Book on Selling - with Bonuses

Keith Rosen just launched his second book on selling: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Closing the Sale. (Just $10.14).

You're not an Idiot. You know your product, industry and deliver your service like a true expert. But to reach your goals, make more money and enjoy more free time, you have to close more sales faster.

Traditional and gimmicky closing techniques are dead. Never be scared or reluctant to ask for the sale again and enjoy the confidence and peace of mind in knowing you have a process that works. The greatest salespeople are not great closers; they are skilled openers of new selling opportunities.

Tap into Keith's unique, permission based approach to having a selling conversation with your prospects that fits your style of selling rather than having to 'pitch and close;' the same system that he coaches thousands of salespeople, business owners and managers on each year.

This book gives you the edge over your competition by showing you, step by step, how to get to "Yes" more often by aligning your selling approach with the prospect's preferred buying process and communication style without any pressure, manipulation or confrontation. You'll also get exactly what to say in any selling situation as well as the dialogue that the world's greatest salespeople use to defuse objections, ask for the sale and close the deal.

Plus, over 100 case studies, templates and scripts you can use with Keith's powerful process driven selling approach.

**72 HOUR BONUS: Once you purchase Keith Rosen's new book, you will be given access to additional bonus materials valued at over $1,000 from industry experts, associations and companies. To get these resources, order one copy of Keith's book today. But order right now, as this offer will expire on March 2nd at midnight. Get Keith's book 32% Off and $1,000.00 of Bonus Items

http://www.guidetoclosingthesale.com/booklaunch.php

Google Apps versus

"Google first. The idea is to replace corporate servers and software by using Google's amazing array of football-field-size server farms filled with computers cobbled together with Velcro and duct tape..... Beyond letting a group of people acquire unlimited e-mail accounts for reading and writing while using Web browsers from the PC, Mac and Linux worlds, these accounts contain a calendar that looks simple as solitaire but links to a set of scheduling and contact managing tools. In rivaling the Outlook module in Microsoft Office, they also can be shared and coordinated by network servers just as is done with Outlook on Exchange Server.... With a $19.95 Office Live deal you get 20 e-mail accounts, an Outlook-caliber calendar and contact tool and a serious collaboration module. Ditto Google, only there it's free." [Source]

Google Enterprise Apps 2.0

Google is charging $50 per user per year for an Enterprise version of Google Apps. [source]

Phone Companies Spend More on Lobbyists

This article talks about the millions that BST, ATT, VZ and other phone companies spent on lobbyists JUST in Florida in 2006.

"BellSouth spent at least $1.6-million on Florida lobbyists last year, according to newly filed disclosure reports — more than twice as much as any other business spent to influence state government." For 31 lobbyists, plus the salaries & expenses of the 5 full-time lobbyists that BST employs. "AT&T spent $601,000 to hire 19 lobbyists in 2006." "Verizon and other telephone companies spent about $1-million to hire an additional 63 lobbyists. On the other side, cable companies and the Florida Cable Telecommunications Association spent $571,000 to hire 34 lobbyists. In addition to lobbying dollars, the money has poured in via campaign contributions. Over the past four years, BellSouth and AT&T put an additional $3.5-million into state political campaigns and Verizon and other telephone companies contributed $1.8-million. The cable groups, meanwhile, have dumped $770,141 into campaign coffers. [St. Pete Times]

But this was the best:

“It’s really about opening the marketplace so consumers can have more choices, better services and lower prices,’’ said AT&T spokesman Bill Marks. “Our vision is to be the only company that customers will ever want. We believe House Bill 529 will achieve all of this." [St. Pete Times]

What he meant was: Our vision is to be the only company.

Lots of Political Noise over Muni Wi-Fi

1. ELN Outlines the Process for Muni Wi-Fi [ELN]
2. Civitium Breaks with the Muni Left [Reason.org] (Civitium is a Muni wi-fi consultantcy).
3. How Politics Are Driving Public Broadband Debate [Localtechwire](more from Civitium)
4. The costly debate over free Internet access [Napa] (about Los Angeles wi-fi)
5. TMC's series on Should Wi-Fi be Free
6. AT&T wins Metro Wi-Fi in Napa, CA [telecommunications]

Handsets Drive Cellular

When I explain to people that Handsets are what has been and is driving cellular, many think I am nuts. Yeah? How come most PR from VZW is about its new handsets? The new Treo, the new Blackberry, the new Nokia. Cingular has iPhone - and THAT WILL drive subs. The cellular market is flat now - 200+ million accounts. It is like TV - it is stealing from your competitor. How do you do that? Better network - but that is always a function of where you reside and travel. And the Handset, which ties in with services. It will be the same with Muni Wi-Fi. Watch.

EarthLink ... No Good News from Analysts

Analysts have been beating up ELN due to its losses at Helio [sources: Forbes, Reuters & BizWeek]. Subscriber numbers are declining, enhanced by the termination of ELN's agreement with Embarq. "About 750,000 Embarq DSL customers will lose a part of their online identities this spring, as the local telephone provider ends its email contract with EarthLink." [Teleclick.ca].

Even the Muni Wi-Fi efforts (called Feather) have not had a win - until now: "Southern California Edison Co. has agreed to an EarthLink proposal to build a test network, using Edison's streetlights in Santa Ana" [Muniwireless] But there is still a lot of play left in the Muni space. It will require some Remarkable tactics and strategy. [Call me! I have some ideas for you :)]

With the unexpected and sudden death of their CEO, ELN has some turmoil to deal with.

1. New Edge just announced its new CEO, Linda Beck. But nothing special has happened at NEN, since ELN bought them in December of 2005. I still wonder why Covad is the network of choice for ELN, when they own NEN ?!! That's no way to instill consumer confidence.
2. Helio has Sky Dayton at the helm. He was a founder of ELN and Boingo Wireless. (He isn't going to give up the ship just because of a few hundred million in losses). Helio should be pushing their Hybrid plan: $85 per month for unlimited 3G + Boingo wi-fi access. You pay VZW $60 - and it ain't unlimited either (as you and I define the term).
3. Broadband on MSO and RBOC networks is still chugging along, as a replacement for the declining dial-up market. (Although they just dis-Embarq-ed).
4. ELN still has hosting -- and that is a growth market. And with the addition of WordPress and a Blogger conversion process, it should pick up.
5. Covad DSL.
6. VOIP - Covad line-powered VoIP with Covad DSL and ELN TrueVoice.

It is kind of funny that the one thing ELN was known for, they seem to be failing at: MARKETING. Most jobs at ELN until mid-2006 were Customer Care or Marketing. But ELN needs to improve its marketing of its catalog, especially Helio. Advertising DSL where you just turned up a Muni Wi-Fi network (see Alexandria) is not a profitable use of funds and / or efforts. Now, if you were offering a bundle: VoIP, DSL and Wi-Fi --- that would be something. Plus ELN has outsourced marketing of its VoIP service to TMone.

One issue is that many departments are at odds - DSL, cable, Muni, Covad, NEN. All have numbers to reach, but may have to cannabilize each other to hit those numbers. Not a good internal team strategy. But again: that's just marketing -- internal marketing, but marketing. Everyone has to be on the same plan -- working towards the same goal, same mission, and no one left behind.

A final issue that all ISP's are facing: how to deliver email effectively. There are many complaints about ELN's spam filtering. I have more than 10 email accounts scattered through different hosts - no 2 filter the same. Some too much; some not enough. It is a problem. (What happened to disposable email addresses to thwart spam?)

VZ Marketing for FiOS

(1)VZ has flooded mailboxes, gone door to door and even handed out free ice cream as it seeks to sell its new FiOS television, telephone and high-speed Internet service. Now, the phone company is following Apple Computer Inc. and other high-tech companies that have opened stores in shopping malls to show off their offerings to consumers. Verizon has been particularly aggressive in marketing FiOS as it becomes available.

(2) Contracting to Agents to sell FiOS. Agents then hire tele-marketers:

We are looking for candidates who are Energetic, have a Good Attitude, and a Desire to win. 2020 Companies have been providing high quality, professional marketing and contracting services to the telecommunications, cable and energy industries for over 15 years. We train our representatives to become successful salespeople.

The compensation is paid weekly based on sales results and we have many sales people earning $1,000 to over $2,000 a week. We are rapidly expanding in many markets and we believe on promoting from within. This is a GREAT opportunity for financial freedom. We will be selling Verizon FIOS services to existing customers.[2020companies.com]

Presence will increase Minutes

Alec Saunders blogs about iotum and its new Talk-Now service for Blackberries. Talk-Now is a Presence app. Alec explains Voice 2.0:

Today, callers have no way of knowing whether the party being called is available, or busy, or would consider the call an intrusion. We can all relate to the problem Talk-Now solves on an emotional level — it lets us know when the people we need to speak with are available, so we don't have to play telephone tag.

Broadview Buys InfoHighway

In 2005, InfoHighway merged with Eureka before buying Future Telecom in 2006. In 2006, Broadview bought ATX. Now Broadview is buying InfoHighway to serve 80,000 SMB's in the Eastern corridor from Maine to Virginia on 2300 miles of fiber. Combined revenue is $500M.

Skype at FCC Against Cellco

Telecomweb reports: "Skype wants the Federal Communications Commission to apply the Carterfone decision - the landmark case that opened up the landline phone-equipment industry to competition - to wireless communications. In a petition to the FCC that's started to gain major note around the industry, Skype is seeking rules that would force cellular carriers to allow their customers to run any sort of application they wish on any device connected to carriers' wireless networks." The Carterphone decision is the FCC decree in 1968 that permitted users to connect their own telephone equipment to the phone lines, so you didn't need to buy a PBX or phone from Ma Bell. I can't wait to see how this falls out (think: iPhone and BYO carrier)

VoIP Consolidation

Is this the start of consolidation in the VoIP Provider industry? "VoIP house deltathree has bought the service provider and consumer businesses of fellow VoIP house Go2Call.com, Inc., paying a combination of $7.8 million worth of cash and stock." [Telecomweb]

404 errors for marketing

Entrepreneur.com has an article [here] about using site error pages for marketing. A client sent me this article about how some consumers are upset with Charter cable over DNS re-directs. It really depends on how you set it up. Charter handles it incorrectly. I rep for Bare Fruit and their DNS re-directs and brands database are fully customizable. There are 2 reasons to do this: (1) so that your clients have a better surfing experience. Most people mis-type or misspell domains all the time - and end up at sites that are porn or malware or ad-based. Some people use the address bar as the search engine and end up at bad websites as well. (2) You are losing money. The sites that the surfer is re-directed to makes money -- money you could make instead. You could turn it into a charity drive and a marketing plan to your customers.

Want New Opportunity?

