Nifty stuff I've seen

"Silver Peak Systems, the leader in scalable Wide Area Network (WAN) acceleration, today announced that EarthLink Telecommunications, a leading broadband Internet Service Provider, has selected Silver Peak's NX appliances to optimize WAN performance and reduce bandwidth costs. With Silver Peak's real-time network optimization techniques, EarthLink Telecommunications has improved Internet performance for subscribers while increasing bandwidth capacity on the company's international WAN backbone." [press release] I have no idea what the Silver Peak system actually does. Such great work by the PR firm.

• Ifbyphone Targets SMB Carriers with Cloud Telephony Services, including IVR. It's an add-on service from the cloud that you can offer clients. [TMCnet]
• Security as a service like Zscaler. But McAffee is offering it now also.
• Speech to text for free at Vlingo
• iTech offers Online Backup Services as well as Managed Services as an overlay to any carrier network. (That means you can resale it!) The backup service is a simple online tool to secure data offsite. The Managed Service offering is an excellent checkup and monitoring tool to expose network threats, ensure data security, provide ongoing 24/7 monitoring and notification, all viewable through an easy-to-use dashboard.
• Four Tips for Getting Good ROI from Web 2.0 Projects --- How Embarq uses Web 2.0 by CIO magazine.
• XO matching L3 pricing on GigE IP Ports in Lit buildings. Crazy.

Duopoly Tidbits

Fun facts from the blogs.

Verizon also had 299,000 net adds for its FiOS TV service, which now is at 23 percent penetration of homes that can buy the service, and added 298,000 net FiOS Internet access customers, bringing penetration up to 27 percent.

What people don;t see is how much it costs them to acquire that FiOS TV customer. Billboards, print ads, TV, direct mail, call centers - all at promotional rates. With a $400 ONT, a day's worth of tech time for install, the giftcard, the free DVD player, and the two set-top boxes (at $400 each).

Worth noting: AT&T CFO Rick Lindner says "our stand-alone DSL product which about 50 percent of the time is bundled with wireless has been very strong for us."

Bundles work. What are you bundling?

Cablevision Systems Optimum Lightpath is offering a voice and data bundled service that includes the cost of CPE, such as phones and routers, into the monthly cost, looking for customers willing to spend between $30 to $40 per month per employee on voice and data.

This is for Business customers. Excel, SUTUS, Allworx, and other SIP trunking companies are offering a "Stimulus Plan" to buy customers with free hardware.

From Gary Kim, "Quarterly SME adoption rates of IP telephony have been falling since the third quarter of 2006, Savatar notes."

"Switching service providers and hardware is described as a "monumental hassle" for businesses of all sizes, says Multichannel News, with one softswitch vendor commenting that the competitor for new services isn't "'the other guy' - it's the status quo." [fiercevoip] SMB isn't buying do to Inertia. And how many people selling VoIP are truly excited about it? Very few.

Lessons from Other Carriers

Jon Arnold has an article that breaks down the next-gen services that a Wyoming RLEC is providing. Besides POTS, copper, and wireless, VoIP, SIP Trunking, back-up, TV and IPTV, free Internet training classes and High-speed over wireless, copper and fiber. Does any of this sound familiar? What pieces are you not offering? What are you waiting for?

Jon writes about Embarq's innovation: "eGo phone, which integrates telephony with the Internet on a cordless handset. While not as sophisticated as the iPhone, eGo adds communications richness and Web services to the home phone experience, making landline telephony more compelling for subscribers." Sounds close to the Verizon Hub landline phone, but does demonstrate some innovation that has been lacking in the ILEC space for years. I hope it survives the merger with CenturyTel.

One that stands out for me is "Social media – while rural markets may appear as laggards, TCT thinks otherwise. For them, the use of Facebook and Twitter are natural tools to maintain connectedness with their subscribers. Rural markets are very community-oriented, and for TCT, Web 2.0 is just another way to keep those ties strong."

TWTC Numbers

TW Telecom reported a 7% increase in revenue for 2008. Other facts:

• $1.15 Billion in revenue in 2008.
• net income of $8.5 million in 2008
• ending the year with $352M in cash and equivalents
• churn was 1.3 percent in Q408 [fiercevoip]

The economy has resulted in customer disconnects and repricing of contracts for everyone.

Capacity magazine stated that "TW Telecom served 29,672 enterprise users at the end of 2008, down from 31,638 a year earlier." What is an enterprise user? Do they mean 29,672 customers or sites or what? No idea. TWT does have 11,000 lit buildings - that's number 1 in the US for non-RBOC companies.

