours. Sunday morning, I started a fire but kept the temperature below 100^o and cold smoked with apple wood some bacon, salmon, shrimp, cheddar cheese and cod. Everything but the cod came out great. I later used the bacon to wrap the steaks and it seasoned the pepper cream sauce with just the right amount of smokiness. The shrimp and salmon were used to make the cream cheese spreads; Smoked Shrimp and Cream Cheese and Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese. These spreads will do your tongue proud. Enjoy!

FCC unanimously approved Net Neutrality Rules

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) focuses on six principles. The first four were issued August 5, 2005.

(1)    Consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice

(2)    Consumers are entitled to run applications and services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement

(3)    Consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network

(4)    Consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.

 The two new principles are:

·         Non-discrimination (to ensure that service providers cannot block or degrade lawful traffic over their networks)

·         Transparency (a rule that will require broadband ISPs to fully disclose how they are managing their broadband networks and how those techniques could affect customers).

The FCC stressed broadband service providers will be able to manage their networks with regard to applications and usage. This is going to be a very tricky thing to write up, monitor and police. For example, Commissioner Robert McDowell believes the delivery of bits for a video application should get priority over bits associated with an email. This seems reasonable, however, when do the email bits get sent? And what is the priority of email verses text, verses VoIP, verses a gaming application? The FCC may find that they have opened up a Pandora's Box.

Related Entries
• Umami in Food and Telecom - Nov 09, 2009
  
• Loco SuperComm and Comptel - Oct 26, 2009
  
• Getting Jerked Around... - Oct 12, 2009
  
• Peek-a-boo Julius Genachowski - Aug 28, 2009
  
• Sotomayor and Net Neutrality - Aug 07, 2009
  
• The Right to Bear IP - Jun 19, 2009
  
• The Senate Hearings Have Begun - Jun 17, 2009
  
• Wash the FUD out of Your Mouth - Apr 17, 2009
  
• Roasted Beets and Net Neutrality are on the Menu - Mar 09, 2009
  
• Italian Lasagna and an FCC Update - Feb 18, 2009
  

Continuing with Wednesday's message, a good channel manager should be...

Trainer: Selling another's company's product is not easy. It requires the VAR to represent another company's product as if their own. This requires a thorough understanding of the product including technology, value proposition, features, ROI, TCO, support and maintenance requirements and how it will fit into the VARs overall business. Additionally, the VAR must represent the company or in this case Broadvox. They must understand who we are, our corporate culture as it relates to product reliability, support, financial strength and integrity. A channel manager must educate his VARs with this information and point them to other resources provided by the service provider to deliver this information.

Advocate: A major responsibility of the channel manager is to be an advocate for his channel members as they encounter valid needs in the market. Partners may require better marketing materials, new features to the product offering, new products, sales support, and my least favorite, non-standardized product discounts or new pricing. Being an advocate does require the channel manager to have the ear of management within the channel organization and that brings me to a final quality.

Great Employee: While it is popular to say "I work for you" to a channel member or even "My success depends upon your success", it is equally relevant for the channel manager to be viewed as a good employee of the company. Having the ear of management, knowing how to access and secure internal resources, and being view as a valuable employee are very important. The enthusiasm that the channel manager exhibits to his channel partners must also extend internally to his company. A good channel manager projects an image or persona that reassures the company and the channel member that he has their best interests at heart. I do not want to second guess my channel managers. When a request is made for resources, new features, new products, or the dreaded pricing flexibility, I want to believe that the channel manager has already considered the impact on the business of the partner and ours.

Being a channel manager is an exciting position to hold within a company. I find it exhilarating positioning hundreds to thousands of other sales people to sell my company's product. Indirect sales is where a person can best utilize their sales and marketing skills. Too often the position is viewed solely as sales; however, without marketing skills and overall business acumen, a channel manger will not succeed.

So as I interview candidates these next few weeks, I keep these thoughts upper most in mind and I think about the people we currently have. We are building a strong and talented team at Broadvox. Hopefully, the members of our channel see it that way as well.

See you on Monday with a new recipe! Enjoy the weekend!