Who doesn't want new opportunities for business? Every business owner does. Do you think about new ways to get business every day? Probably not. Running your business gets in the way. But "success comes from continuous action". Or as my coach, Keith says: If you work the process, your results will come. Don't be task oriented, be process oriented.

Believe me, I understand how the day can run you over, but if you have a schedule or a routine in place that you adhere to, you can work your process (and not stress out). Some of it is delegation. Some of it is triage - what's important, what is important now, what can wait till later. Plug some catch-up time into that schedule as well as some fire-fighting. Schedule real time, not I-hope-it-only-takes-30-minutes. Schedule appointments for Networking every week as well as at least 30 minutes a day to work on marketing.

Need help setting this up? I am available to coach you on it, but it is a work in progress.

Hiring a Branding Professional

I'm not a Branding expert. Jack Trout is. Rob Frankel is. When you advertise, you are building a brand. So you better have an idea what that brand is. And your brand should be consistent - same colors everywhere (website, collateral, print, biz cards, etc.); same font; same colors; same music; same, same, same. Because your brand has to be static - it can't keep changing. To be easy to remember and easy to recognize it needs to be repeated over and over. That's brand management (and you don't need a branding pro for that, your marketing team should be able to do that).

Jack Trout coined the term Positioning. "Positioning is something (perception) that happens in the minds of the target market." Positioning is the 1K of data that any consumer would give your service at a maximum. (Evangelists, Buzz Agents are another story). Consumers don't give you much room in their head. They are bombarded by 15,000+ marketing messages per day. Your message - your brand - has to stick out and repeat itself. Your USP - Unique Selling Proposition - is part of your positioning. [see article here and here.]

If you need a Branding Expert, Entrepreneur.com has an article on hiring one. I can help you with the marketing and sales. Who is YOUR Chief Revenue Officer? Your Chief Customer Care Officer?

How to Write an Ad

Roy Williams says that if you know how to make a sales pitch, you know how to write an ad. He takes you through the steps here.

Local Advertising

Many times when I speak with owners, they say they take business from anywhere. Yeah, you do, but that is not your market. It is easy to take any call that comes in, but to drive up sales, you need to pick a region and beat the bushes. Here's Entrepreneur.com's practical guide to rev up your local web strategy. For the top 15 sites you need to advertise on locally, go to www.entrepreneur.com/checklists/localsites.

E-Evidence

Entrepreneur Magazine (March 2007) writes about "the new rules govern your company’s electronic files. Under amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that took effect December 1, 2006, information stored electronically--including company e-mail--is subject to the same rules of discovery as other evidence." The article talks about spoliation. You need to have a Document Retention Policy; Training; and Monitor e-mail and IM/chat. Just one more reason to offer data storage.

Backup Plan

So Back-up is everywhere and required in many instances, but you just haven't moved yet. At the very least, start offering your clients back-up equipment. Here is an article that reviews a few options for small business at Entrepreneur.com. Here are 3 picks:

1. NAS devices are now easily added to a network through either a wired or wireless Ethernet connection, giving you room to spare. For example, Iomega’s StorCenter Pro NAS 250d 500GB option runs Windows Storage Server R2 and features a built-in 70GB REV backup drive, making it a handy combined storage/backup system for $1,999.
2. The Seagate Mirra Sync and Share Personal Server is a somewhat different beast. It’s designed for home offices, but doesn’t skimp on useful features like automatic network backup, file synchronization between multiple employees and data sharing over the internet.
3. Online storage has become a more viable option for growing businesses and a good complement to NAS. Evault.com

Quote of Note

“AT&T will gain more control over pricing and be able to squeeze some of the smaller carriers out of the market” by CINDY WHELAN, SENIOR ANALYST, CURRENT ANALYSIS [Source: Capacity magazine, Dec. 2006]

Qwest Granted some Forbearance

Released: 02/20/2007. FCC Conditionally Grants Qwest Forbearance Relief from Dominant Carrier Regulation of in-region inter-state inter-LATA telecommunications services provided on an Integrated Basis. (Dkt No 05-333). (FCC No. 07-12). Basically, bundle local and LD together. Teleclick.ca had this headline: FCC Lets Telephone Providers Combine Local and Long Distance Businesses.

"Regulators ruled late on Tuesday that U.S. telephone incumbents would no longer be required to offer local and long distance services through separate entities, which could mean big savings for America’s regional telephone providers." [Source: Teleclick]

From Phone+: "The FCC on Feb. 20 voted 4-0, concurring that Qwest no longer is the dominant carrier in its 14-state region and that it faces intense competition from VoIP, wireless and cable providers. Under a now-expired provision in the 1996 Telecommunications Act, Bell companies were required to run their long-distance businesses separate from their other operations. Qwest had argued it needed to combine its local and long-distance operations to save money and become a stronger competitor. .... The country’s third-largest RBOC filed its forbearance petition with the FCC more than a year ago; Feb. 20 was the deadline for a decision by the commission."

Alltel Earnings Down

1. Alltel had revenue for the quarter of $2.09 billion, compared to $1.84 billion a year before.
2. Alltel reported a profit of $215.9 million
3. For the fiscal year, Alltel's profit was $1.13 billion
4. It spun-off its wireline assets to Valor to create Windstream
5. Alltel "ended the year with only $2.7 billion in outstanding debt and $1.8 billion in outstanding net debt, maintaining one of the strongest balance sheets in our industry."
6. "Alltel added 228,000 customers on a net basis for the quarter"; 640k net for teh year.
7. ARPU was $55.84.

[Source: Yahoo]

Clearwire buys BST Spectrum

The Biz Journal reports that "AT&T Inc. has agreed to sell Clearwire Corp. all 2.5 GHz of wireless spectrum controlled by the former BellSouth Corp. for $300 million in cash....the spectrum is currently located throughout BellSouth's nine-state territory. BellSouth first acquired the spectrum in the 1990s. ... The sale includes BellSouth's education broadband service spectrum, which is reserved for accredited education institutions. The sale also includes broadband radio service spectrum, which is used for the commercial delivery of high-speed wireless broadband services. " [Forbes.com also has some info.] Also, Clearwire is planning an IPO, hoping for $500M.

CALEA, form 445 and FCC form 477

There is a lot of hysteria about CALEA and the 2 forms the FCC is asking for. Form 445 is the CALEA compliance status form due last week. The 477 is the broadband statistical form due March 1. Where's the problem people? Fill the forms out and quit whining. It is the law. Yo umay not like it, but hey I don't like speed limits, but that's the way it goes.

Joel's 7 Steps for Customer Service

Both Joel and Seth have some great posts about Customer Service. Joel's # 8 is big: "Give customer service people a career path."

Will Vonage Survive the VZ Patent Suit?

USA Today writes about the patent suit from VZ against Vonage. "Verizon and Vonage on Wednesday will present opening statements in a patent-infringement case that could have a big impact on consumers and the nascent Internet telephone industry. ... In total, Verizon has 48 different "terms," or patent claims in dispute. In pretrial rulings, Verizon has succeeded in getting broad interpretations of its claims." Packet8 (8x8) is watching the case as well, since they are in a precarious financial position.

Z-Tel Blew $524M!

The Tampa Biz Journal highlights the waste and wonder that was Trinsic (Z-Tel).

Through last September, Trinsic lost more than $524.4 million on revenue of $1.47 billion, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company still has existing debt in excess of $34.5 million that was reported in its bankruptcy filing. At its peak work force, Trinsic employed upwards of 2,000. But it continued to lose money and began mass layoffs in 2002, many of them at its Tampa headquarters, cutting 350 jobs in 2002 and another 150 in 2004. Top management, however, was seeing salary increases and bonuses, according to SEC filings.

Will the FTC Crack Down on False Advertising?

Not many users, see the max speed advertised. Unlimited is certainly anything but, especially on the cellular data networks of VZW. But reports are coming in that the FTC will start to enforce falso advertising claims. All I can say is: It's about darn time! But what can you expect from an F-Agency?

VZ in VZ - No CANTV

In the news, "Telecommunications Minister Jesse Chacon said late on Monday the government will pay US$572 million for Verizon's 28.5 percent stake in Compania Anonima Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela, or CANTV, which Chavez has accused of spying on him at the bidding of the US." VZ just paid the CEO & Prez of CANTV $3.1M. [Source]

VZ Marketing

VZ is marketing well. Contact users about phishing scams is just one way to look like you care and you know what you are doing. [Are you doing anything that pro-active?] Also, according to a press release, VZ is marketing at the African American audience. (I believe VZ already targets the Hispanic market). In addition, VZW just inked a deal for JT-TV with Justin (make-me-puke) Timberlake -- and the Treo 700wx is launching. Sooooo what are you launching??

Embarq FMC

"The EMBARQ Together Plan(SM) offers unlimited local and nationwide long distance calling from the customer's EMBARQ home phone, 350 wireless anytime minutes with their EMBARQ wireless phone and unlimited calling between their EMBARQ Wireless and Home Phones. With one integrated voicemail box, customers are notified on both devices when they have a message and can listen to their messages on either."[Source]

ELN Wins St. Pete

The City Of St. Petersburg (Florida) announced that they have accepted a Muni Wi-Fi Proposal from EarthLink (who beat out locally owned City Wi-Fi Networks who runs the Dunedin network).

According to Wireless Week, EarthLink says the network will take about 6 months to build and will cost around $6.8 million.

A tidbit missed by most: "As part of its proposal, EarthLink has committed to locate its Gulf regional distribution office in St. Petersburg." [Source].

More details from Telecomweb: "The St. Petersburg mesh, at 60 square miles, will be only 10 percent of the size of the massive 600-sq.-mi. mesh EarthLink is to build in Houston - the largest mesh so far announced in North America (of course, they do things big in Texas). Still, St. Petersburg is the first of Florida's 10 largest cities to choose a muni Wi-Fi mesh provider and, thus, represents yet another feather in EarthLink's war bonnet.... EarthLink, which won a 7-1 victory at the St. Petersburg City Council, said it's planning to spend $6.8 million to build the mesh - 2,400 nodes - and a total of $9.3 million in construction and operational costs during the next few years.....Technically, EarthLink still has to negotiate the final details of a contract with the city before it can start building the network but no issues are known to be standing in the way. Assuming all goes according to schedule, the network will be in operation before the end of the year, EarthLink says."

ELN also won the Houston Muni Wi-Fi contract [Source].

Vonage Numbers

Vonage said "its revenue doubled from the fourth quarter of 2005 and its income loss shrank to $65 million. But the stock dropped on news it signed 166,000 new subscribers in the fourth quarter and predicted 676,000 to 876,000 new subscribers in 2007." [Source]. However, this is the lowest subscriber figure for Vonage at a time when Cable VoIP is ramping up. The stock was at a low of $5!