So You Want to Do IPTV

As most of my readers know, I think IPTV is a giant waste of resources. It's cheaper to do broadcast TV - if you HAVE to provide the triple-play. And I haven't seen too much that differentiates IPTV from Broadcast TV. Maybe I missed it.

The hardest part about IPTV is getting content rights. Hard enough to get regular broadcast rights, but IPTV is special.

I have clients who own cable systems. There isn't much ROI on upgrading the HFC plant from analog to digital or fiber, especially when you include the $400 set-top box and the $99 cable modem.

Any way, I know a few of you still want to add that third rail, so here are a few things I have seen:

• CSI Digital provides turn-key IPTV systems.
• According to BBP, "Two new upscale Simmons Vedder properties in Houston are using DIRECTV’s MFH3 solution to provide bulk video and Internet services to residents."
• DISH Network is at the Broadband Summit pimping their PCO system. That's private cable operators for hotel/resort/condo/MDU.
• Can't decide DTV or DISH for PCO? Call SMSTV - they do both.

Personal Internet use at work out of control

ARS Technica has an article about how personal Internet use at work is getting out of control. It is also a liability, a time waster, and a security issue.

THIS is a key marketing point to make to businesses.

It gives you the opportunity to sell Wyse terminals instead of PC's; content filtering; privacy controls; monitoring software; reporting; and other managed services that are big value and high margin.

"Angry at being laid off?" the Risk Report continues. "Or moving to a competitor? Launch YouSendIt! and transfer the customer database or the next-generation product plans to an online archive like BoxNet with ease."

Also, do your customers update operating systems and virus software regularly? Run scans? Why not have a reminder service? Make certain that their is password policy in place too.

Are You Comfortable?

BTW, like Seth, I'm not here to tell you what to do. I'm here to provoke you to re-think your business> I want to make you uncomfortable, because only when you are uncomfortable does change happen.

• Change doesn't happen when you are afraid with your head buried in the sand.
• It doesn't happen when you are wishing things were different.
• It doesn't happen when you are complaining about it being unfair.

One thing I have noticed in ten years in this space: there are 1-0 types of people: those that plan ahead and take action and the rest. Which are you?

Penny wise and pound foolish. I have watched for years people get legal and tax advice from listservs, often for that to bite them in the ass because they wouldn't pay a lawyer or CPA. Foolhardy.

Many of you started in the days of BBS and dial-up, where it was so easy to make money. It was just you and your modem lines. No big competitors. You still had a day job. One ad in the Yellow Pages and you were cashing checks. Eventually, your dial-up business became your job. Not your business, because for many of you it is just your job, the way you pay the mortgage. Then things started changing, fast. V.32, V.34, 56K, DSL. What? The ILEC's are in the game? And from there we have seen how things have gone.

When I say its your job and not your business, I say that because I have seen no planning ahead, no paying attention to the market, no business strategy. Here's a litmus test:

• Are you incorporated?
• Do you have a CPA?
• Do you have a bookkeeper?
• Do you have a Board of Advisors?
• Do you have an attorney - tax, corporate or telecom?
• Do you have a business plan written somewhere?
• Do you have systems in place for sales, ticketing, and orders?
• Do you have written procedures?
• What would you do if your top 2 clients left?
• Are you actively marketing your business?
• Is your website up-to-date?

If you scoffed at this list or answered NO often, it's time to ask yourself Why? I'm thinking this will be my talk at the FISPA meeting in Nashville at the end of June. What do you think? Don't be an Ant.

Are you Uncomfortable yet?

Don't be an Ant

ISP's wonder how the Embarq-CenturyTel merger will affect the Embarq DSL program. My best guess is that there will be no change for about a year, then it will morph into the less ISP-friendly CTEL program. My advice to all Embarq DSL ISP's: Make a Plan NOW for when it all changes because any plan will take time. Possible plans: become a CLEC and provide your own DSL; go WiMax; or go to Layer 7 to enable other streams of revenue that are agnostic of the access line like Hosted Email (Gmail anyone?), backup, SAAS and Managed Desktop. Leverage the cash flow from your existing business NOW to go to Plan B.

Advice from Dave: He wakes up in the morning ... Never changes a thing. The week ends the week begins... And all the little ants are marching. Red and black antennas waving, They all do it the same, They all do it the same way.

Don't be an Ant!

