What do these 4 companies have in common? They could disappear before 2009. DSL Reports has the summary.
The four companies predicted by the site to be on their last legs are: AMD. They say that in order to compete with the chips being put out by Intel, this company will need partnership from others in the industry. Motorola. They believe Samsung will buy out Motorola and say that the company can’t continue on its own. Qwest. They say two problems must be resolved for Qwest to keep going: development of a wireless solution and funding for a fiber buildout. Sprint. Recent layoffs are just one indication that the company is struggling. 24/7 Wall Street suggests that a much-discussed acquisition by Comcast could still happen. Renewed talks with Clearwire and other Xohm partnership rumors could make a big difference in whether or not this occurs.
As noted yesterday, the US Broadband policy is not all it can be. And the network is not being built for the future. In some cases, like New England, it is not even being built for the now. The Telco Barons didn't learn a lesson from cellular. The cellco divisions have upgraded 2G, 2.5G, 3G, now 4G. Some of that was due to technology launch. Some of it to a policy of doing as little as possible to maximize quarterly profits.
Now, "A proposal from non-profit firm EDUCAUSE suggested a way to improve broadband speed and availability in the US, to better match what other developed nations have to offer.
EDUCAUSE published a white paper called 'A Blueprint for Big Broadband' that will have the big US telecoms screaming bloody murder. Like Kevin Bacon trying to stop the onrushing crowd in Animal House, we're continually told "All is well" when it comes to broadband in the US. [webpronews]
Read more at Google Public Policy blog.
Y! News states, "In 2004, President Bush pledged that all Americans should have affordable access to high-speed Internet service by 2007. A report to be released Thursday by the administration says it has succeeded — mostly." The report is probably being released at the State of the Net conference that Sue Crawford is attending in DC tomorrow.
One more Mission Accomplished by our Cowboy President. Oh, wait, did someone say, Almost. Yeah. That figures. What I see accomplished is the following:BTW, if you are wondering how the report can be so rosy, I point to you to where the data came from: "The NTIA report drew its conclusion using data from the Federal Communications Commission and other sources. The FCC reported that more than 99 percent of all U.S. ZIP codes received broadband service from at least one provider by the end of 2006."
Rumor abounds that SprintNextel are back in talks with Clearwire for nationwide WiMax deployment. Makes sense for both of them.
In further Nextel news, Sprint announced it is keeping the iDEN network.
In the 700 MHz auction, the C-Block of nationwide 22 MHz of spectrum has not reached the minimum bid of $4.6B. Telephony mag (revamped website) thinks it is due to the "Open Rules". The D Block is the private-public safety spectrum, which has only received one bid for $472M. Frontline tanked before the auction, probably due to no financing.
Ribbit has released Amphibian with Caller ID 2.0
"This isn't your grandma's caller ID. In addition to a name and number, Ribbit gathers information about your caller from the Internet as you talk, letting you check out their social feeds from Google, Flickr, Twitter, and much more."
The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Launch Event.
Come out to a local launch event and find out how Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is the right choice to help you build stronger customer relationships! The Toronto event will feature a keynote address by published, industry-renowned sales consultant Jeffrey Gitomer - - who will discuss the importance of building lasting customer relationships and having the right tools to do it! To register for this free seminar, please visit: www.microsoft.ca/TorontoCRM
Easy process:
The USDA Rural Development Program has just announced 2008 Grants (and Loans).
The Rural Development Community Connect Grant Program.
Applications Due: March 28
The Community Connect program serves rural communities where broadband service is least likely to be available, but where it can make a tremendous difference in the quality of life for citizens. The projects funded by these grants will help rural residents tap into the enormous potential of the Internet.
Distance Learning and Telemedicine Program
Applications Due: April 12
Eligible purposes are primarily user equipment that functions via telecommunications systems for the purposes of connecting students and teachers or medical professionals and patients at separate sites. Examples are video-conferencing or tele-radiology equipment. The Grant Program funds equipment that operates over telecommunications systems, but does not fund the telecommunications links themselves. In additions, it funds such things as the acquisition of instructional programming and technical assistance and instruction for using eligible equipment.
One of things that I worked on with my coach, Keith Rosen, was Time Management. Priorities. Routine. Sales process. Scheduling. The last thing that I was able to put in my thick head was that I was scheduling at best effort.
"Email should only take one hour in the morning."