A deeper look at the numbers:

• 4Q06 revenue up almost double from last year to $181M
• year's net loss increased to $286M
• marketing costs were up 50% this quarter to $96M - just 53% of revenue
• marketing expenses for the annum up 50% to $365M
• "marketing costs per gross subscriber line addition have soared to $306 for 4Q06 compared with $249 for the year as a whole [source]
• average monthly customer churn improved to 2.3 percent in 4Q06 from 2.6 in 3Q
• "Average monthly telephony services revenue per line for the quarter was $27.41, an increase of $1.41 from 4Q05. However, Vonage said, the increase was primarily due to regulatory recovery fees and the impact of the Universal Service Fund, which became effective Oct. 1, 2006." [source]

Bleak.

Dire Warnings for the Internet

Google is worried that video will clog the Internet. AT&T is too. But VoIP Weekly has a quote from Deloitte:

"The unrelenting growth in Internet traffic in 2007 also may overwhelm the Internet’s backbone, Deloitte believes. "The terabit-cable pipes connecting continents will reach capacity and ISPs (Internet service providers) will not be prepared to pay for extra bandwidth because consumers will be unwilling to pay increased costs," Deloitte believes. Video is expected to represent a large part of the problem."

I'm going to have to think about how you prepare for that. On the WISPA list, the discussion about bandwidth limits arises often.

Case Study in Service: Jet Blue

Jet Blue blew it last Valentine's Day. A snowstorm in JFK, their hub, stranded thousands - many stuck on planes for 4 to 11 hours. (Documented by the press and blogs like JetBlueHostage). Jet Blue failed on every level of customer service last Wed. The kiosks had no info. The manager with the megaphone walking the terminal did not provide any info. The 800 number was overloaded, directed you to the website, and hung up.

JetBlue has been struggling since early 2006 when their plane lease payments became due. Blue even sent some planes back to Airbus.

This was one of the shining stars in air travel. DirecTV. Nice snacks. Comfy, roomy seats. Not the cheapest either. But all that was damaged - maybe for good - last Wed.

On Tom Peters blog, many think that it is a sympton of the airlines' attitude in general. I agree because most airlines, especially Delta, treat passengers as a nuisance. I'm tired of using tax money to bail out this industry, too. Let them fail. Another company will come along and for a little while provide good service.

My problem with JetBlue is that this isn't the first snow storm - and they had warning. Six years in business, you should have a plan - a procedure - in place to COMMUNICATE with your clients.

the dip - on quitting

Seth Godin spoke about his upcoming book, The Dip, briefly at the seminar last week. It is about the dip in the fun, exciting start-up days and the heady days of hitting 1000 subs. The dip is that dragging, sagging part where real work and energy have to be driven into every effort of the company. Most people are not cut out for it. But the book is also about learning when to quit stuff that you don't have the energy to push to success. You only have finite time and energy -- focus it on the things that WILL be successful.

Paek10 buys bayMountain

Peak 10 buys a Virginia data center to add to its collection. DCJ has the details here.

The Secret of Success

Amazon has a trailer for the DVD of The Secret. Oprah was pushing the Secret (I think the book) last week. What is the Secret? That you are what you think about. If you want something, think about it in a positive way. When an NFL kicker goes to kick, he shouldn't be thinking don't miss. He should be thinking: I am going to kick this through the uprights. It's the Universal Law of Attraction.

AT&T and Microsoft = Web Conferencing

Microsoft is making many plays into the communications realm. Working with Nortel on VoIP. Launching Live Communications Server. (Trying to beat Cisco to the crown of Presence.) Now launching "AT&T Live Meeting which allows people to broadcast presentations and other documents to remote participants". So now M$ has Web Conferencing.

FCC Form 477 Due March 1

The due date for filing form 477 as mandated by law is March 1, 2007. This filing is done every six months and is required by the FCC. The instructions can be found at here on the FCC site.

Wireless ISP's and CLEC's are NOT exempt from this filing.

Facilities-based Providers of Broadband Connections to End User Locations: Entities that are facilities-based providers of broadband connections - which, for purposes of this information collection, are wired "lines" or wireless "channels" that enable the end user to receive information from and/or send information to the Internet at information transfer rates exceeding 200 kbps in at least one direction - must complete and file the applicable portions of this form for each state in which the entity provides one or more such connections to end user locations.

For the purposes of Form 477, an entity is a "facilities-based" provider of broadband connections to end user locations if it owns the portion of the physical facility that terminates at the end user location, if it obtains unbundled network elements (UNEs), special access lines, or other leased facilities that terminate at the end user location and provisions/equips them as broadband, or if it provisions/equips a broadband wireless channel to the end user location over licensed or unlicensed spectrum.

According to this definition, even ISP's buying DS1, DS3, and Metro E private lines from the LEC and CLEC that carriers IP to an end user must file.

It continues:

Such entities include incumbent and competitive local exchange carriers (LECs), cable system operators, fixed wireless service providers (including "wireless ISPs"), terrestrial and satellite mobile wireless service providers, MMDS providers, electric utilities, municipalities, and other entities. (Such entities do not include equipment suppliers unless the equipment supplier uses the equipment to provision a broadband connection that it offers to the public for sale. Such entities also do not include providers of fixed wireless services (e.g., "Wi-Fi" and other wireless ethernet, or wireless local area network, applications) that only enable local distribution and sharing of a premises broadband facility.) For such entities, the applicable portions of the form are: 1) the Cover Page; 2) Part I; 3) Part IV (if necessary); and the relevant portion(s) of Part V.

[Thanks to Rick Harnish of OnlyInternet Broadband & Wireless, Inc. and WISPA founder for posting this and making this post easier.]

Lowest Price Costs $

This is a follow-up post to comments about Firing Clients. Clint mentions low price versus value. And some other emails were about just low price. Let me state for the record that Pricing is probably the biggest problem you face. Many want to be "price competitive" or as close to the bottom as possible.

However, I have sub-agents and prospects and people on isp-bw who want the bottom rate. For me to take the time to shop for that rate has a cost. To only win 10-15% of the time makes it a high cost. (You can be the lowest bidder always -- and even then you may not win). The pay-out is lower because the price was lower. It's an all around losing proposition, because the one that wants the lowest price is usually also a PITA. So support is high on low margins. Why Bother?

Many business owners have visions of tens of thousands of customers. It's a nice vision, but what the focus should be on is adding one valuable and profitable client after another. In scaling an operation to handle a 1000 low paying clients is expensive -- cutting the margin even more. Have only a 100 clients with double the margin means I can give better service to that hundred.

Back to the value. What value? Better customer care for one. Hand holding. Research. Tips. And all the other little things that separate me from the lowball pricer.

Advertising is Changing

The Remote changed TV. TiVo has changed TV. The Internet with its billions of channels has changed TV. So do you think TV advertising will work for you? Especially against a competitor with a much bigger budget?

The challenge is not to yell louder, but to tell a Story that resonates with your audience.

Where is your target market spending its entertainment time? MySpace? FaceBook?

Why Advertising Doesn't Work Any More

Ideas that Spread, Win

Here is a YouTube of Seth Godin. (Some of what he said on Tuesday - the reason I was in NYC so that I could get stuck in the snow). He riffed on this stuff Tuesday:

• Pay Attention
• TV-Industrial Complex, and
• Ideas that Spread, Wins (

Some of You May Understand His Feelings

Here is a series of videos on YouTube called ihatemypartner.com.

Missouri Federal Court vs. VOIP

Because the FCC has yet to rule that VOIP is not a telecom service, federal court ruled in favor of the Missouri PSC. Comcast's Digital Voice service will be regulated like PSTN voice. It can be state regulated, since many calls are intra-state. That means CLEC licensing. IXC licensing.

Missouri utility regulators will pursue action to compel Comcast to apply for an operating certificate for its telephone operation in the state, bolstered by a federal court ruling affirming that state officials have the authority to interpret federal policy on some voice-over-Internet Protocol products. The ruling, issued Jan. 18 by Judge Nanette Laughrey of U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, came in response to a suit Comcast filed last October to determine if the Missouri Public Service Commission lacked legal authority to classify Comcast's Digital Phone product as a telephone service subject to state authority.

Broadcast Newsroom has the details.

Excise Tax Refund

You can use the Excise Tax refund as a reason to contact your customers (or prospects). From Mike Fair on Phone+ blog:

A very interesting area of opportunity of immediate concern is the current activity around the federal excise tax refund that is available to most businesses only during this tax season. As I speak with channel partners, this is a very interesting topic as a few seem to have their arms around it and most partners are not very informed of this immediate opportunity. The excise tax has been a federal charge on long-distance, wireless and other services for quite some time and was recently repealed. Companies must calculate the refund and submit the request on their 2006 taxes (which is as early as March 15 for many companies). The opportunity is substantial as the refund equates to what was paid out over 41 months, plus interest. If companies do not request the refund now they will loose their money. A recent Gartner Group article communicated that it is imperative that companies seek outside experts to apply for this refund. This is an excellent opportunity to show concern for your customers that you can refer them into experts who can help with this task, as well as make some money for yourself by doing so. If you don't do it, someone else will.

I have written about this tax refund before (and here too).

Employee Motivation

Joseph Michelli's book, "The Starbucks Experience", describes the principles needed to have loyal employees, nay evangelists:

• Make it your own;
• Everything matters;
• Surprise and delight;
• Embrace resistance; and
• Leave your mark.

It's more than giving thema title. It involves giving them the ability to interact with customers. During that interaction, the customer can then become a sneezer. The customer goes from being satisfied to being loyal. (As Gitomer says: Do you want a loyal wife or a satisfied wife?)

VZ Wants Federal Funds to Build Rural BB

PCWorld is reporting on a story that Tom Tauke, Verizon's executive vice president for public affairs, policy and communications, is pushing for the US government to adopt a program like ConnectKentucky. ConnectKentucky provides funds for rural BB expansion - so far it has provided 94 percent of Kentucky residents with broadband options. VZ, who has already raised local rates continually since 1999 to fund a FTTH network that promised 45MB to every home, wants RUS money on top of its ridiculous rates and its USF funding!!!! Enough is enough. The company is existing rural areas any way - having sold off Eastern KY to AllTel/Windstream; Hawaii to Carlyle; and NH-VT-Maine to Fairpoint.

Hostopia CEO Resigns and 4Q

Phone+ (where I am now a blogger) is reporting that "John Nemanic has resigned as chairman and director of Hostopia Inc. Nemanic, who has been Hostopia's chairman since 1999, said he wanted to devote more time to other opportunities. The resignation was effective Feb. 9. "It has been my great pleasure to have worked with Hostopia since the company's inception," Nemanic." Colin Campbell is Hostopia's CEO now.