CenturyTel Gets Approval to Acquire Embarq

CenturyTel has been granted approval by Florida, Louisiana, Illinois, Georgia, Mississippi, Nebraska, Minnesota and Ohio Public Utilities Commissions to acquire all of the outstanding common stock in Embarq Corporation. The shareholders of both companies approved the stock transaction. "Eighteen of the 33 states in which the combined company will operate do not require formal approval of the merger." [moneycentral] "The transaction is valued at approximately $11,600 million, including the assumption of Embarq's $5,800 million debt." [tradingmarkets]

Streetinsider.com likes CTEL stock. It reports:

Piper analyst says, "CenturyTel is merging with Embarq, creating the largest RLEC. We believe the Street is not including the $400 million in annualized run-rate synergies into estimates; we also believe the synergies are beatable. We think this could give us free cash flow upside of $0.75, or 2.0% to our free cash flow yield. We expect the merger to close in 2Q – most of the approvals have already been met. CTL is already the best FCF yielding RLEC.

"Combined, CenturyTel and EMBARQ will have approximately 7.7 million access lines, more than two million broadband customers and more than 400,000 video subscribers, based on data as of Dec. 31, 2008." [moneycentral] This will likely place them in the 3rd or 4th place below Comcast Ma and Pa Bell.

The takeover story is particularly interesting (and described in detail on WSJ Blogs). Embarq figured that the RLEC's - itself, CTEL, Windstream and Frontier - would have to combine to survive. The best 2 balance sheets and credit belonged to EMBQ and CTEL. "There was a timing consideration: Embarq had been spun off from Sprint in a tax-free deal in 2006, before the telecommunications operator’s merger with Nextel. Because of federal antitrust laws, Embarq had to wait a certain amount of time after that spinoff to consider a merger, or else shareholders and the company would have to pay heavier taxes." Because Lehman Bros. BK filing, no cash valuation was going to accurate, so CTEL proposed an all-stock deal that made the most sense in the financial setting at the time.

Your Tech Doesn't Matter!

It's all about the Story, the Value, the Content - here and offline. This was Ryan Price's BarCamp Orlando presentation.

Barcamp Storytelling AKA Your Tech is Stupid by Ryan Price

View more presentations from Ryan Price.

BTOP Links

Here is a collection of BTOP (Broadband Stimulus) links.

IDC study: Stimulus bill to spark more than $100B in tech spending.

SmartGrid Tech: it's on the stimulus list of projects. Miami is going ahead with the first one.

The Purposes of the Grant Program: Section 6001 of the Recovery Act establishes five purposes for the BTOP grant program:

Section 6001(b) states that the purposes of the program are to--

• (1) Provide access to broadband service to consumers residing in unserved areas of the United States;
• (2) provide improved access to broadband service to consumers residing in under-served areas of the United States;
• (3) provide broadband education, awareness, training, access, equipment, and support to--
• (A) Schools, libraries, medical and healthcare providers, community colleges, and other institutions of higher education, and other community support organizations and entities to facilitate greater use of broadband service by or through these organizations;
• (B) organizations and agencies that provide outreach, access, equipment, and support services to facilitate greater use of broadband service by low-income, unemployed, aged, and otherwise vulnerable populations; and
• (C) job-creating strategic facilities located within a State-designated economic zone, Economic Development District designated by the Department of Commerce, Renewal Community or Empowerment Zone designated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or Enterprise Community designated by the Department of Agriculture;
• (4) improve access to, and use, of broadband service by public safety agencies; and
• (5) stimulate the demand for broadband, economic growth, and job creation.

from WhyDom: "For the telecom industry, $7.2 billion in grants, loans, and loan guarantees are targeted for broadband projects in the next 22 months. The Fiber on a Pole opportunities are open to all sectors of the industry, not just service providers: equipment vendors, systems integrators, education entities, and wireless and wireline carriers. To complicate matters, governmental entities – towns, municipalities, public safety agencies, and state governments are permitted by the ACT to compete with private industry for the grant money......There are a few guiding principals for obtaining the winning bids:

1. Jobs: Grant proposals must deliver jobs – the more the better
2. Spend it now: NTIA funds are for capital expenditures only and the funds must be spent by December 2010
3. Shovel Ready: Projects must be “shovel ready” – that is ready to begin work immediately upon the award of the grant. “Shovel ready” may apply to consulting work, as the Business Insider points out with a Merrill Lynch bridge project.

Did you miss the NTIA meetings? Video available online.

Occam Networks has been blogging about all the NTIA meetings.

Applying for Broadband Grants Through the NTIA (by Educause)

Let's Get to Work on the Purposes of the Broadband Grant Program.

