First Coffee for August 29, 2005

David Sims : First Coffee
David Sims
| CRM, ERP, Contact Center, Turkish Coffee and Astroichthiology:

First Coffee for August 29, 2005

By David Sims
[email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Alabama’s “Song Of the South:”

Wait, first we have to take our doctor-recommended dose of cancer-preventing antioxidants here, hang on a sec… okay, there we go. Gotta do what’s healthy, y’know.

First CoffeeSM doesn’t much like the dog days of August, when news is scarce on the ground, too much like working for a living. Hey, readers in N’Awlins, isn’t it about time y’all went to stay with your in-laws in Shreveport for a while?

New Zealand is making the most audacious change in the 100-year history of its national telephone network, ripping out its public switched telephone network and hiring Alcatel to replace it with an internet protocol network, at a cost of about $200 million New Zealand dollars, about $139 million in American dollars, The Dominion Post is reporting, citing sources in the national capital of Wellington. Go Kiwis.

“It has already spent about $130 million upgrading its six core telecommunications switches and revamping its billing systems, partly in preparation for the move to IP,” according to the news report.

New Zealand Telecom says the project is part of a $1 billion investment in a next-generation telephony network plan, architected last year “following a recommendation by the Commerce Commission, accepted by the Cabinet, that it would not have to give competitors access to the new infrastructure,” the Post says:

The plan calls for Telecom to get rid of about 600 of its 700 telephone exchanges, replacing the other 100 with fiber optic cable running to roadside cabinets, “the first point of aggregation for home phone lines, typically supporting a few hundred households.” The work is expected to stretch out over several years.

It’s possible that the roadside cabinets will be equipped with remote concentrators allowing Telecom to deliver triple play services of on-demand video, broadband internet and IP-based voice services.

Telecom says it will support traditional switched circuit phone calls until at least 2012, but hasn’t made any promises beyond that.

Whew. Time for more antioxidants, can’t be too careful, cancer running in the family and all that. Yes it’s a hassle, but grandchildren on the knee, clinking champagne glasses on Golden Anniversary, et cetera. Go ahead, twist First CoffeeSM’s arm.
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In related antipodean news, the Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that “West Australian ISP iiNet has launched a nationwide voice over internet protocol service named iiNetphone, the company’s managing director Michael Malone said today.”

The product is only available to those who have a fixed-line service which is bundled with iiNet’s broadband internet plans, the company’s chief technical officer Greg Bader told the Morning Herald.

Subscribers who have a DSL connection with iiNet would first have to take a fixed-line service from the provider in order to get the VoIP service.

IiNetphone is charging no monthly rental fees and has low call rates, with “10 cents being charged for both local untimed calls and calls to capital cities countrywide… national calls outside capital cities would cost five cents per minute over fixed lines.”

First CoffeeSM was reminded by the current issue of The Economist why South Africa, despite its obvious advantages – educated, native English-speaking population, same time zone as Britain, the legacy of a sophisticated business climate – won’t be benefiting nearly as much as it could from the coming explosion in offshoring until it wakes up and smells the antioxidants:

Most importantly, telecoms are stupidly expensive. South African firms pay nine times more than Singaporean ones for broadband, twice what Malaysian ones do for domestic leased lines and, explaining why India’s not sweating South Africa’s challenge to their lucrative offshoring business, local calls in South Africa cost an unbelievable eleven times what they do in India, international calls are 70 percent more expensive and leasing international lines to America is ten times the price of India.

South Africa was bequeathed an efficient telecommunications infrastructure, it’s not like they have to lay cable or try to use 1950s-style equipment, it’s just sheer profiteering by one sector which is damaging the entire country’s international competitiveness.

More antioxidants already, specifically polyphenols? They help ward off cancer, cut the risk of developing diabetes, lower the risk of heart disease? If you say so, here goes.

Be your own blogger! That’s right, schlep around the house in your pajamas, slurping down healthy antioxidants all day while you decide who’s the next prominent liberal journalist to take down.

Scott Delea of Web marketing firm DigitalGrit will be leading a session titled “Advanced Tactics in Search Engine Optimization: Leveraging Your Business Blog for Better Lead Generation” at this year’s DMA B-to-B Marketing Conference in Tucson, Arizona. The conference, organized by The Direct Marketing Association, is scheduled for September 13-15, 2005 at the Westin La Paloma Resort.

Delea will be joined by Scott K. Wilder, Group Manager, QuickBooks Division, Intuit, author of “The Official QuickBooks Blog” and manager of QuickBooks Online Community and Collaboration efforts.

The presentation will be held on Wednesday, September 14th at 1:30 PM. The session will focus on business blogs (short for web logs).

“There’s a lot of discussion about the effectiveness of business blogs for marketing,” Delea says. “I think that many marketers aren’t aware of how positively blogs can benefit their search efforts. In addition to the CRM and PR benefits of business blogs, the powerful combination of RSS and well-written, optimized copy can offer a tremendous leg-up in search engine marketing. Blogs are more than just a tech trend – they’re a must-have for all businesses with an online presence.”

They’re also a great way to meet girls, boost your income and learn to drive the big rigs.

For more information on the DMA’s B-to-B Marketing Conference hit the conference site at http://www.the-dma.org/conferences/dmab2b/index.shtml.

“Honey, any more antioxidants in the pot?” The Associated Press is reporting on a study by St. Joe Vinson of the University of Scranton, which finds that “coffee provides more healthful antioxidants than any other food or beverage in the American diet.

“The point is, people are getting the most antioxidants from beverages, as opposed to what you might think,” Vinson told the AP. “We think that antioxidants can be good for you in a number of ways,” including affecting enzymes and genes, though more research is needed, Vinson said.

Antioxidants, which are thought to help battle cancer and provide other health benefits, are abundant in grains, tomatoes and many other fruits and vegetables. After analyzing “the antioxidant content of more than 100 different food items, including vegetables, fruits, nuts, spices, oils and common beverages,” Vinson’s team calculated how much antioxidant each food contributes to a person’s diet.

The result? “The average adult consumes 1,299 milligrams of antioxidants daily from coffee. The closest competitor was tea at 294 milligrams. Rounding out the top five sources were bananas, 76 milligrams; dry beans, 72 milligrams; and corn, 48 milligrams.”

Studies in the past have found that coffee helps cut the risk of liver cancer, diabetes and falling asleep during Ken Burns documentaries.

Next up: A study finding Irish whiskey is one of the greatest cancer-preventive substances available today.

If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.



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