Colin reported 4Q financials:

• Quarterly revenue increased 25% year over year -- to $5.6 million in the three months ended December 31, 2006.
• This growth in revenues was due to a 30% or 57,500 increase in the number of end-users hosted and serviced since December 31, 2005.
• At 12/31/2006, approximately 248,000 end-users were utilizing its services.
• Received $22M of net proceeds from our initial public offering (IPO) to invest in accelerating business growth.
• Cash flows from operations for the nine months ended December 31, 2006 totaled $2.8 million.
• Hostopia invested $2.1 million in capital assets and intellectual property during the same period.
• This resulted in net free cash flow of $0.7 million and when combined with the opening cash position as well as the $22 million in net IPO proceeds,
• Hostopia had $25.7 million in cash and cash equivalents available at December 31, 2006 to invest in its future business growth.

VoIP: Cablevision versus VZ

USA Today details the Voice battle between Cablevision in NY and VZ:

One of cable's biggest VoIP success stories is Cablevision. The New York-based operator started offering "Optimum Voice" in November 2003. Today, it claims 1.1 million phone customers, and continues to add them at a rapid clip. That's impressive: Cablevision only has 3.1 million cable subscribers — far fewer than Time-Warner, with 14 million, and Comcast, with 24 million. That means one out of three Cablevision customers has added Optimum-branded VoIP. The bulk of the buyers are coming out of the hide of Verizon, the dominant local phone company in Cablevision's service area. The secret of Cablevision's success? "Our product has everything the traditional phone product does, plus features it can't offer," according to Tom Rutledge, chief operating officer. Among other things, he notes, Optimum customers can check voice mail on the Web, program home phones with different rings for different callers and monitor call histories. Customers also get unlimited local and long-distance calling and 911 services. Optimum-branded phone costs $14.95 a month if customers also buy Cablevision's cable TV and high-speed Internet service. (Speed: A super-fast 15 megabits-per-second downstream and 2 megabits upstream.) Total package cost: $90 a month for the first 12 months for new customers and $115 a month thereafter. For another $19.95 a month, Cablevision will throw in 250 global calling minutes. Even with these strings, Rutledge says, "You add it all up, and it's a really good value proposition."

Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe counters that there is no mystery in Cablevisions success with VoIP. It has "been essentially giving away (VoIP) service. … So it's a price play, pure and simple." Rabe also says Cablevision's VoIP service is nothing special. "The features Mr. Rutledge describes are common with voice over IP services," he says. That includes "Voice Wing," which is Verizon's VoIP product. Moreover, Rabe says, Verizon can provide many of the same services on the traditional phone, as well. "What competitors don't offer is Verizon's unequaled 99.999% reliability and … customer service," Rabe says, alluding to the Bell's heritage.

VoIP and Change

Most people - about 75-80% of the population are slow adapters at best, afraid to change at worst. Most people don't like change. When Alice in purchasing gets an Aastra phone to replace her Rolm phone, she will be paralyzed in her job. After 15 years of hitting the same 4 buttons - buttons now missing from her new fangled VoIP phone - she will be afraid of the phone. Also, her fear of the phone will frustrate not only other employees, but customers as well. (Not to mention the VoIP provider's tech support department that will have to explain call transfer and call pick-up methods daily).

THIS then is the hurdle of not just VoIP providers and phone manufacturers, but also wireless providers and manufacturers. Selling the Invisible is difficult, especially when so much FUD surrounds it. How do you counter that? Education for one. Sneezers for another. (See

USA Today on VOIP

Want to see what the mainstream press thinks about VoIP? Read it at the USA Today.

Until recently, Internet telephony was mostly used by computer geeks to make free, albeit low-quality, "calls" between PCs with special software and funky PC headsets. In recent years, however, VoIP has begun to gain traction with the masses thanks to advances in technology, a shifting competitive landscape and the spread of high-speed broadband lines, necessary for Bell-quality calling.

Consumers are the biggest winners. As VoIP moves into the mainstream, big phone companies such as AT&T and Verizon will be forced to sweeten their offers, Joe Laszlo, a senior analyst at JupiterResearch, predicts. That, in turn, will pressure cable TV companies, already pushing hard to sell VoIP, to improve their bundles. "So even if you don't switch over to VoIP," says Laszlo, "this new competitive market will probably get you some benefits."

My personal favorite misconception: "Luckily for consumers, there now are plenty of broadband choices, and more are on the way."

The net effect: The bloodier the cable-phone battle become, the faster both sides are deploying broadband. About 9% of all U.S. households now buy broadband, estimates TeleGeography Research. Fanned in part by competitive pressure, that number is expected to reach 20% by 2010.

100 Wi-Fi Phones Certified, But Do Any Work??!

Wi-Fi News announces that the "Wi-Fi Alliance says that nearly 100 handsets are certified: The group has certified 82 dual-mode handsets and 10 Wi-Fi-only phones. The idea of certifying voice handsets that incorporate Wi-Fi allows the alliance to ensure both interoperability and better performance."

ELN gets Houston Wi-Fi

Yahoo news is reporting that EarthLink will build Houston's 600 square mile wi-fi network.

Houston would join more than 250 communities across the nation that plan to or already offer wireless Internet to residents, businesses and government workers. Once completed, Houston's municipal Wi-Fi network would be the largest in North America, EarthLink officials said.

Now I'm not picking on ELN or anything, but pledging to build the largest network when you haven't really gotten one up and running smoothly yet seems presumptive.

For those of you looking for details about retail and wholesale pricing:

EarthLink, as part of the agreement, will provide wireless Internet access to 40,000 low-income users for $10 a month or less.... Everyone else would be able to get the service through EarthLink or several other providers, including PeoplePC, Vonage and DirecTV. EarthLink's wholesale price for those providers will be about $12 per month; how much subscribers would have to pay depends on the individual offers the providers come up with, Berryman said. He estimates it would range from $14 to $21.95, the latter being what EarthLink expects to charge for a subscription.

TWC Now Public

Red Herring reports that TWC is now a public company. TW Cable used the Adelphia shell to do a wrap-up.

Time Warner said Tuesday that its subsidiary Time Warner Cable has become a public company as a result of the completion of Adelphia Communications’ bankruptcy plan ....The end of the two-year-long bruising fight with Adelphia’s shareholders opened the door for Time Warner to choose the easy route to taking its cable business public. .....Using Adelphia as its shell, Time Warner Cable was able to avoid a formal initial public offering, according to Time Warner. The New York City-based media giant said it expects Time Warner Cable Class A common stock to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, under the “TWC” symbol, and start trading as early as March 1.

FCC Tells LEC to Give Up Poles

Wi-Fi News breaks down the FCC ruling concerning this case of DQE Communications Network Services against North Pittsburgh Telephone Company (NPTC) over pole access. Read it because the ruling is interesting, confusing and relevant. By classifying everything as an information service - and thus not Title II - how do you tell ILEC's that they have to give you telecom access???

Understanding HIPAA Requirements for E-Security

Outsource Management Group has a post about Understanding HIPAA Requirements for E-Security:

There are two key items that will help you evaluate how your data is transmitted. (1)integrity controls and (2)encryption.

Here are some good questions to ask yourself when accessing your data transfer security:

1. How critical is the information being transmitted?
2. What is the completeness of the information? That is, is this a complete medical record or is this just a snippet of information?
3. How many individuals might be represented in the information? In other words, information about one person would have a different weight than information about a group of people.
4. What is the level of the network's security? That's where you start to consider whether it's a local network or the Internet.

If you can not answer all these questions about your data transmission, it is likely that you will need to encrypt to ensure the integrity of your data and stay compliant with HIPAA.

HIPAA: How a Cancer Center Takes Care of Data

Thinking about HIPAA and e-Healthcare? In this article titled Security Q&A: How a Cancer Center Takes Care of Data, quite a few good Q's are answered, for instance:

• As you thought about sharing health information electronically throughout the hospital, how big of a concern was security and keeping records private?
• What about encryption?
• And what about backup?
• How do you ensure the security and privacy of those records?
• Do you have guidelines or requirements for when information should be destroyed?
• How much do you think you spend on security per year?
• Do you have one or two recommendations for others who may be struggling with data security issues?

Authentium Security Subscription

Here is a value add that you can outsource. Security is a big issue and you can start offering it without any investment. Phone+ mag has an article about Authentium Security Subscription:

ESP for enterprises, which only works with Windows-based devices, essentially aggregates options for antivirus, antispyware, firewall, data backup and restore, and other security software into one platform to protect endpoints from “the worst of what the Internet can do to your business,” O’Donnell says. Think of ESP for enterprises as a sort of iTunes for security software. The built-in e-store lets an administrator buy licenses from multiple vendors (even competitors) through Authentium, all under one license. He or she then decides which software to allot to departments within the company, clicks a button, and ESP for enterprises downloads the specified packages to users’ PCs.

Emarq says No IPTV, HomeZone It

It looks like Embarq is saying No to IPTV in NC, according to the Biz Journal. Not enough density for the millions in investment. (Millions? Try Billions). Embarq is looking at a "service called Homezone, which combines high speed Internet, satellite television and home networking using a single box-type device." Pics of the 2Wire set-top box are on Engadget.

"The 2Wire box (which looks disappointingly similar to their MediaPortal STB) features a 250GB drive for storage of live DISH, MovieLink, and Akimbo programming, dual TV outputs for simultaneous TV playback (more on that after the break), HDMI (presumably with HDCP), two QWERTY remotes (saywha?), Ethernet, and three USB ports. ....If it's anything like its older 2Wire sibling, the Homezone box will play back Real audio and video, MPEG-2/4, DRMed WMV 9, AAC, MP3, support up to 1080i, and even have WiFi."

Homezone is what AT&T is rolling out in markets not getting FTTx. Might not be a bad idea for CLEC's, smaller MSO's, and RLEC's.

Switch & Data Went Public

"Switch & Data Facilities Co. Inc.’s initial public offering of 11.7 million shares got off to a healthy start at $17 a share" on Friday, Feb. 9. The Tampa Biz Journal has the scoop on all the shares available here. The day range was $18 to $22 according to Y! finance (NASDAQ = SDXC).

Botnets: the Story to Market

In the Portland Biz Journal there is a story about a company and its IT staff struggling against bots, spam, malware, etc. It's a great story for 3 reasons:

1. Rich Bader of EasyStreet is quoted. (Always good when an ISPCON face gets press).
2. Reprints would make for great marketing to your prospects (if you want to manage their IT, firewall, spam, etc.).
3. A copy of the article could help You get local press, if you take it to the newspaper.