Never mind that it actually took me 2 to 3 hours in the morning to read, parse, reply, task and do all the email that was sitting there.
No matter how much you want to, no matter how efficient you are, you can't do 15 hours of work in a 10 or 12 hour day (even skipping lunch).
Available now on Lulu.com!
SELLECOM:
101 Ideas for Marketing in the Telecom Jungle by Peter Radizeski
301 pages filled with over 100 ideas on sales, marketing and running today's telecom business.
Buy it today!Sometime during the trip back from Miami Beach, my laptop broke. It won't take a charge, so after I drained the 2 batteries, I can't access it. What a pain! Usually before a trip, I back up the hard drive to an external drive and burn most of the data (like PST and email folders) to DVD. Um, I didn't this time. The laptop is at the doctor and the hard drive is in an enclosure feeding this PC.
Example 2: Salesman on flight staring at his Blackberry. Turns out it broke. He wonders where he can get the data off it - especially his contacts / address book.
Backup is essential!
AT&T offers email archiving. Now Barracuda goes one better with IM Archiving.
With more businesses beginning to stockpile staff e-mail and instant-message communications for legal reasons, Barracuda Networks Inc. has introduced new features enabling the Barracuda IM Firewall to export complete IM conversations to a message-archiving solution. ... Completed IM threads are forwarded via SMTP to the message-archiving solution on the network, enabling the administrator to log onto the message archiving solution and sort through both email and IM threads. [telecomweb]
I have to wonder how this will play out.
"Tech Data's resellers will now be able to offer XO SIP, a converged voice and data service for businesses with IP-PBX systems delivered over a single, high-speed connection. A bundled solution combining XO SIP service with Cisco Unified Communications solutions will also be available."
XO has about 4000 agents out selling their service (the last number I heard from their VP in 2006). That doesn't include AE's. Agents and AE's have access to support and training. What would the VAR selling from Tech Data have? Many VAR's use Tech Data as a virtual warehouse, plugging the TD API into their web engine to sell thousands of IT parts, drop shipped from TD warehouses.
Will XO with TD be able to sell Integrated T1's this way? We'll be watching.
We last looked at TowerStream in August. They have been making some noise, so let's look at the 3Q07 numbers:
"During December more than 40 of our sales representatives produced revenue, which is an impressive accomplishment given that we only had 15 sales representatives when I joined Towerstream at the end of April 2007. We feel our recruiting process is targeting more experienced candidates resulting overall in more productive hires. This, coupled with a solid training program, enables our sales team to produce revenue more quickly than anytime in our history." "The first sales training class of 2008 will bring Towerstream's sales team to 100 representatives. By the end of Q1, Towerstream expects the sales team to grow to approximately 120 members." [reuters]
Now that will increase the selling expenses a bunch. Hopefully, sales can outpace expenses from both sales, installation, and support.
Gary Gary has a nice review of TowerStream's new 8MB "Metro Ethernet" service on his blog, IP Business.
Alltel is bundling the Blackberry with SalesNOW!
"SalesNOW is a contact and deal management tool specifically designed for use on the BlackBerry and Internet", according to the website and PR.
SalesNOW isn't the only CRM app available from Alltel. (see here for Blackberry and here for Windows)
Sprint probably has the most apps for mobile devices. Here's just one vertical, which includes CRM, workflow apps, dispatch and work tracking with GPS.
But CRM integration is every where.
Broadsoft announced that it has integrated with Salesforce.com for CRM screen pops. Simple Signal, a Broadsoft powered VoIP Provider, has this API working. (I didn't see it. But that was the rumor at the TMC IT Expo last week in Miami Beach).
LignUp does some mashing of CRM with VoIP. (So did Visitar before it closed).
Even Verio offers SAAS in the form of SugarCRM, Accrisoft, and Microsoft Exchange 2007.
Do you want to be at the beginning of this wave or the end? It isn't the Dump Pipe! It's the productivity gains people can have with the pipe.
One more thought comes from Cisco, who is spent $3B on Webex last year, "has signed up with Jamcracker to deliver the WebEx WebOffice through the Jamcracker Services Delivery Network (JSDN)." [telecomweb] Yet one more big guy getting into the space.
Gary Kim writes that C3IP has integrated ACT! into its VoIP service. (Do you see a pattern here?)