An Interview You Should Read

An excellent interview with the CEO of DIDX, Suzanne Bowen, about opportunities in world-wide VoIP business. Great Q: "As you know, customers can be further classified into Prospects (pre-sales), Customers (after-sales) and Clients (long-term even life-time), so how do you deal them in different ways?"

Read the whole interview here.

Cypress Buys Reignmaker Assets

From the press release I cannot tell how many customers Cypress Comm. bought from Reignmaker. (Reignmaker's credit line was tied to Standford, the money raider who left zero dollars in the back for Reignmaker to draw on). The release states, Reignmaker "boasted over 11,000 business VoIP installations since its inception." So in 9 years it turned on 11,000 locations, but how many are still there? How many customers is that?

Reignmaker used to rely on CommX in Tampa for its Broadsoft back-office, but a couple of years ago, Reignmaker bought an Atlanta area CLEC that owned a Broadsoft softswitch. Now Cypress has it.

Cypress is a funny company. It was focused on MTU for a long time. This must signal that it is chasing any business now. This purchase leaves them with an expensive mix of platforms:

Cypress will integrate the BroadWorks platform into its national VoIP network to expand its service offering and position it to more easily integrate future acquisitions. With the addition of the Broadworks platform to the Cypress existing Nortel-based switching platforms and the Microsoft OCS platform that is rolling out later this year, Cypress will have deployed the broadest array of best-in-breed VoIP and unified communications infrastructure in the industry.

The EVP of Marketing for Cypress writes a blog for TMC (me too). He calls the company offering UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service). I have no idea.

FCC 499Q Due May 1 (This Means You)

The federal government has a lot of paperwork. The FCC has a good amount due from businesses as well.

• FCC Form 499-Q – Due May 1. The proposed contribution factor for USF for the second quarter 2009 is 0.113 or 11.3% of interstate and, in most cases, international end-user revenues.
• Rate Integration Certification – Due May 1.
• FCC Form 395 Annual Carrier Employment Report – Due May 31.

From the FCC regs: "All providers of interstate telecommunications within the United States, with very limited exceptions, must file an FCC Form 499-Q Telecommunications Reporting Worksheet. .... [telecom is even defined as] "subscriber toll-free services; 900 services; message telephone services (MTS); private line; telex; telegraph; video services; satellite services; resale services; frame relay, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS); audio bridging services; and interconnected VoIP services. Note, for example, that all incumbent and competitive local exchange carriers provide access to an interstate public network and, therefore, provide interstate telecommunications. There are no exemptions for data or non-voice services..... Section 54.708 of the Commission’s rules states that telecommunications carriers and telecommunications providers are not required to contribute directly to the universal service support mechanisms for a given year if their contribution for that year is less than $10,000. ... Proposed contribution factor for the second quarter 2009 is 11.3, or 11.3%. [FCC source]

"On April 10, 2009, the Commission released the FCC Form 499-Q and accompanying instructions. The instructions incorporate non-substantive clarifications to ensure that all contributors are properly reporting revenues and are treating similar revenues uniformly." see 499a doc.

Is Google Voice a Threat?

I don't know if you have seen Google Voice but it is the new, improved Grand Central with some really cool features. For example, Switch phones in the middle of a call; visual voicemail; voicemail to text; call recording; call blocking; and simult ring. Why are these such unique features?

Irv Shapiro, the CEO and the CTO of IfByPhone, an IVR company, writes, "So what is a CLEC to do? It is well accepted in the world of business that it is less expensive to keep an existing customer than to find a new one. The CLEC community needs to maintain account control and expand the services they deliver to existing customers. They can do this by utilizing SIP trunking to drive down long distance rates and Cloud Telephony to deliver new features to existing customers."

I have a few CLEC clients that are thinking way outside the box with some stuff. That's fantastic. Meanwhile, a majority of ISP's, CLEC's, and VoIP providers are doing the same stuff for the last 5 years - with no change. Why not? There are companies with some cool ideas. IfByVoice has a PPPC app too. Read about Pay-Per-Phone-Call here.

Maybe you need to stop reading the listservs and go read the Think Big Manifesto, then set aside 1 hour to dream about what you could deliver to your best customers. If that doesn't work, you can hire me for an hour to run through the process to start you thinking about ways you can add revenue streams to your business while also providing your clients with extras.

Cable Neighborhhod Design

This is the first time I have seen the neighborhood network design for a cable company described in a major news outlet. The NYTimes has a blog post titled, The Cost of Downloading All Those Videos, which describes the last mile for Comcast including costs. The node shares 38 Mbps with the homes connected - as many as 500 homes!