It is estimated that 98% of email is spam. Most users - business and consumer - do not properly patch and update their Windows O/S, nor do they run anti-virus software. (They don't backup either, but that is for another day). This is an opportunity for your business.

Ask for a Data Center

Central Washington state gets one more data center - from Ask.com. Ask.com will build a data center in Moses Lake.

One prominent data center in the Moses Lake area is Titan I LLC. The Titan building was formerly a missile control center for NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, according to the data center's Web site. The Titan complex sits on more than 6 acres and is half a mile from the Grant County International Airport. [It is owned by 2 former Microsoft boys - Bob Caldwell and John Agnew].

In recent months, Microsoft Corp. of Redmond and Yahoo! Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., have begun building large data centers in Quincy, which, like Moses Lake, is located in rural Grant County. [quotes from Biz Journals' article].

Google is building its DC in Oregon. Intuit is planning a future DC in the Quincy area.

Meanwhile, GI Partners is buying up hosting businesses like Telx and EV1. [more here from Netcraft]. What does all this mean for Telx, Switch&Data, Equinix, and Digital Realty Trust?

FYI, largest hosting companies ranked here.

More importantly, what does the smaller, local player in the DC game do? As soon as Google et al open their data centers, space will open up in the big ones - and prices will drop. The average rack rate is $900 for a full-rack, power is usually extra, as is bandwidth.

One strategy is to let the big guys have collocation - and you just sell dedicated boxes and managed services. Collocation means people in your space - and potential problems. Dedicated boxes and Managed boxes means Control - of th eequipment, space and customer.

The Long Tail of VoIP Service

If you don't want to actually offer VoIP due to the numerous reasons I can think of (PITA with little profit; 911; LNP; billing), how about managing the VoIP experience? The router, the Q0S, the IP-PBX. In an article about Skype, it lists the 25 Tips to Improve your Skype Experience. Once again, there are features or benefits that a small office might like - free calling AND the nifty features that require either hacks or add-ons - that the average person does not want to tackle, but would like to have working. That's where you come in. Sell them the Implementation. Sell Managed Services with that DSL circuit. And with Bitwine you can start charging per-minute for your knowledge. Why the Long Tail? Because you don't have to be a VOIP Provider to make money on VoIP. (You probably didn't make money on LEC Voice services).

Opening Gestures by Michelle Miller

Michelle Miller writes about Great Openings Gestures. She hits the nail on the head about the delivery of your brand's message. The esthetics. The way it is presented to the buying public. I'll let you read what she wrote:

Great brands calculate and create opening gestures that stem from a passion for the business. Starbucks did it with the European cafe storefront. Krispy Kreme did it with warm doughnuts plucked right off the conveyor belt. Google does it by customizing their homepage logo to honor a holiday, historic event or person. Apple did it with the iPod using sleek minimalist design - who would have thought pure white could be so colorful?

These brands also realize that they have hundreds of opening gestures to contend with everyday, since customers arrive via different avenues and with different mindsets. Just to tick off a few miniature opening gestures, you have:

• store location
• signage
• parking lot
• physical
• entrance
• store atmosphere (lighting, cleanliness, smell, etc.)
• greeting
• by staff members
• how the phone is answered
• delivery and content of outgoing voicemail message
• headlines in ads
• homepage on the website

I’m sure you can think of a few more. This may even be the first time you’re thinking about it at all. What are your opening gestures? Are they remarkable enough to get the attention of customers? Take five minutes to jot down a list of your opening gestures, then give them a rating from 1 to 10. How’s it going? What could be improved? Are you brave enough to have some of your customers rate your opening gestures? It could be an eye opener. Improve your opening gestures and you’ll improve your bottom line.

Employee Motivation

"Recognition is one of the most powerful and underutilized tools in a manager's repertoire," according to Jack Hayhow, author of The Wisdom of the Flying Pig. From his blog, "According to The Gallup Organization, proper recognition can add 10 to 20 percent to productivity and revenue. And often, providing recognition costs nothing. Our free online training course, Reward & Recognition teaches the principles and techniques of proper recognition, I hope you'll take a look at it."

John Moore says: "I’m also blogging about THE WISDOM OF THE FLYING PIG because Jack has some smart things to say about business leadership. Chew on this chapter header from the book: "Managers don’t get paid for what they do, they get paid for what their people do."

No Asshole Rule by Robert Sutton

Here's a business book that everyone is reviewing, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t by Robert Sutton: Guy Kawasaki. John Moore. 800-CEO-READ. Even the author. On Nasty People in CIO Insights in 2004 (as well as a Harvard Business Review). Great review from Julie here. Kawasaki posts:

The first step is to recognize who is an asshole. Sutton’s blog cites one method. It’s called the Starbucks Test. It goes like this: If you hear someone at Starbucks order a "decaf grande half-soy, half-low fat, iced vanilla,double-shot, gingerbread cappuccino, extra dry, light ice, with one Sweet-n’-Low and one NutraSweet," you’re in the presence of an asshole. It’s unlikely that this petty combination is necessary—the person ordering is trying to flex her power because she’s an asshole.

That's my test! :)

Embarq in the 4Q

MarketWatch reports: "Embarq Corp. said Thursday that fourth-quarter profit rose 25% as the company added more high-speed Internet subscribers and lost fewer local-phone customers than expected..... The company ended 2006 with 6.9 million access lines in service, a 6.1% decline.....In the fourth quarter, Embarq matched a prior record by adding 84,000 high-speed Internet customers to top the 1 million mark....The company also gained 24,000 wireless customers to double its total to 48,000. And Embarq signed up 16,000 subscribers for The Dish Network's satellite-television service, bringing its total to 162,000."

Earnings were $194M for the quarter..... But you have to deduct the onetime gain of $34 million from the settlement of billing disputes and a $7 million pretax gain from the sale of 5,000 access lines.

"EMBARQ reported net operating revenues of $1.62 billion in the fourth quarter of 2006 and $6.36 billion for the full year." [earthtimes]

More lies from the FCC

"If the latest report from the FCC is to be believed, the US lives in kind of broadband nirvana..." Read the rest at Computerworld or TechDirt, I'm too disgusted to talk about it.

Windstream FTTH

In greenfield (new developments) in Hiawassee, GA, Windstream (formerly Alltel-Valor) is laying fiber for FTTH, according to this report.

DR/BC and Managed Storage

In this article in Byte & Switch, it seems that Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity and Managed Storage are only interesting to large enterprise.

But educating customers requires telecom providers to know what to sell, and here's the sticking point: While there is interest in business continuity and disaster recovery services for large enterprises, it's been tough to find the market for SMBs and consumers. As a result, the landscape of storage services remains uneven and unfocused.

To me, not many small businesses think about DR or BC or Data Storage. Too busy. Too small. No concept. That's where you can win business, with case studies, FUD tales, and seminars. Like David Bach says: "If it isn't Automatic, you won't do it."

CALEA forms due today

Facilities-based providers of broadband and VoIP must file a CALEA Form 445 at the FCC by Monday, February 12th (today). This is a report form - compliance is due May 14, 2007. Please fill out form 445 to the best of your ability and submit it to the FCC by EOB Monday. If you have questions about this, please contact the FCC or a telecom attorney, like Kris Twomey. You can get more details at the FCC's CALEA site; and from the Original FCC CALEA Order for VOIP & ISP. The FCC has a link to this site: AskCALEA, but like the commercial goes for H&R Block, you can't talk to a website.

I know what you are all thinking: What the heck is a Facilities-based providers of broadband and VoIP? Here's my interpretation: If you own the network (like a WISP or fiber or cable network), you are facilities based and need to file as a BB provider. (FCC defines BB as 200k). If you own a switch (Broadsoft, Metaswitch, Sylantro, whatever) providing a voice replacement service, you are facilities based and need to file.

Hosted Voice Study

TelecomWeb has a summary of a study done on Managed Services. It seems to me that the study was about Hosted Voice.

1. Businesses are typically considering Hosted Voice applications at a slightly higher rate than Hosted IP PBX, indicating that enterprise-wide applications are valued over wholesale system replacements – most likely an indicator of migration considerations.
2. Potential Hosted solution buyers are motivated primarily by TCO and other cost factors, indicating a requirement for Hosted solution sellers to make this the center piece of sales activities, but other “care-abouts”, such as predictable expenses and reduced data center requirements require equal emphasis.
3. In the U.S. market, there is a correlation between business decision makers’ consideration of a Hosted Voice Solution and the existence of a hosted business applications subscription (e.g., payroll, sales force, human resource, etc.) which may become part of Hosted Voice Solution Service Provider discovery and sales activities and it may hold potential for new partnering arrangements.

L3 Won't Be Buying Any Time Soon

TelecomWeb has more Level(3) number analysis:

Level 3 Communications, reporting what it called "a strong fourth quarter" in which its losses increased to $237 million, says it's going to lay off 1,000 workers as it trims overhead following last year's string of acquisitions, and it will borrow $500 million to refinance debt.

Thus the need to cut the work force, Level 3 explained. "As expected, Level 3 plans to eliminate duplicative positions where appropriate as it integrates the companies it has acquired over the past year," the company said in a prepared statement. Level 3 employed 5,800 people as of year-end 2006, including roughly 2,000 at its headquarters in Colorado. In early January, the work force swelled to about 7,400 with the completion of the acquisition of Texas-based Broadwing, which employed about 1,600.

It pointed to a just-announced repayment of $488 million of 12.875-percent notes due in 2010 with proceeds from a new note offering, and the refinancing of its existing $730 million senior secured credit facility. "Taken together, these transactions are expected to improve liquidity by lowering interest expense and extending the company's maturity profile," S&P said. However, it didn't immediately raise the rating on the company's debt - which remains deep in the dungeon. S&P rates Level 3's senior unsecured debt at "CCC-minus," which is either its third lowest junk grade or nine levels below investment grade, depending on how you want to characterize it.

Quad-Play by VZ

TelecomWeb reports on the Quad-Play from VZ:

"Verizon unveiled double-, triple- and quad-play offers that, for the first time, incorporate Verizon Wireless into its bundled plans but, for unexplained reasons, none of the offers are available to its FiOS fiber-based customers. The broadband in the packages has to come over copper and, rather than being delivered over fiber, the video must come via satellite."

This amazes me:

"The top plan, Ultimate Freedom, combines all four services [unlimited landline calling, 3MB DSL, DTV and VZW] and costs anywhere from $134.99 to $144.99 a month. According to Verizon, subscribing to this plan will save consumers as much as $27.97 a month compared with purchasing the services separately."

WOW! A whopping $28 per month if you tie yourself to VZ for 2 years. What a deal. Is there a guaranteed that the rate won't change?!