The horse that I beat the most is the Services angle. Managed services. AT&T did $3.1B in business services last quarter, including VPN and Managed Internet.
I will repeat the mantra: Technology is out-pacing the knowledge of the average person. Small business owners need to focus on selling their services and products; hiring and managing their employees; doing admin duties and paying taxes. They don't have time to deal with a router, mail server, etc.
To this point along comes Strata8.
"Strata8 offering services to enterprises only, and only inside of their buildings, proffering something it says can put a halt to "wireless creep" while slashing corporate phone bills.
"What Bellevue, Wash.-based Strata8 has put together is a service that uses licensed spectrum, UTStarcom pico cells and Tango Networks' Abrazo software -- a fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) solution that can turn almost any mobile phone into an extension of the corporate PBX. Wireless calls flowing over the corporate network are being billed at landline rates, thus the savings for a company. When an employee leaves the building, the handset can roam to a standard cellular carrier's network.[telecomweb]
Strata8 is an Integrator. It has taken products and software and is filling a need. How many enterprises do you think could cobble it together? How many do you think will pay them to?
AT&T revenue was over $30 Billion for 4Q07. Telecomweb has the numbers:
AT&T and VZ have been fighting regulation since the TA96 act, but since 2005 have peppered the FCC with Forbearance petitions. While K-Mart complains about the fact that cable rates have risen sharply in the last 5-10 years, the FCC Commish is blind to the rising prices from the RBOC's.
Cable rates have gone up mainly due to an increase in the number of channels carried as well as the cost of that content. AT&T and VZ now understand that the content is the expensive piece. Disney, TW, and Hollywood still want to make millions per episode. ESPN/Disney pays about $1B per year for the NFL. NBC paid the cast of Friends $1M per episode. Consumers and the distribution system have to pay for those rates.
It's funny that AT&T and VZ don't mind paying to carry the NFL Network, but get very upset about having to carry Google. Google is to the internet what the NFL is to cable -- without it 50% of the folks would not pay you for the pipe.
In today's USA Today, Leslie Cauley has an article about the steep rise in rates for unregulated phone services, like Caller ID and call forwarding. Considering that the COG (cost of goods) for these services is ZERO, you would think the RBOC's would stop trying to bleed the consumer dry. And let's not forget that while you pay $10 for Caller ID on that landline, AT&T provides Caller ID and Voicemail FREE on your cell phone. Go figure, right?
Rate hikes while the economy is slipping is probably not the best move for a company already pulling Business Week points out that Ma and Pa Bell and rolling out U-Verse and FiOS at a chancy economic time. Ma Bell has already made a statement about the economy affecting its revenues. AT&T made $30.3B in the fourth quarter. $30B! That's $10B per quarter. But they need to nickel and dime everyone to increase that, especially if some folks are going to be poor credit risks.
John Moore at Brand Autopsy is reviewing RE-IMAGINE by Tom Peters . I don't like to copy whole posts, but in this case John Moore is copying page 321 of the book.
A symphony conductor is usually a good musician, but seldom a world-class performer. The most effective university deans are often not the best professors. The ability to lead … to Engage Others and to Turn Them On … rarely coincides with being at the tip-top of the … Individual Performance Heap. Which is not to say that leaders shouldn’t have a fingertip familiarity with their particular line of business. But the factors that make you good at the “people stuff” and the “inspirational stuff” and the “profit-making stuff” are quite distinct from the factors that vault you to the Pinnacle of Individual Mastery. In business, alas, it’s all too common to promote the “best” practitioner to the job of leading other practitioners. The best trainer becomes head of the training department. The best account manager becomes head of the sales department. And so on. Tellingly, that’s not how things work in … True Talent Enterprises.
I believe this is called the Peter Principle.
"The Peter Principle is a colloquial principle of hierarchiology, stated as "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."" [wikipedia]
When I worked in Corporate America, I saw this all the time. After being a Chemist for X Years, he would move up to Lab Manager, with no training or managerial skills (and usually without people skills). Why does this apply here? Because many times, people want to move up the ladder, even when they lack the skills for the next job. This includes you. You may be a great network admin, coder, developer, etc., but managing employees and the minutia of day-to-day operations is not your forte. Few executives realize this. Play to your strengths; hire to your weaknesses.
John Moore has an index to the rest of the book's highlights here.