In a presentation to investors in 2007, Comcast boasted about how its network is designed to make such node splits efficient. The cost depends on the configuration of the equipment at the node to be split. In some cases, little more than minor adjustments are needed, and the cost is $2,500. If the company needs to add a new Cable Modem Termination System, the device that connects cable wires to the Internet, it will pay $6,000 if the device is in one of its existing facilities. And if Comcast needs install a new C.M.T.S. on a pole, stringing a new fiber optic cable to it, the cost is $20,000. ... According to Comcast’s presentation, the average cost of all these upgrades comes to $6.85 for each home served in the neighborhood.

There isn't detail on DSL, but as most of us know, there is transport to the DSLAM, where NxT1 is being replaced by fiber. If the DSLAM is over-capacity, another is added to the pedestal if space and power allow. In other cases, a new remote DSLAM is installed "upstream" and backhauled with copper. No idea what the costs are on that. Also, no idea what the VZ FiOS neighborhood GPON design looks like nor what the U-Verse plan is with Ma Bell.

DOCSIS version 3 was described as "The first generation of Docsis 3 service combines four 38-Mbps channels into a pool of roughly 152 Mbps that can be divided among customers." With the move to digital channels, there will be plenty of bandwidth available to MSO's.

How much does the bandwidth cost an ISP? According to the article 1GB port is $10,000/mo plus the loop at another $2,000-15,000 per month. Across 500 homes, the MB is just $2 at the high end and less than $4 per MB at the high end for 250 homes. Even less if the ISP provides its own transport.

"That tracks with what I’ve heard from Mr. Werner of Comcast and other cable industry experts I’ve talked to, who say that the bandwidth costs are rising somewhat but they are a relatively small portion of the overall expense of providing Internet service."

Mind you that all these costs are FIXED not varied. Neighborhood upgrades are one time costs. Bandwidth costs are fixed and not the majority cost to the ISP. AND these costs are based on the high side as if the ISP was buying transit at $10 per MB instead of peering (free) or using Cogent/HE.net/Verio (less than $10). (I am guessing tech support, email and network maintenance are the main costs).

The kicker is that MSO's won't give businesses a metered plan (see end of article) but want to do that for consumers. "In other words, the cable and phone companies want to charge consumers per gigabyte even though they refuse to sell it to business customers on the same basis."

Sprint Gets Energy Grant

Sprint Receives $7.3 Million in Grant from U.S. Department of Energy [TMCnet]

"For a company that continues to get beaten down in the wireless industry, Sprint may be making headway toward a more positive future. The wireless carrier announced today that it is the only one in its industry to be awarded a $7.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. ... This grant is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding that has been earmarked for fuel cell technology. It is the largest single grant awarded by the Department of Energy for this round of grant funding, which had a total of $41.9 million."

I did get a response from Stephen E. Coran of Rini Coran, PC on this:

"To be clear, this is NOT BTOP money, but rather a grant from the Department of Energy. Different thing entirely..."

Dell Selling Managed Services to SMB

This from the Channel Insider:

"Dell rolled out its direct managed services offering, available today, and targeted it at small businesses. Dell says Dell-certified managed services providers and resellers can also offer the service to end customers. Non-Dell solution providers say the service doesn't pose a competitive threat, but could erode the price of managed services."

Managed services is one of the last high margin businesses left. Telcos have tried it with little luck. It will be interesting to see how Dell does. Will the resources be American or off-shored? Did you miss the boat by not offering managed services?

IP-Prime Conversion Program

Jim G points out that DISH Network has an IPTV solution (website here).

"EchoStar’s ViP-TV Offers Telcos a Seamless and Cost Effective Solution for Delivery of Approximately 250 Popular TV Channels, Including Satellite-Delivered Local Broadcast and HD Channels via a Secure IP Platform."

BTOP Linkings

Here are some links about the BTOP (Broadband Technology Opportunities Program), you know the BB Stimulus Plan.

• http://blog.tmcnet.com/on-rads-radar/2009/04/fcc-broadband-policy-beginnings.html
• http://www.xchangemag.com/hotnews/providers-broadband-funds-without-strings.html
• will-ntia-actually-be-deciding-who-gets-broadband
• will-private-companies-be-able-bid-broadband-stimulus
• http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090316_000261.htm
• not-enough-time-broadband-stimulus-reflection

Who knew the NTIA had an R&D arm: http://www.its.bldrdoc.gov/

The Glass is Half Full

Pretty good presentation on marketing in this economy.

The Glass is Half FULL

View more presentations from Jacquelyn Corbett cyr.