IT Outsourcing

In a study in Data Center Journal, most businesses look to outsource for 2 reasons: Efficency (which also could mean a decent ROI) and to gain competencies. In other words, if you offer high-end services that would be difficult for small businesses to buy, the leverage they would attain by outsourcing to you would be the selling point.

TWTC losses

TWTC, which did not start to integrate Xspedius until this quarter, announced $238M in revenues in 4Q. Phone+ quotes:

The provider, which recently bought Xspedius Communications for its IP backbone, also noted slightly lower net losses for the fourth quarter of 2006. TWTC reported a net loss of $24.8 million, or 18 cents per share, compared to a net loss of $22.3 million, or 19 cents per share, for the fourth quarter of 2005.

Okay. Losses increased by $2.5M but you diluted the stock so the per share amount is less. Sheesh! I hate the accounting practices of communications companies. Tell it like it is - without the spin.

ESPN Mobile goes to VZW

Phone+ says: Verizon Wireless said Thursday it would take over the exclusive distribution of ESPN content under a multiyear agreement.

Qwest, Level 3 drop; Windstream gains

Nothing changes in telecom. The Fool reports that Qwest delivered its fourth straight quarter of profit, but its fourth-quarter operating margin declined slightly from the third quarter. Qwest's 4Q profit was $194M; it added 165k BB subs. Qwest reduced debt by $1b to $13.4B [Phone+]

L3 financial highlights (according to Yahoo Biz) are as follows:

• Consolidated Revenue of $846 million, but expect $1B /Q going forward;
• Net Loss of $237 million;
• Consolidated Adjusted OIBDA of $189 million (<--- ????)
• Consolidated Free Cash Flow of negative $29 million
• Laying off at least 1000 in 2007 [according to trading markets]

Meanwhile, Arkansas Business reports that Windstream Corp. of Little Rock (Alltel-Valor Wireline) had strong BB subscriber growth leading to a 39 percent gain in fourth-quarter net income on profits of $117.7 million. Windstream did add 53k BB subs during the Q (total now at 656,000). And an interest stat is that ARPC is $79.72, an increase of 6 percent from a year ago. But th ereal reason for the profit was probably:

Also during the quarter, Windstream agreed to sale its directory publishing business, Windstream Yellow Pages, to affiliates of Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, a private equity investment firm, for $525 million. [Arkansas Biz]

BTW, the breakdown of ELN numbers in easy to scare you charts is here.

Z-Tel in TKO - Heads to BK

Trinsic, the former Z-Tel, lost $1.5M and $6.9M in the last 2 quarters on about $75M in revenue in that period. Trinsic's CEO,Trey Davis, blames it on the UNE-P losses. No. You lost MCI and Sprint as big-time clients. You did not see the writing on the wall about UNE-P. You weren't moving fast enough to VoIP, even though you were experimenting with it for a while. Your best value add was the PVA, that somewhere along the way was dumped. (PVA was a Unified Messenger type service). When Trey says this:

"In the past three years we've worked very hard to reduce our cost structure to levels more consistent with the margins available in a post-UNEP marketplace and we have made steady progress in this regard," Davis said. "Nevertheless, regrettably, we must now take this step in order to gain additional time and the legal means to further rationalize our cost structure and protect our business and our customers."

What he is really saying is that we never had costs under control and when pressed to do it when I was brought in, I couldn't. ---> It seems that you couldn't sell enough or couldn't raise the pricing or couldn't get the back of the house efficient. Bye. Bye.

Literally Every-Body is Selling VOIP

It seems like every day there are many, many, many announcements of people jumping into the VOIP arena. Here are some just from today via IPtelephony.org:

• AbsoluteIP Introduces Small Business IP PBX
• Teltronics Introduces IP PBX for Small Businesses
• Junction Networks Launches Hosted IP PBX
• NBS Launches Wholesale VoIP in the U.S. for Resi
• ViaTalk Offering Wholesale VoIP Service Solution in the U.S.
• Rogers to Offer Hosted VoIP to Small Businesses in Canada
• PacNet Rolling Out VoIP to SMBs in Asia Pacific

It all the same stuff. No one is differentiating or adding any gizmos or refinements that would be a stand-out. Remarkable? Hardly. In fact, the wholesale offerings are probably due to the fact that the retail space was too difficult to market to. (How do you successfully market nationwide against Vonage's $1M per month coupled with the MSO and ILEC advertising full-court press?) BTW, Rogers is doing what SipStorm tried. That will be a disaster!

Vonage - bad direct mail

Little orange box with a free 6" tape measure inside. Lots of fine print, but all the print is on the box, covering every side in and out. Ridiculous. Too much writing -- too much fine print.

Closing the Sale

A New Wrinkle on VOIP

Someone pointed me to vbuzzer - a VOIP offering at per minute pricing with a $2 fee for your phone number. This is crazy! For vbuzzer, that is. Billing is THE MOST DIFFICULT part of telecom. You get crap CDR's from your carrier (like say L3 or GX or MCI), which are difficult or impossible to fight. You have to bill your end user for minutes, so billing is post-paid. You are floating money and hoping for very, very little bad debt. (You also hope they don't call too many independent territories because at 1.5 cents/minute to US & China, you'd go broke.

ELN turns to TMone for Sales Support

Things at the ISP in Atlanta must be crazy. (The carziness is due to the following: Helio losses. SF Wi-Fi questions. All the other cities that they are trying to light. Cities that are lit but need to start producing some revenue.) The one thing that EarthLink was always great at was marketing and PR. Recently, ELN turned to TMone for sales support selling VoIP. (TMone also has Packet8 as a client!). I just wonder why they aren't doing it in house? I guess if the good ones like to hire a specialist. (Take note, dear business owner: hire a specialist/firm/consultant to do what needs to be done if it isn't your strength).

Angry Client? Apologize

Seth Godin shows us why many apologies only make matters worse -- since many apologies are no apology at all, but a way to appear like you give a darn. The winner apology:

"We're sorry that we caused this problem." or "We're sorry that we have let this happen." (9): This is a full apology, and is what the customer needs to hear. Frankly, it doesn't matter that it was really the post office's fault, and not yours; the customer doesn't care. Most people hearing this cannot help but respond with some sort of graciousness, such as "Well, all right then, these things happen. What are you going to do to fix it?" This is the target level that you want to hit for your customer service. But for the record, there is still one level to go.

Read the rest on his blog. Here is an earlier Seth post on Apology. [BTW, I'll be with Seth all day next Tuesday for his Marketing seminar!].

Critical Customer Service Skills

John Moore at Brand Autopsy has a post about Exceeding Customer Expectations, a book by Kirk Kazanjian based on the operating principles of Enterprise Rent-A-Car about Customer Service. Here are the Critical Customer Service Skills:

1. A passion for taking care of customers.
2. A willingness to be flexible.
3. A work ethic based on dedication to the company and its mission.
4. An eagerness to learn a new business and work their way up.
5. Self-motivation and goal-orientation.
6. Persuasive sales skills.
7. Excellent communication skills.
8. Leadership ability.

How do you find employees like this? Be on the look-out constantly. Collect resumes. Acquire referrals from clients, vendors, and especially employees. (Does your website have a career page?)

Super Bowl Advertising

John Moore at Brand Autopsy says it best: brands that advertise during the Super Bowl have a lot in common with singles looking for a one-night hook-up at a cheesy meat market dance club.

Inter-Carrier Comp Problems Result in Fraud

TechDirt points out that the USF and Inter-Carrier Compensation problems are now being exploited as arbitrage plays by VOIP providers. Termination to Rural ILECs is using very expensive - say $0.05 versus $0.005 per minute. Those rates are paid by your local phone company (in the story it is mainly AT&T). Lots of free services are in Iowa, including FreeConference.com. They partner with a RLEC and split some of the revenue that the other ILECs have to pay. When FuturePhone did this play for free international, AT&T sued for fraud. It is HIGH time that the FCC solved both USF and Inter-Carrier Comp (see Missoula Plan). [Aside: GigaOm announces FuturePhone's demise - and why].

ELN Losing Money Due to Helio

Wi-Fi Networks report that EarthLink lost $24.8m in its fourth quarter, but startup mobile operator Helio is the cause, according to MotleyFool.

Helio was the driver of this big loss. The mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), a cell operator that doesn’t own its infrastructure but purchases access from “real” operators, is a joint venture with SK Teelcom, and had a net loss of $191.6m that quarter, with EarthLink booking half that loss. Helio is acquiring customers at a much slower pace than hoped, and will see losses for the foreseeable future, perhaps hitting cash flow positive by 2009. They had 70,000 subscribers signed up as of Dec. 31, 2006, and 100,000 anticipated by mid-2007; the division expects 200,000 to 250,000 by the end of 2007. [WFN]

Some indicators are good: Revenue up 5%; BB up 35%; and dial-up down just 15%.

MVNO's are not doing well as a sector. Amped "signed up only 30,000 subscribers within eight months of full marketing", according to CNET news. Helio had about 70,000 with ARPU of about $100, compared to the big 3 (Sprint, VZW, Cingular) at $40-50. But Helio is bleeding cash heavily -- to the tune of about $220M so far.

Tech Support ideas show up at DEMO

Resolution Manager; Alive 5.5; new PC tuneup and security services - System TuneUp and Security Audit; and Compliance IQ. [More at Christine.net.] Tech support, network assessment, and network management will be huge in th ecoming years as more and more technology enters the homes, small businesses and enterprises -- all without anyone to support and integrate them.

FMC Studies Roaring In

IPTelephony.org has 3 FMC (fixed-mobile convergence) items:

1. Azaire Networks has introduced IP-CNP, an IMS/SIP-VCC based FMC solution that supports the delivery of voice and SIP applications across WiFi and cellular networks. The IP-CNP is driven by an IMS application server, known as the SCN-VCC 5000, which enables the seamless switch-off of services between network infrastructures. Security for the IP-CNP is based on 3GPP IWLAN, which specifies use of more initials such as EAP-SIM/EAP-AKA and IPsec/IKEv2. It also provides access to existing and new mobile packet mode services. VCC enables the handoff between WLAN packet access and macro circuit switched cellular networks.
2. iLocus has released "The Impact of FMC on World Telecommunications Markets," a detailed study of the FMC market that covers market drivers, inhibitors, trends, stats and projections, vendor profiles, select market profiles by country, cases studies, and a discussion of specific business opportunities for both fixed operators and cellular providers. The firm finds that U.S. cellular operates will lose $3.3 billion a year by 2011 due to FMC and to thwart the influence, cell providers would need to maintain a 61% market share in FMC-based services. The magnitude of the impact is measured by several factors such as the projection of WiFi access spot penetration, FMC market share, and the calling patterns of cell phone subscribers in a given country. iLocus estimates FMC subscriptions to be approximately 436,000 at the end of 2006. Alcatel is recognized as the leading vendor for the market both in UMA and VCC/pre-IMS deployments. Globally, there are more than 250 FMC trials being conducted.
3. Light Reading has released market studies on VoIM and on FMC.