Wired blogs about EarthLink ditching a meeting in Phillie about its $20M Money Pit called the Muni Wi-Fi network. Yes. ELN is still waiting to be bought out. No nibbles yet. But to put $20M into the Phillie network and then say, "Nah! We'll skip that" is plain stupid. (The only news I got from the comments is that Sky Dayton is a Scientologist).
A week after our stock market took a hit, international markets followed suit. Not looking bright.
Michele Miller of WonderBranding pointed out this article (prediction really) by Roy Williams, the Wizard of Ads: 2008: Year of Transition
"Roy offers a few guidelines for the next cycle of business that show you not only how to survive the rocky road ahead, but tell you exactly what you need to do in order to grow."
The Wizard points out that Marketing and the Market is changing. Rapidly. (Something Seth Godin has been yodeling about as well). His main points are here, but read the whole article.
You can see this happening with telcos and online shopping and Insurance:
"Your customer is saying, “Quality and price and quick, please. I’ve got things to do. Thanks.” Service and selection still matter, but not nearly so much as they once did. Inefficient organizations built on high-touch “relationship” selling will decline."
Managed Services is about Efficiency. Leverage strengths and strategic partnerships to develop a streamlined and expeditious offering to businesses that want to buy time and peace of mind. I still think there is a market for High Touch, but as money gets scarce, that space will shrink also. Which brings us to this point:
"Access to information is going up and Access to money is going down."
" 'Winning' has become less important than 'belonging'." This explains the rise of social networking.
"Word-of-Mouth is the new Mass Media." As communications flatten out - text, SMS, email, IM, chat, blogs, social networks, forums, and search engines - it will be harder to control what is being said about you - and it will happen fast. If you are not marketing your business, if you are not sending out a clear message, someone else will (and you may not like it).
Just letting you know that Global Crossing (GX) also offers a sub-$20 price point on 100MB or more of IP .. Port Only.
GX is IPv6!
Airespring is offering sub-$20 as well.
Call RAD-INFO, Inc. today for your bandwidth quote - 813.963.5884
RAD-INFO, Inc. acts as a sales agent for more than 20 carriers, including Ma Bell, Qwest, Sprint, Embarq, Global Crossing, SAVVIS, InterNAP, Level(3), New Edge, and XO.
We also have resellers in our portfolio like NIT, Global Capacity, AireSpring, TNCI and others in case the price is more important than the direct relationship. The full list is here.
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Amid announcements that Embarq is rolling out 10MB x 896k DSL after an extended test period in Las Vegas, Embarq has a Digital Divide Deal with NC.
e-NC, which is chartered to help bring high-speed Internet access from Manteo to Murphy, awarded Embarq a contract to expand its high-speed network in Warren and three other counties. They were the only counties left where less than half their populations could access the Net at high speed..... Embarq won the deal through a competitive bid process. As part of the deal, Embarq agreed to match state funding of $1.21 million that was made available to the e-NC by the North Carolina General Assembly. [wral]
The article also lists the counties with the lowest broadband penetration -- opportunities for ISP's and CLEC's, especially with wireless broadband. "The counties targeted by e-NC are Warren, Jones, Gates and Greene."
e-NC reported that "more than 83 percent of North Carolina households can sign on for broadband access to the Internet." However, "e-NC’s statistics do not take into account wireless Internet availability." [wral]
Finally, Embarq has launched a Text-to-Landline service. "With this service, all EMBARQ Wireless customers can send text messages to any landline phone in the U.S." [source]
In the book, Strategy and the Fat Smoker, the idea is that business execs know what to do, it is obvious, but actually doing it is the hard part. Yeah. The comments made to me the most often is that I often state the obvious. Just because it is obvious doesn't mean anyone is doing it. Execution is the hard part.
Getting your organization to see the path and get everyone marching to the same way to the same music is a challenge. Clear communications is helpful. Top Down Vision is key. (By that I mean, everyone has thier eye on the vision, the BHAG). Smaller companies usually do not spend time on the Vision statement or job descriptions or performance reviews or goal setting. But these things give clarity to what employees are expected to do and why. It is a way to make everyone feel like part of the big picture.
As we are are almost done with the first month of the new year, maybe you can use some help. Coming up in February are the following seminars:
Sign up here. Look for podcasts in February for added tips and help to improve your business from RAD-INFO, Inc. For 101 Ideas for your business, read the book - SELLECOM.