ISPCON Marketing Presentation

I was on slideshare to get a link to my 7-step marketing plan, when I noticed that my ISPCON Marketing presentation was up there. But I don't think that I ever showed it. So here it is:

Ispcon Marketing F08

View more presentations from 4isps.

Do You Own Your Reputation?

This is an important question: Do you own your reputation? Today people are (hopefully) having a conversation about you whether you know it or not. Your online reputation requires some of your attention. The guys at Duct Tape wrote up a blog post about Local Online Marketing, because companies have had issues with sites like Yelp and GetSatisfaction. (See 37Signals response to GetSatisfaction). The problem is that opinion sites can launch against you (without you knowing). Be preemptive. Create a profile on each site:

• Yelp.com
• Insiderpages.com
• Yahoo Local
• Google Maps
• Citysearch.com
• MerchantCircle.com
• Local.com
• GetSatisfaction.com

My action steps for you is to have someone in your organization hit everyone of these sites to create a profile, check the facts, read the reviews, and respond.

AOL, ELN, and Dial-Up

CNN Money has an article about AOL. What's the future of the former giant ISP? Is Dial-up coming back?

According to dial-up aggregation companies, there has been an uptick in dial-up in the last months. In fact, there have been some price changes.

"AOL raised its lowest monthly price from $9.99 to $11.99 last year for unlimited service and 24/7 tech support. Those who just want the unlimited service, but with limited tech support, can still get the $9.99 plan.... EarthLink recently lowered its least expensive monthly plan by $2 to $7.95, and United Online charges $9.95 a month for its cheapest service.

Who uses dial-up?

"In a study last year, the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that about 10 percent of Americans use dial-up connections at home. Of that number, 19 percent said there’s nothing that will convince them to switch to broadband — not better availability or lower prices."

In the end what happens to AOL? "AOL may live on if Time Warner decides to keep it, or as part of another ISP." ErathLink was thinking about buying it but so was NetZero.

SSTI: Federal Stimulus Special Issue

SSTI has a special issue about the Federal Stimulus program. The section is titled "Increasing Access to Broadband". Here are the highlights:

• ARRA will provide $7.2 billion to upgrade the country's broadband infrastructure.
• NTIA will receive $4.7 billion, in partnership with the FCC, to establish a broadband service development and expansion program.
• The Broadband Technology Opportunities Program will support broadband improvements by awarding competitive grants to accelerate deployment and improve service at strategic institutions that are likely to create jobs or produce other public benefits.
• $350 million of this funding will support the State Broadband Data and Development Grant program, which will help develop and maintain a national broadband inventory map.
• $200 million of the NTIA funding will be used for competitive grants to expand the capacity of public computing centers
• $250 million will fund competitive grants for innovative programs to encourage sustainable broadband adoption.
• Department of Agriculture (USDA) is slated to receive $2.5 billion for its distance learning, tele-medicine and broadband program. USDA Rural Development provides loans, including a Broadband Access Loan to cover the costs of construction, improvement and acquisition of facilities.
• Other prime objectives: extend electronic resources to rural schools, improve rural health care and provide financial assistance to broadband providers who extend service to unserved communities.
• ARRA includes $19 billion in funding to promote the development and implementation of interoperable Health Information Technology (HIT). The $2 billion in discretionary funds and $17 billion in investments and incentives through Medicare and Medicaid will be used to improve the quality of medical care in the U.S. and create jobs in the information technology sector.

On another note PC Mag asks What the FCC's National Broadband Policy Must Do For Business

NTIA Broadband Technology Opportunity

Have you commented yet on the NTIA Broadband Technology Opportunity? NO? Go here now and explain what you think Broadband and Underserved means.

Comparison of Application Requirements for the NTIA and RUS Broadband Programs in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 (Economic Stimulus Legislation). NTIA/BTOP funds can be used for unserved and underserved areas. Read PDF for analysis.

CTIA 2009 Wireless Operator Roundtable: Broadband Policy in the US.