• "Voice over IM: The Next VoIP Disrupter," analyzes the emergence of VoIM. Companies covered in the study include AOL, Apple, Cerulean, EarthLink, Google, ICQ, IMVU, Jabber, Meebo, Microsoft, Paltalk, SIPphone, Skype, Talkster, VoxLib and Yahoo.
• "3G Home Base Stations: Femto Cells and FMC for the Masses" identifies market opportunities for femto cell technology and analyzes the product strategies and roadmaps of nearly 20 providers of home base stations. Companies profiled in the report include Airvana, AirWalk, Alcatel-Lucent, Andrew, Ericsson, ip.access, Motorola, NEC, Nokia-Siemens, PicoChip, RadioFrame, Samsung, and Ubiquisys.

FCC Continues To Fudge Broadband Numbers

I love TechDirt! "The FCC has been called out repeatedly by the GAO for fudging the numbers on broadband penetration in the US, so it's no surprise at all to hear they're doing it again with the latest report. They're still using the highly questionable (and often questioned) method of assuming that if a single household in a zipcode can be served by a broadband provider, then all houses can be served by that provider..... However, even worse, is that they're hiding the growth of broadband connections, by suddenly lumping in cellular broadband accounts -- which seems quite a bit unfair, since the companies providing such services, such as Verizon Wireless, are quite clear that the service is not to be used as a DSL replacement. ...apparently that's the only way the FCC can convince people that broadband growth rates in the US are as high as they had hoped."

FCC Order to Classify Wireless BB

From this Phone+ article, I can't tell what out Communication Chief is talking about:

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is circulating an order that would classify wireless broadband Internet access service as an information service, rather than a telecommunications service.

I would guess that wireless broadband means the cellular data services like EVDO. But you would think K-Mart could say cellular when he means cellular and wireless when he means non-celular wireless. No one picks up a wireless phone - either a cell phone or a cordless phone.

VOIP Market Shifting

Telephony mag on the VOIP market:

As cable companies capture a greater percentage of consumer voice-over-IP lines, the squeeze is on independent providers of VoIP. But not everybody ispredicting gloom and doom. In fact, global VoIP player Skype is taking square aim at the business market, promising to extend its reach and the savings it offers to enterprise customers. Skype, with Vonage among the best-known and largest independents, is now making a bigger push for business customers. Last month it announced new tools for IT managers to make it easier for them to install Skype software on multiple computers and manage Skype services companywide, including assigning Skype credits and turning on or off Skype access as determined by company policies. Skype officials say 30% of their customer base is now business users. The big impediment to Skype, Vonage and other VoIP players that use best-effort Internet service has been quality concerns. But Skype customer Monoflo International, a Virginia-based manufacturer of reusable and returnable plastic containers, has used the service for more than a year for conferencing and other internal communications without experiencing a quality problem, according to Juan Hernandez, information systems manager. “The quality has been great,” he said. However, Ellacoya, a maker of deep packet inspection gear for telecom networks, said its latest statistics show the quality of best-effort VoIP services has declined over the last three months, even as VoIP market acceptance has taken off. Of the six service providers whose traffic Ellacoya compared, only one had what is generally considered “acceptable” quality based on MOS scores, the industry's measure.

In a related story from iptelephony.org:

Vonage has required that its equipment providers pay a fee to join the Univerisity of New Hampshire's Interoperability Lab's VoIP Consortium and have gear intended for use by Vonage certified to be compatible with its service by the UNH-IOL. The lab will provide vendors with detailed,confidential test reports pinpointing bugs and weakness in their devices.

Rural BB Funding

Funding fiber to the farm in Telephony mag on 2/6/2007:

"Like finding well-situated season tickets to your favorite sports team, it can be daunting to get a telecom grant or loan from the Rural Utilities Service. But once the task is accomplished, the payback can be enormous. Start-up communications service provider Air Advantage, for example, was able to use RUS grants and low-interest loans to expand its high-speed wireless network to serve a sparsely populated area of Michigan that had no high-speed connectivity."

The FCC has recently announced a two-year pilot program that would fund up to 85% of the costs for the design, construction and use of dedicated broadband networks in order to expand the availability and use of telehealth and telemedicine, particularly in rural areas. [Details on the Association of Telehealth Service Providers website.]

Internet2, Abilene, LambdaNetRail

From wikipedia:

There have been times when the media have reported on a network called "Internet2." This is misleading since Internet2 is in fact a consortium and not a computer network. "Internet2" is sometimes used, albeit a misnomer, for the Abilene Network. The Abilene project is supported greatly by Qwest Communications through the use of Qwest's fiber optical networks. Internet2's Abilene transport agreement with Qwest is due to expire somewhere around October 2007. Internet2 has contracted with Level3 for the fiber required to support the successor to Abilene.

More from wikipedia:

there has been a recent trend in the media to report on a network called "Internet2." Some sources go so far as to suggest Internet2 is a network wholly separate from the Internet. This is misleading since Internet2 is in fact a consortium and not a computer network. It is possible that many news sources have adopted the term Internet2 because it seems like a logical name for a next-generation Internet backbone. Articles that reference Internet2 as a network are in fact referring to the previously mentioned network backbone known as the Abilene Network. This forms a high-speed backbone by deploying many of the technologies developed by Internet2. Abilene, although a private network used for education and research, is not entirely an isolated network, since its members usually provide alternative access to many of their resources through the public Internet. Abilene is not technically part of the Internet since it does not peer with the public Internet networks. The official website of Qwest, one of many major contributors to the Abilene Network, has a good FAQ section that clarifies the distinction between Internet2 and Abilene.

At the completion of the transition from the legacy Abilene network to the new Level3-based infrastructure, the Abilene name will cease to be used in favor of The Internet2 Network. Abilene was 10GB per sec. The I2 will be made up of 40 Lambda capacity.

The National LambdaRail project is a separate Ethernet on Fiber (DWDM) network used by an association of research institutions.

FCC will pay Rural Health to connect to I2

According to an FCC order, Rural Healthcare broadband networks can get funding to connect to Internet2 or National LambdaRail:

In this Order, we grant a Petition filed by National LambdaRail, Inc. (NLR) seeking reconsideration or, in the alternative, clarification of the Commission’s order establishing a rural health care pilot program to encourage the provision of telehealth and telemedicine services throughout the nation. Specifically, we find that pilot program applicants may request and, if selected, may receive funding to support up to 85 percent of the cost of connecting state and regional broadband networks to the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development, Inc. (Internet2) or NLR. We further find that an applicant that proposes to connect its state or regional broadband networks to Internet2 or NLR may either (1) pre-select Internet2 or NLR; or (2) seek a competitive bid for the provision of nationwide backbone services from Internet2 or NLR. To ensure the success of the pilot program, we expect that Internet2 and NLR will interconnect or peer with each other. Finally, we provide applicants with an additional thirty (30) days time to submit their applications to the Commission.

Execution is All

Cynthia's Book: A Divas Guide to Wow in Business!

Cynthia DeLorenzi was CEO of Patriot.Net, a DC ISP. She was also the co-founder woth Frank Muto of the WBIA, a non-profit lobbying interest in DC fighting against the RBOC mergers and the forbearance issues. Cynthia is a firebrand and a well-connected, networking maniac. She is writing a book about ways to WOW people in business. (Isn't that what you are trying to do? WOW people in business? Stand Out? Be Remarkable?) She is collecting tips for her book. So if you have any tips or ideas or anecdotes or stories, please share them with us. How do you WOW them? How have you been WOW'ed? Here are a few tips that I offer (none original - all borrowed from smarter people):

1. Bob Burg, author of Endless Referrals, has a note card he send outs to say thanks or Hi. A picture of said note card is here.
2. I try send written thank you notes as often as I can get to it. Gifts if it is a big thank you. (The gift is usually a book). Tom Hopkins has written some concise thank you templates (available in many of his books).
3. At networking events you can either try to meet everyone or get to really know a few. I aim for meeting 3 people per event. I find out how they identify a prospect. I find out how to help their business. I follow up the next day with an email. (You would be amazed how many do not connect back, but the ones who do -- BOY! Winners every time).
4. Want to get remembered? Help someone else. Not what's in it for me. Just help others. Zig Ziglar says that if you help enough people get what they want you will get what you want. (It's working so far).

Have a suggestion to WOW people? Send it in to peter at rad-info dot net. Thanks! You have a great day now.

Business VOIP Service: The Key is Quality

If you are going to offer Businesses VOIP service, try to build a better service than Vonage. I'm on calls all day with people on Vonage or home-grown VOIP that terminate calls via the Internet. 99% of those calls sound like a below average cell phone call. Jitter and latency beat up the conversation. Most often, the caller will have no idea that the call quality is less than desirable, but to the person on the other end, there are missed words, etc. It is difficult to concentrate enough to extrapolate what is being said. TDM LD is available all-you-can-eat, why would a business skimp?

If you are selling cheap voice, that's fine. However, most businesses need to have a quality voice service. There are different levels of VOIP.

1. VOIP inside the office but TDM after the PBX.
2. Hosted VOIP inside the office, but TDM after the PBX - all traffic to PBX is on-net (off the Internet).
3. VOIP from phone to phone over the Internet

The last one usually has the worst call quality. I know it costs more to do TDM trunking for LD or to use VOIP Peering in place of Internet termination, but if you sell Business Voice service, sell a TDM equivalent service.

Why do you think so many national services, like Smoothstone and Cbeyond (18k and 29k customers respectively), use MPLS service and provide the transit for end-to-end call quality? At VOIP 2.0, QOS and HD VOIP were hot topics.

People are ready for something better than Vonage. And businesses are willing to pay for it. Your business name (brand and reputation) will be linked to any services you offer.

S.M.A.R.T. Goal Setting

“The most important thing about goals is having one,” according to Geoffry F. Abert. But until you have written your goals down on paper, they are just wishes. Write them down Look at them daily. Make sure that your goals are SMART:

1. Specific: Goals should be straight forward and emphasize what you want to happen. Specific is the what, why, and how of the S.M.A.R.T. model.
2. Measurable: If you can't measure it, you can't manage it. Set short and long term goals. Your short term goals can be small goals along the way that will help you reach your long-term goal.
3. Attainable: Set goals within your reach so that you will commit to it.
4. Realistic: The goal needs to be realistic for you and where you are at the moment. This is not a synonym for "easy." In this case it means "do-able." Be sure to set goals that you can attain with some effort. Too difficult and you set the stage for failure, but too low sends the message that you aren't very capable. Set the bar high enough for a satisfying achievement. Stretch.
5. Timely: Set a time frame for the goal; next week, next month, 3 months, etc. Putting an end point on your goal gives you a clear target to work towards.