Every year about a thousand business books are published. No one can read them all. (Although Seth Godin points out that if you aren't reading something, you are missing out. You should at least read my book!) But you can learn a lesson just from the titles in some cases. The Miami Herald has list of their Best of 2007 Business Books. The titles say something:
In other cases, the summary can be enough to get the idea the book was going to express:
The web world is abuzz with the announcement from TW Cable that they will begin adding charges for the bandwidth hogs (TechDirt and ISEN). About 5% of the users disrupt the network for the rest of the 95%. Comcast tried traffic shaping, but the FCC is all over them. (See Rulemaking WC 07-52). DOCSIS is as asymmetric as ADSL -- more download than up. That's why P2P upsets the apple cart.
This will get funky now that TV over the Internet is booming - Apple TV, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, Joost. (This is mainly a Residential ISP issue. So if you are a B2B ISP, go back to counting your money).
The problem is that not only doesn't Grandma know what the limit is or when you would be over --- I don't either. My EVDO card is a backup, so I only have the 40MB for $40 deal. Sometimes my email is 20MB while at a conference (mainly Cliff's fault). Sometimes it is less than 4MB. Web page size has grown to an average of 1.4MB (I read that somewhere). We'll see how all this plays out, but the genie is definitely out of the bottle. The days of oversubscription and mainly bursty internet traffic are narrowing due to video.
Updated thoughts: Will the cap increase with the Tier I buy or id the cap the same if I buy 7MB or 15MB? Again, how will be measure usage? Will the cap be fixed and named or arbitrary (like 10% greater than your metro average)?
"Sutus Inc., a leading manufacturer of converged Phone, Data and Networking solutions, today announced that it has been named by Rocket Builders as one of 25 hottest IT companies that are best positioned to capitalize on trends for growth." [from the SUTUS press release]
Sutus has developed Business Central ™ a unique all-in-one data and communications appliance specifically designed to tap into the $3.5 billion dollar small business technology market. Business Central is a business-class phone system with a wide array of advanced data and networking functions such as: file server, email server, router, firewall, wireless access point, VPN remote access server, automated backups, and the ability to simultaneously support both standard phone line and VoIP connections.It has a stupid, easy GUI for self-management. It has wi-fi, NAT+SPI Firewall, PBX, web and file server with a RAID 1 hard drive built in. IN less than 30 minutes, you can set up voice amil, handsets, file shares, and email. Financing available. Wouldn't you like to offer your VoIP customers a great office solution like this?
This post is from Jack Hayhow's blog, that he started to support his book, The Wisdom of the Flying Pig: Guidance and Inspiration for Managers and Leaders, PigWisdom. (The blog is discontinued).
The March issue of Inc. Magazine had a good feature in the Smart Questions column entitled "How to Help an Underachiever". The column suggested six questions:
All good questions - and the Inc. column commented on them nicely. If you'd like to learn more about how to help an underacheiver, I'd suggest our free online course, Coaching for Performance.
The funny thing is that Jack spelled UnderAchiever wrong throughout the post. Also, I would have added a 7th Question: "Are you still interested in working here? If not, my kid wants to go to college and your salary and benefits would just about cover it."
Seriously though, in today's economy, finding talented staff is a challenge -- a costly one. Surveys show that hiring the wrong person can cost thousands in time, energy, effort, lost productivity - almost 1/3 the person's salary. Moreover, as a busy business owner you don't want to spend your valuable time doing the Hiring & Training Process every 90 days. If someone shows potential, you certainly would like to make it work out. The article offers decent advice to start a dialogue with the employee.
Motivating Employees is an age old HR issue. The best pointer I can give you is that Money is not always the best motivator. (Look for an e-book to come out in March - email southeast_dsl at yahoo to get on the notification list). If you need help with Employee Matters, please set an appointment with me to talk it through.
As some of you are aware, at ISPCON in the Fall in San Jose, I presented a session called Hiring 101, which an ISP sort of taped for me. (It's missing some of the beginning). If you want a link to the video, leave a comment. Thanks!
Normally this would have been posted to my Marketing Idea Guy website. This is the headline from Tech Journal South: "IT spending slowdown increases need for improved IT selling effectiveness using ROI/TCO Analysis"
"IDC and leading ROI/TCO tools developer Alinean predict that the tightened IT spending environment will require IT vendors to cost-justify their solutions amid increased competition, making business value selling a best practice requirement."