Related Entries
• The Broadvox First Quarter Sales Meeting and 2009 - Jan 16, 2009
  
• Channel Manager Qualities - Oct 28, 2009
  
• Writing the Customer a Monthly Check (Case Study I) - Aug 12, 2009
  
• ROI, TCO and Bread - Nov 19, 2008
  
• Pan Roasted Chicken and a Little Reminder... - Oct 05, 2009
  
• The Broadvox VAR On-Boarding Process... - Jul 29, 2009
  
• We are the Champions..We are Agnostic! - Jun 03, 2009
  
• SIP...It's the RAGE Part II or Who's Buying? - Apr 24, 2009
  
• FUD and TAG - Apr 15, 2009
  
• Pork Rib Roast and FUD - Apr 13, 2009
  

Most of us have an immediate reaction to what makes a good channel program. I often see columns stating the top ten elements or criteria for selecting or participating in a channel program. Some of these are not debatable.

·         Recurring commissions

·         Prompt payment

·         Marketing and lead generation

·         Training

·         Reliable product

·         Competitive feature set and pricing

·         Access to operational tools and systems

·         Financial stability

The order of the above may be questioned and some may want to add a phrase or two but the essence of a good channel program will contain all of the above. However, I have read nothing that describes perhaps the next most important resource/component of a good channel program, the channel manager.

A good channel manager will work as an effective interface between the master agent, agent, VAR or dealer and the telecom service provider. A good channel manager brings a broad range of skills to the position and learns to leverage the capabilities of the service providers to best support the agent. So since Broadvox is expanding its channel manager team, what qualities am I looking for in a channel manager?

Experience: Since many of our VARs and agents are independent business owners, I want someone who can bring business acumen to the position. Having been a small business owner, I do not have time for junior sales people or individuals that have not faced the fire of selling. My first choice is to hire an experience channel manager; second choice is an experienced sales person; third is an individual with an entrepreneurial background. In each case, the experience brought to the table to complement that of the VAR or agent in understanding the demands of running a small business and the need to succeed.

Industry Credibility: Telecommunications and Information Technology are industries that thrive on acronyms and technological innovation. Convergence has exacerbated the confluence of terms and knowledge requirements by combining the two industries together. In many businesses, IT controls the both the telecom technology (IP communications) and the telecom budget (ITSP, Broadvox). Having a channel manager that can move between these two industries with a good understanding of each is very important. Bringing an understanding of the reliability concerns of telecom and the security and efficiency concerns of IT helps a lot in positioning what is arguably an early adopter product.

More on Friday...

Related Entries
• Pork Rib Roast and FUD - Apr 13, 2009
  
• The Broadvox First Quarter Sales Meeting and 2009 - Jan 16, 2009
  
• Channel Manager Qualities II - Oct 30, 2009
  
• A Very Good Quarter - Oct 09, 2009
  
• Writing the Customer a Monthly Check (Case Study I) - Aug 12, 2009
  
• Mirepoix, Classic...Next Generation, Priceless - Jul 08, 2009
  
• Internal Training, External Success - Jun 24, 2009
  
• Pricing Integrity and Discounting Part II - May 29, 2009
  
• The Value of a VAR - May 22, 2009
  
• Oklahoma and Eurocentric: The Demise of the Landline - May 08, 2009
  

Vacation was very good but good reasonably priced food was difficult to find. I went to Maui for my vacation and discovered that restaurant prices have gone through the roof. Our  favorite places to have dinner now offer $15-20 appetizers with most entrees exceeding $40. This caused us to re-evaluate our dinner plans and seek out venues where the locals ate. Lunch was never a problem because when in Hawaii we take advantage of the fresh fish and eat various Poke dishes. Poke is usually made with raw seafood and varieties include Ahi (Tuna), Tako (octopus), salmon, sea snails and sea clams. We usually have it with a bit of seaweed either green or the reddish brown variety. It's cheap and we can get quite a few varieties at the local grocery stores (Foodland, Star Markets and Safeway). However, dinner proved to be a bit of an adventure. I suggest never going into a Mexican restaurant called Fred's. They were crowded but the food was horrible. Our next try was more successful, a local Irish Pub called the Dog and Duck. We survived quite well splitting our time between the Dog and Duck, Maui Thai, and Cheeseburger Wailea. None of these restaurants serve anything out of the ordinary but on our last day I did try a new dish, Loco Moco. Loco Moco has been a Hawaiian staple since 1949.  It consists of is white rice on the bottom of a plate, topped with a grilled hamburger patty, these two items are covered with a rich diner style brown gravy and then two sunny side up eggs. It is my recipe of the week. It is very filling so I suggest you plan on having a busy day if you start with Loco Moco.