ARRL versus K-Mart's BPL Vision

The ARRL this week took FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin to task for telling the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation that broadband over power line (BPL) technology is the answer to broadband deployment in rural areas. Martin and the other four FCC commissioners testified February 1 during a committee hearing, "Assessing the Communications Marketplace: A View from the FCC." In his prepared remarks, the chairman described BPL as a "potentially significant player due to power lines' ubiquitous reach, allowing it to more easily provide broadband to rural areas." ARRL Chief Executive Officer David Sumner, K1ZZ, criticized Martin for repeating "specious BPL industry claims" that suggest BPL has anything to offer rural dwellers. "The assertion that BPL can 'more easily provide broadband to rural areas' is one of the big lies about BPL," Sumner said. "It has been debunked time and time again, and it is beyond comprehension to hear it parroted by the federal government's senior telecommunications regulator at this late date."

You can read the rest here. It is getting to the point where Kevin Martin, the Harry Potter looking chairman of the FCC (aka K-Mart), has become a true-blue politician. He buries studies; tweaks stats; and generally demonstrates that either he has no clue what is going on in the real world or is being influenced to keep it hidden.

Tele-Medicine Grants Available

The Association of Telehealth Service Providers announces that the FCC has recently announced a two-year pilot program that would fund up to 85% of the costs for the design, construction and use of dedicated broadband networks in order to expand the availability and use of telehealth and telemedicine, particularly in rural areas. The FCC will look primarily at two criteria: 1. to what extent does the proposed network include rural health care providers; and 2. what is the business plan for eventually making the network self-sustaining.

SaaS helping to grow IT Spending

Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal reports on SaaS and IT spending increasing:

Companies have been investing more in upgrading their IT services and demand for software-as-a-service is growing at a quick clip. All of those factors helped put about a dozen tech companies on the list of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal's list of the 50 fastest-growing private companies in 2006. ... This year, the tech industry likely will continue to make progress, but it shouldn't expect a major growth spurt. "We're not going to see that hockey-stick kind of growth. We'll see reasonable growth, with peaks and valleys," said Kate Rubin, president of the Minnesota High Tech Association, a tech industry nonprofit.

It is a good time to be selling Managed Services, outsourced IT services, and maintenance bundles, since technology is invading the workplace from the consumer/employee side - and businesses can't keep up. (And finding competent IT staff at affordable rates is difficult).

Super Bowl Ad

This commercial for SalesGenie was on the mark. Without a sales process in place (and actively being worked), how can you get results?! You don't need SalesGenie, but you do need to act on the sales process daily. Prospecting, Presenting, Proposing, Closing.

Need help with a sales process?? Call today for the Super Bowl Special!...813-963-5884

Telcos Do Remote Desktop Support, Do you?

"As adoption of broadband services continues to incline, telcos like phone, broadband, and digital TV services provider Windstream Communications are faced with a consumer conundrum: servicing not just tech-savvy users but nontechnical customers as well. The $3.2 billion company--formed through the spinoff of Alltel's landline business and merger with VALOR Telecom--faced an uphill battle, though. The telco grappled with high call volumes while operating with no insight into consumers' PCs, no automated self-service choices available to customers, and no other tech support channels aside from phoning Windstream's service reps, according to Dave Fritz, senior vice president of IT at Windstream. "

Many ILEC's do remote desktop support. What are you doing?

Changes at Asterisk

IP Pulse is reporting that Mark Spencer, the creator of Asterisk, has stepped aside from his role as CEO of Digium and will be replaced by Danny Windham, the President and COO of Adtran. Mark will assume the role of Chairman and CTO. Spencer once worked for Adtran and Adtran provided some capital for Digium, when it was created.

The Cost of Interruptions

Lots of blogging about the high cost of distractions and interruptions, following a 10/27/06 Newhouse News article by Kevin Coughlin titled New Technology Takes Mental Toll on Workers. (No link available, but email for the text). Jabber talks about Attention:

Attention is our most valuable commodity, what we are attending to at the moment is what gets done.

Interruptions is on of the things that Microsoft's Presence (and other presence-oriented networking) may solve or increase. Alex Sauders talks about The cost of distraction -- facts & figures are available at Knowledge Management mag.

Interruptions are costly. In fact, unnecessary interruptions consume about 28 percent of the knowledge worker's day, which translates to 28 billion lost hours to companies in the United States alone.

22 trillion email, trillions of IM, phone calls, meetings, cell phone calls, text messages:

Where does the time go? A "quick" question from a colleague here, a drop-in-and-chat session from another there, a phone call, a never-ending flow of incoming e-mail. Add it all up, and you'll soon see how interruptions can consume your entire day.[office.microsoft.com]

Newhouse News has a new article about Tackling the downside of e-mail . I get hundreds of email every day - from spam, to jokes, to videos (um, Cliff!), to RFP's, questions, answers, pricing. I understand the email problem. You want to be responsive. But you have projects to complete, articles to write, circuits to install. Time management is a difficult dragon to slay. I have a coach and it gets the best of me every week. Many of these articles have tips to follow like letting voicemail get some calls and don't auto download email -- set blocks of time for calls and email, while you work on priority projects that will move you toward your goals. (Thanks, Keith!)

FCC K-Mart on the Hill Hot seat

John Kerry is calling Kevin Martin out, probably for "what they see as commission Chairman Kevin Martin's apparent lack of will to enforce a series of conditions that allowed AT&T Inc.'s $86 billion takeover of BellSouth Corp.", according to reports.

"On Thursday morning, the five commissioners are to appear before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. And on Feb. 15, they will appear before a House subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet."

Some questions for the FCC Commissioners are available here.

Speaking of Handsets & Branding

It turns out that VZW had first dibs on the iPhone --- and they turned it down (full story here). This might turn out to be the case that bites them in the backside. VZW is already behind Cingular (soon to be the new at&t) - by a few million subs. iPhone is going to be a big bump, even if the phone sucks, which it won't. And where do you think those subs will come from?? VZW - and some of the other carriers like Sprint, Alltel, T-Mobile. BTW, in the Cingular deal, Apple has most of the marketing responsibility. A plus.

This is an excellent time for YOU --- the independent solution provider -- to be capturing high ARPU customers. The big guys are locked in a fight - amongst themselves. Design a Marketing Plan - and Execute it... starting today! If you need help, call the Marketing Idea Guy at 813.963.5884 to get you started capturing your target market while the competition is confused.

Handsets for Muni

What is the driving factor in cellular? Handsets. Cell phones, Blackberries, Aircards, gadgets. The manufacturers are the ones driving the cell industry. (iPhone!) I explained to EarthLink's VP, Bill Tolpegin, last year that the Muni wireless needed handsets. Finally, some handsets are coming out. At Demo 07, Devicescape software unveiled some neat stuff for hotspots and muni. Read about it here.

Telecom Vendors Crying

With the shrinking of the number of CLECs and ILECs, telecom vendors are now crying. The blame for bad earnings is cast to the SBC mergers and the VZ-MCI merger. Well, what did they think was going to happen??? When you have 20 competing companies, you have 20 prospects. When the 8 RBOCs starting merging, you had to see th ewriting on the wall. (Even though that writing was covered up by the fast cash to CLECs). But th emergers and FCC rulings have all but killed off CLECs. And with only 3 RBOC's remaining.... well, that means 3 clients tops. When I was lobbying for II4A, we tried to explain to the vendors that consolidation would eventually kill their business as well. (Marconi, Alcatel, Lucent, Redback, Zoom).

ELN 4Q06

AJC.com is reporting that "EarthLink will release its fourth-quarter earnings Feb. 6. In the third quarter, the company lost $3.2 million on revenues of $331.3 million."

Big Branding Boo-Boo

The Branding of Cingular. Originally, Cingular was a joint venture of SBC and BellSouth. Cingular won the bidding war for the original AT&T Wireless -- and spent almost $1B on the name change (and branding change) to wipe ATTW out of mind and replace it with Cingular (in the mind of the consumer). Then, SBC buys AT&T. The combined entity decides to use the better known brand (AT&T) -- and spends $1B to wipe out the SBC brand (as well as associated brands like SNET, Ameritech, and PacBell).

Then in 2007, Ma Bell is back together with the recent approval for SBC to buy BellSouth. The new at&t will spend another $1.6B branding BellSouth as at&t and Cingular as at&t. That's right! A huge reversal - and double the spending. But, hey, what's a $1B for a $184B company?

Let's look at this: SBC spent a billion to wipe out the AT&T Wireless brand - only to turn around 3 or so years later to revive the brand. DOH!!! As a shareholder I am pissed! Meanwhile, the new at&t has to mindwipe the BellSouth brand -- a brand since pre-1984. See?! Not even Ed Whitacre understands Branding. He should call Jack Trout. (Colbert explains the history of the at&t brand.)

Running Out Of Bandwidth

I don't know what to make of this BB Reports that "According to Deloitte & Touche predictions, Internet traffic will start to exceed capacity as early as this year and large network providers won't be expanding capacity." On a side note, the folks who live on BBReports.com forums are some of the dumbest people.

VZ Selling Off

Verizon sold off KY to AllTel (now Windstream) years ago. Then Hawaii to Carlyle Group. Now it is hoping to get approval to sell Maine-NH-VT to FairPoint (but a few local ISP's and CLEC's there think it is a bad idea). Rumor has it Michigan is next. Some think they are selling off rural to focus on Metro and FiOS. Others think that by selling off rural they will be able to monopolize metro areas since price caps will be affected by the shrinking number of lines due to asset sales. BTW, "Verizon sold its New England business to FairPoint for about $1,800 per line."

Firing Clients: Follow-Up

A few people have called and emailed about this post. It was part rant and part lesson. The rant is what it is. But the lesson is this: Many of you have clients that make you very little money, but cost you a great deal of time and energy. Dump them! You are not Ma Bell.

Remember Paretos' principle: The 80/20 Rule. You want to focus on the 20% of your clients that make you 80% of your money. You don't want to burn up 80% of your tech's time with the lowest paying 20%.

We are still seeing that Dial-up is hugely profitable - moreso than DSL by far. Most margins on DSL are $10 max. Unless that client is buying other services from you, if it is problematic -- sell that account to the ILEC. (We pay $100 per each BellSouth FastAccess Biz account).

Life is short! Have some fun... Because your customer can feel that fun... And people want to associate with fun people - not stressed out, cranky cynics!