What this means is that even to sell on price, which telecom is infamous for, will still require that your company present an explanation of the ROI or TCO. The ROI (Return on Investment) would be a direct dollar savings by using your technology or managed services.
The TCO (total Cost of Ownership) would be a picture of the true, total costs of the small business owner maintaining and operating the technology, software or service by themselves versus contracting you to provide said product.
When things get tight, it is even harder to get people to change.
"DC and Alinean see the following trends emerging from 2008 IT budget tightening:"
- Getting prospects interested in new projects will be more difficult as discretionary spending will see the biggest cutbacks - making it harder to get attention for any new proposals not already on the planning roadmap.
- Getting prospects to prioritize proposed projects and gain economic buyer approval will rely more than ever on quantifying return on investment and proving quick payback.
- Sales cycles will be longer for projects that lack a clear economic benefit defined by standard financial metrics.
"IDC and Alinean are recommending the following initiatives for IT solution providers to address the emergence of a more frugal buyer:"
- Value oriented messaging and white papers, research and collateral to generate interest and position properly in a more competitive and frugal landscape.
- Benchmarking tools to identify and quantify competitive gaps and drive prospects with quantifiable compelling reasons to change.
- Capability and maturity assessment tools to identify specific prospect gaps and value opportunities/priorities, setting the agenda.
- Value-oriented sales tools to quantify the benefits of proposed solutions and projects, lowering IT infrastructure and operations costs and generating business value, investment required and ROI
- Business value training to help transition the sales force quickly.
- Implementing ROI SLAs with customers to track actual performance versus goals, then using this quantifiable proof for future up-sell an cross-sell campaigns.
- The need for independent third-party validation of TCO and ROI behind a business value assessment, to add credibility and overcome business owner skepticism.
Value Selling has been called many things including Consultative Selling and SPIN Selling. It means becoming a Trusted Advisor who asks open ended questions to elicit the pain (or what-keeps-him-up-at-night). Then you can present a possible solution. There is a chapter in my book, SELLECOM, about this. Buy now and save $5 before hit hits the printer!
Two developments in ADSL so far in 2008.
The first is that Megapath is rolling out ADSL2. Megapath mainly resells other carriers broadband, so I am wondering if this is a Covad resale. Who knows?
As a follow on to its growing suite of broadband access products—a portfolio that includes various flavors of DSL (ADSL, SDSL and IDSL), bonded T1, cable and satellite services—MegaPath’s ADSL2+ service is targeted at both Small to Medium Sized Businesses (SMBs) and larger business with branch locations. ....Available in 11 major U.S. cities, including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, the ADSL2+ service offers business customers three bandwidth tiers: 8, 10, and 15 Mbps. [source]
The other question should be: Do they have the network to backhaul enough bandwidth that the business "power users" actually get what they ordered? (It's the same question I would ask of Covad or New Edge. I don't play favorites). Speaking of New Edge: NEN is the second story.
NEN (or EarthLink if you rather) is rolling out Redback Networks’ SmartEdge 800 gateway switches in order to provide QOS on its ADSL network. [source] QOS on DSL. Now that's novel! One thing though: This is on New Edge's ADSL Network in a private managed network. NEN also resells ILEC DSL circuits which I do not think will be able to be Prioritized. The NEN Managed ADSL w/QOS will retail for about $150.
Transparency: I am a New Edge sales agent. So if you are looking to hit some areas with ADSL, T1 or Frame, give me a shout at 813-963-5884 or email to southeast_dsl at yahoo dotcom
AT&T's CallVantage VoIP service is adding recovery fees, according to a user or two on DSLReports.com. The new "carrier cost recovery fee" will be from $0.99 to $2.39 per month and, according to the press release:
This fee helps AT&T recover costs associated with providing state-to-state and international long distance service including expenses for national regulatory fees and programs and, connection and account servicing charges.
Personally, I can't see how consumers don't get upset over this behavior. Fees, charges, taxes - it ends up adding 10-18% to the bill. And most of it is crap that really means "we-need-to-add-more-profit-as-a-surcharge". How the F-Agencies (both the FTC and the FCC) don't put a stop to this is beyond me. It is falso advertising!
If you market or quote your service as $29.99 -- the only additional charge should be legitimate taxes.