The $7.2B included in the bill is comprised of 2 parts: $4.7B in grants for the NTIA's (National Telecommunications and Information Administration) Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (“BTOP”), and the RUS's (Rural Utilities Service) $2.5B for grants, loans and loan guarantees for broadband infrastructure. ... The objectives of the $4.3B in the BTOP is to provide broadband access in “un-served” areas and provide “improved” broadband access in “underserved” areas. The funds are also to be used to provide broadband education, training, access, equipment, and support to schools, libraries, medical, healthcare providers, and other community support entities. An emphasis is also put on organizations that provide outreach, access, equipment, and support services to facilitate greater use of broadband service by low-income, unemployed, aged, and otherwise vulnerable populations. Finally, the funds are to be used to improve access to broadband service by public safety agencies and to stimulate the demand for broadband, economic growth, and job creation............The BTOP funds have a number of eligibility requirements and typically require the applicants to fund 20% of the total cost of the project. Since the intent of the funding is for stimulus, applications must be submitted by September 30th, 2010 and applicants must provide assurance that projects can be completed in 2 years. .... Under the $2.5B in RUS funds, 75% of the area to be served by a project receiving funds from such grants, loans or loan guarantees shall be in a rural area without sufficient access to high speed broadband to facilitate rural economic development..... The RUS funds also specify a number of priorities that will be given to proposals submitted. These include projects that will deliver end-users a choice of more than one service provider, residents that do not currently have access to broadband service and borrowers or former borrowers under Title II of the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. Priority is also given to applicants that can demonstrate that the project can be started quickly and completed timely based on funding provided. ... The USDA is currently receiving comments up until April 13th and plans to publish the final guidelines within 60 days (June 13th)on its website at www.usda.gov/rus/telecom.

RESPONSE TO NTIA-RUS BROADBAND TECHNOLOGY OPPORTUNITIES PROGRAM (BTOP) INITIATIVES: The intent of this summary is to present ideas that will introduce creative solutions to benefit all Americans and Businesses and prevent Federal Government Officials, the FCC and the NTIA/RUS from following the flawed bureaucratic processes of the past and to capture as much “(broadband) bang-for-the- (taxpayer) buck” from BTOP as possible...(read the rest here)

Notes from the first FCC-RUS hearing. The main sticking point: UNserved versus Under-served. Well, not defining Broadband was another issue.

Occam Networks is following these hearings in-depth. You can read about the latest one here, but the archives have info from most of the NTIA / RUS / USDA / FCC Broadband Stimulus hoopla.

Finally, we have Sasha's testimony on the BB Stimulus.

Public meeting video archives. (It helps the insomnia).

Broadband Policy Summit V in Arlington on June 18-19

You Can Make Money with Google

Besides Adsense Revenue and SEO-ing an affiliate domain, you can make money from Google Apps. Atlanta's Cloud Sherpas raised $170K and is hiring. This firm is less than a year old and demand is outstripping it.

"Google Apps are getting an incredible amount of traction," says Cohn. He says Cloud Sherpas is already "One of Google's largest enterprise development partners nationally."
He says company clients include an $8 billion Fortune 400 company that is migrating 3,000 employees across divisions from Lotus notes to Google Apps and a Southeastern University. He says Cloud Sherpas expects to have revenue of from $1 million to $2 million in 2009.

As you all know, I pimp Google Apps and Gmail for ISP's for IKANO.

WISP Insurance

A new Vendor Member of WISPA has designed an insurance package specifically for WISPs. I don’t know much about it yet other than he worked with a WISP in St. Louis to tailor a policy around the WISP business needs.

Jonathan McLean, CISR, from Risk Strategies, LLC, located at 784 Wall Street, Ste 100E, O'Fallon, IL 62269. Phone # 618) 670-6407 Fax: (888) 818-4961 and website: http://www.wispins.com email him at mcleanj at blvmail dot com

FYI... this is an information only post. I do not endorse nor even know this guy. I am simply passing along info that can help you out.

FAX for Asterisk

VoIP Speak writes about Fax for Asterisk:

Fax For Asterisk inter-operates with standards-compliant fax machines connected to Asterisk 1.4 and 1.6 on x86 Linux systems. It provides low-speed PSTN faxing via DAHDI-compatible telephony interface cards as well as VoIP faxing to T.38-compatible SIP end points and service providers. Fax For Asterisk operates at speeds up to 14.4kbps and supports V.17, V.27 and V.29 fax modems. .... Fax For Asterisk is available free of charge from the Digium webstore for one concurrent fax session. Multi-session licenses are available for a one-time fee of $38.50 per channel. Fax For Asterisk is available immediately. Fax capabilities for Digium’s Switchvox IP PBX were announced in February of this year and are based on this solution.

On another IP-PBX note, Aastra Announces AastraLink Pro™ 160 Certification from Covad Communications.

WiMax Operator in a Niche

WiMAX Operator Nth Air Finds It's Niche Serving Business Customers.

US operators are leveraging 3.65Ghz WiMAX solutions to offer broadband service at lower costs and better customer service. Interview with Craig Niemeyer, CEO & President of Nth Air.