Supercomm

It seems that broadband and more broadband was the primary subject of Supercomm. The show saw a major reduction in the number of exhibitors but between broadband technology announcements and the FCC's newly stated position on Net Neutrality, the show was far from boring. Comptel also took place while I was on vacation. It was bit more interesting for Broadvox as we did have a booth there.

I am getting back into the swing of things and will have more comments on the state thing on Wednesday. Right now I need to tackle a lot of work that has been piling up. See you then.

Related Entries
• Umami in Food and Telecom - Nov 09, 2009
  
• Peek-a-boo Julius Genachowski - Aug 28, 2009
  
• Sotomayor and Net Neutrality - Aug 07, 2009
  
• Super Borscht and SUPERCOMM... - Mar 23, 2009
  
• Genachowski and COMPTEL - Mar 04, 2009
  
• Italian Lasagna and an FCC Update - Feb 18, 2009
  
• Out with the Old and In with the New... - Jan 21, 2009
  
• ...and who will lead us? - Nov 14, 2008
  
• Smokin' and the FCC - Nov 02, 2009
  
• Getting Jerked Around... - Oct 12, 2009
  

The weekend in Dallas was not its usually warm sunny self. The weather was cold, cloudy and sometimes wet. However, it did not deter me from cooking Jamaican Jerk chicken. The reason for cooking the chicken originally arose when I discovered my new manager of Inside sales was from Jamaica. I thought it would be interesting to see if my version was acceptable only to see it evolve into a competition and not with her but with her mother and aunt. This moved the competition into an area that I seriously consider off limits. I mean how do you beat somebody's mama? It's just wrong. But once announced I had no choice but to make my best effort. Our office has twenty people in it so I needed twenty pieces of chicken, not too difficult but bigger than my gas grill. My wife's workplace was also having some sort of celebration and she asked if I could some for them as well. I agreed before asking how many were participating. I was a little dismayed to learn it was another twenty people. This was becoming a catering task rather than a simple competition. Alright so how does one make the perfect Jamaican Jerk Chicken? I won't know until the mamas try mine and announce their verdict. I will describe the process because it is a labor of love. I wanted to recreate the flavor that comes from cooking the chicken in oil drum grills with wood and charcoal as fuel. Here is my version...I marinated the chicken for twenty four hours in water, salt, lemon and lime juice. Remove from and marinade and pat dry, then tossed with soy sauce (1 tablespoon per two pounds of chicken) and Jamaican Country Style Boston Dry Jerk Seasoning. Let this sit for an additional two to four hours. I lightly smoked the chicken with apple wood for twenty minutes. I then grilled the chicken to develop grill marks and a charred flavor. Finally, I roasted the chicken for 20 minutes in a 375^o oven. The final product taste good to me but I will get other opinions today at lunch.

Google and Speakeasy Jerk their Customers Around

A showdown is nearing between the FCC and VoIP service providers that are restricting the termination of calls. Google and Speakeasy have decided to refuse to terminate calls to free conference calling sites, porn sites and certain rural areas. In the case of Google, it is not surprising. There is a higher cost to connect to carriers supporting rural areas. It is hard to support such a service when the price is free. The FCC has opened a docket to address the issue but more than a year has passed with no real action.

Actually there are two key issues at stake. The first issue is which terminating rules apply to VoIP/SIP Traffic. Should Broadvox and other ITSPs be charged Reciprocal Compensation price of 0.07 cents per minute or the standard access charges averaging 3.0 cents per minute? The second issue is whether an ITSP can refuse to terminate certain traffic.

This will bear watching in 2010 when the current FCC may rule on both issues.

I will be going on vacation for the rest of this week and next. The next blog will be delivered on October 26^th.  See you then!

Related Entries
• Cloud Computing Applications and Impact - Sep 30, 2009
  
• Trusted OEMs and the Honest Truth II - Aug 05, 2009
  
• Google, Gizmo...Game On - Jul 31, 2009
  
• The Senate Hearings Have Begun - Jun 17, 2009
  
• SIP...It's the RAGE Part II or Who's Buying? - Apr 24, 2009
  
• Who Do Those Customers Think They Are? - Nov 20, 2009
  
• The Top 5 Most Ridiculous Things I Have Ever Heard - Nov 13, 2009
  
• The Rise of the SIP Trunks - Nov 11, 2009
  
• Umami in Food and Telecom - Nov 09, 2009
  
• Peek-a-boo Julius Genachowski - Aug 28, 2009