BTW, VZ has added taxes to the DSL bill for NSP's per the Florida Communications Tax bill.
And as long as I am on th esubject of BS surcharges, ViaTalk is adding about $3.50 per month to recover costs for 911 and profit. See the article at DSLReports.
TheStreet.com is reporting that after losing 1M subs in 2 quarters, Sprint will be laying off thousands. [story here]
"Sprint lost more than 500,000 wireless customers in the fourth quarter."
"In its third quarter, Sprint lost 337,000 subscribers, an alarming rate given the strength of the wireless market. But Sprint's losses have been a big gain for rivals." [thestreet.com again]
How do you lose almost 1M subs in 2 quarters?! In this marketplace? Sprint has a great data network (EVDO). [I'm not only a sales agent for SprintNextel, I am a customer - but luckily not a stockholder :)].
"Hesse must also make big decisions regarding Nextel's iDEN network, possibly migrating customers to CDMA or potentially selling the system to public safety agencies. Sprint has also put a hold on all new WiMAX developments, while Hesse evaluates the business opportunity in this so-called 4G network technology." [thestreet.com]
Analysts have suggested selling the iDEN network for 18 months. Or spinning it off for the cash.
And the new CEO, Hesse, is a Bell-head, who days ago was the first CEO of Embarq. What Sprint really needs are a fresh set of ideas, thoughts, et al. That was justing popping up in the WiMax venture named XOHM and the possible partnership with Clearwire. These are fresh ideas. You won't catch up to Ma & Pa Bell by doing the same old song and dance. (And without an iPhone or the new LG like VZW, Sprint needs to do SOMETHING to woo cellular subs. WiMax and EVDO together could win the mobile broadband battle. Add in an extra subscription to iPass so your customers have all your coverage plus 40,000 hotspots plus the FEMTOCELL stuff and Sprint should be adding subs. But then they have a barely used fiber backbone too. And I guess those cable partners at Pivot aren't adding enough subs either.
from PCWorld/Yahoo news:
In addition to the new router, Vonage is beginning to roll out many new features that it is showcasing at alpha.vonage.com. For instance, customers can now use voice-activated dialing, simply speaking a name to place a call. Customers can also send a voice message to anyone via e-mail. The message arrives as an attached audio file. Call blast is a new feature that lets customers send out a voice mail simultaneously to a group of people. Citron anticipates that will be useful when he's in charge of calling 15 kids who go to school with his kids to tell them there is a snow day.
"We expect to roll out a new capability every month or two," Citron said.
Vonage also plans to offer another service that lets users access the voice recognition system from any phone to make a call through Vonage. The company is also testing software that would let customers make Vonage calls via software on their laptops.
Here's where it breaks down:
"Many of these services are free to Vonage customers."
The business model of Vonage isn't not sustainable at their current price point (ARPU).
Kevin Martin spoke at the Rainbow Push Coalition to tell Jesse Jackson & Co. how wonderful he is. (You can read the full text here). Martin has it in for Cable. Maybe they didn't give his son any presents at Christmas. I don't know. But at this point it is so blatant as to make him a clown.
He has decided to Probe Comcast's Alleged Blocking Of File Sharing, while AT&T announces at CES that it will push Internet Piracy Filters in its network this year.
Now from his speeches (This could be from any speech because he is repetitive as heck, but it is actually from the Rainbow):
The Commission has also taken steps to address skyrocketing cable rates. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that cable rates have risen faster than the rate of any other communications service. But you might not know how significant that disparity is. The average cost of the expanded cable package (the standard cable package) almost doubled from 1995 to 2005—increasing 93%–while the cost of other communication services didn’t just increase less, they fell. Long distance calls, wireless telephone calls, international calls – the price for all these services decreased significantly. Why the difference? The cable industry needs more competition.
First, my local dial-tone has not gone down in price. In fact, it has increased. That is entirely his fault for letting VZ do whatever it wants!
Second, cable rates have increased because of Content Pricing. In 10 years, ESPN went from 1 channel to 7. HBO has like 13. There are so many channels I would never watch, that I wish for a la carte pricing. But that won't work because, in short, prices per channel would increase your bill and many channels would go out of business. How effective would it be if QVC or HSN wasn't thrown in? Would anyone pay to shop?