Currently, Nth Air sells and services two types of digital private line replacement services:

• T1+ replacement via Fixed WiMAX, at an average speed of 3 M bit/sec
• T3+ replacement via Microwave radio links at an average speed of 100 M bit/sec

Read the rest here.

Top 5 ways Sales are made!

At the last seminar, someone asked me for the top 10 sales speeches in movies. I couldn't come up with more than 5. You can see lists of these speeches (w/links) here and here.

The Boiler Room with Ben Afflect was a good one, even though he swears a lot he makes the points: (1) have answers to objections; and (2) a sale is made on every call - it just depends on whether you are buying his objection or he is buying your service!

Probably the best sales speech ever by Adam Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross. "Coffee's for closers!" and "A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Closing. Always be closing, always be closing."

Apps Round-Up

I don't usually write about apps but there are a bunch out there. On the phone with a couple of consultants talking about how to search through Outlook, Xobni was the recommendation. Google Desktop, too, but that app chews up resources.

Time tracking for freelancers and consultants is a challenge. If you bill by the hour or project, you might want to look at Toggl so that you can remember who to invoice. Then invoice through FreshBooks.

I'm still searching for an automatic back-up app for my laptop to an external hard drive or to DVD. There's a list of back-up apps for Mac, Win and Linux here that I have to research. The one that interests me the most is Bonkey, which is an open-source back-up to Amazon S3. I was pinged on Twitter by CloudBerry about their app, "try CloudBerry Explorer freeware to copy files to Amazon S3".

There's also 24 Killer Apps for your USB flash drive including tools to clean a PC; encryption for your flash drive; and mini/mobile apps for IM, FTP, browsing.

Ever want to edit a PDF but don't want to pay $200+ for Adobe Acrobat? Try Foxit at just $99. Six month trial available.

BTW, did you hear that Kodak has started charging for its photo storage site? And more free SAAS is starting to charge because there aren't enough advertising dollars to support the recurring costs of keeping the service running.

For those of you looking for a URL shortening service with tracking, there are a few like bit.ly that just raised money and idek as well as tinyurl and DIY with 301 re-directs.

What's Going on at 2323 Bryan?

There's certainly something shady going down in Dallas. According to CBS, DSLReports, and the FBI warrant.

It appears that despite the claims of Core IP Networks' CEO that the FBI raided due to alleged fraud.

I have been in telecom 10 years and I have seen lots of shell game play where the "client" has many companies. This takes the cake. It's also a warning to those not paying the RBOC's.

TW Cable Targets Fairpoint

TimeWarner Cable ads are targeting Fairpoint customers. Fairpoint is the company that bought Verizon's assets in New England -- and helped Verizon make money and get out from under a rural region. [See DSLReports]

It's kind of funny that TWC is targeting Fairpoint because the Death Star has numerous promotions to target tw telecom.

[full ad is here]

Is BelAir Just a WISP?

This TMCnet article describes what BelAir is doing these days as a business model. BelAir used to be a Wireless Hardware company. Now,

"BelAir attributed this sustained growth to its success in installation, testing, setting up and handing of significant Wi-Fi projects for major Cable Operators, Telecommunications Service Providers, Safety, Security and Defense markets.... The company also said that its global presence coupled with widespread and diverse service offerings such as high-performance video surveillance networks, enterprise level WLAN and public Wi-Fi hotspot solutions have also contributed to its growth since customers find almost every type of related solution available with a single vendor.... Service providers have recognized a significant market in Multi Dwelling Units such as apartment blocks and condominiums since people are moving away from single ownership premises and migrating to clustered units."

Although BelAir will be the service provider's service provider, it looks like they did the move from Hardware to Service (WISP) like IBM, UPS and others. You have to sell services - and solve problems - today to make money.

Video Killed the Radio Star

Remember that Video Killed the Radio Star was the first video to run on MTV in 1983. But Video can rock your business. I'm at IM Spring Break the next 3 days learning about SEO, internet marketing, social media and affiliates. (You can thank me for this knowledge later :)

Video is the easiest way to explain a tech concept. In fact, one of my favorite clients is a CLEC who just taped a video for their new product launch website. While editing the video, they picked up the chance to quote a Huge Prospect - enough to pay for the video production.

So last night, I was talking with some SEO ladies who want to help YOU. Many of you have lousy websites. It's a great time to get that website re-designed (cheaper today than you think) and to build in SEO from the foundation. And hey Video can rock your business!

Forums and user reviews can get you web traffic. So can YouTube - you have a Channel right? XO does. Yahoo Answers. Facebook page. LinkedIn Company page. Yelp. Local Marketing. Just some random thoughts from the seminar.