If he worked for any other Administration he would be gone by now, but K-Mart is the perfect example of how new data and facts are not allowed into this Administration. Look at the thousands of public comments about media ownership that he totally ignored to give Big Media what they wanted. This is OUR government. These are OUR airwaves. K-Mart needs to re-read the charter for the FCC. One more year of this crap.
Ike Elliot writes about Vonage's burn rate:
In Vonage's 3rd quarter earnings report, they reported a $206 cost per gross subscriber line addition, and a churn rate of 3% per month. Simply put, Vonage has to grow their subscriber base by 3% every month, or about 75,000 subscribers, just to avoid shrinking. And, it costs Vonage $15.45M to add these replacement subscribers. That $15M in monthly "treading water money" is a big contributor to the company's $120M/quarter cash burn rate.
All this after paying out $240M upfront to settle patent lawsuits. (There's still the issue of royalty payments that will cut into their "profit" - if they had any). In addition, Vonage still faces stockholder lawsuits stemming from the IPO.
Vonage rolled out a gadget dubbed MyVonage.
"The gadget is designed to assist with basic troubleshooting and serve as a hub for features, such as tracking the duration of calls, that were previously accessible only through Vonage's Web site. The $80 gadget, available to new customers for $10 with a one-year commitment, will be sold on Vonage's Web site starting Jan. 9 and in stores by midyear." [businessweek]
MyVonage is a customer service tool and supposedly a retention tool. I don't know how you charge your customers - especially Vonage's cutrate customers - money to make them support themselves. Start helping Vonage customers port their numbers now.
I will be giving Nourish a chance. Nourish allows you , the reader, to get the blog posts as a newsletter weekly (on Fridays at 3 PM) by signing up HERE.
BellSouth (now called ATT Southeast) has removed DSL from the tariff per forbearance. (Read tariff notice here).
Previous material in this section has been de-tariffed pursuant to the Commission's Wireline Broadband Order in CC Docket Nos. 02-33 and 01-337, released September 23, 2005. Generally available terms and conditions (GATC) associated with the de-tariffed service is available at www.att.com/products.
Actually, if you do not already have a signed Commercial Agreement (CA) for DSL, then you cannot offer DSL thanks to forbearance at the FCC.
BTW, you should have received notice on or around Dec. 24, 2007, that other "Broadband" services were being de-tariffed in a letter titled "Notice of AT&T's Withdrawal of its Tariffs for Certain Broadband Services". The tariff withdrawal should be effective by Feb. 1.
"Once the tariff withdrawal is effective, the rates, terms and conditions for your broadband services that are now in AT&T's tariffs will be moved to the Interstate Guidebook, with the exception of Contract Tariffs."
"The broadband services referenced in this letter are the following types of optical and packet switched broadband transmission services provided by the AT&T operating companies: Frame Relay; ATM; Remote Network Access Service; Video Transmission Service; Optical Transport Service; Optical Networking Service; and Wave-Based Transport Service." This is pursuant to FCC WC Docket 06-125. DSL, dry (dark) fiber, BBG and EUA may not have been specifically named, but were implied.
"If you do not currently subscribe to a contractv tariff or tariff term plan for your broadband services, or if your current contract tariff or term plan expires without a successor, AT&T will provide your broadband services on a month-to-month basis under an agreement known as the Business Services Agreement for Broadband."
I started the new year with two pieces of news that made No Sense (and will result in No Cents). One was that VoIP Inc. received $2.5M in private placement. Two was that Lisa Hook is now President at NeuStar. HUH?!
Let me tackle VoIP Inc. first. Here is a company that many of my clients have experienced performance issues with. This company has been a state of flux since I was first introduced to them at a FISPA meeting in 2003. The C-Suite is always dancing and funding seems readily available. If they could just actually provide what they promise reliably, they might be able to get to cash flow. But that doesn't seem to be possible. [In fairness, VoIP Inc. isn't the only Origination/Termination provider that has given clients of mine fits - many, many others have as well. Here's the commercial: Having trouble with O/T? Call me. We can find you a back up provider or an alternative to fit your needs - and maybe even your pocketbook :) 813-963-5884 ] Next step for them is to start suing for patent infringement.
So now we get to the Lisa Hook story. Okay. How can you fail at AOL Broadband, take over SunRocket and drive it into oblivion, and still get a CEO gig at a company like NeuStar???? Hello?! Utterly amazing! (Now if she had taken over at VoIP Inc. - That would have made sense!)
