NSP Strategist

The Next FCC Auction?

2012-01-30T18:43:00.004-05:00

In this Washington Post video, Cleland Says FCC Airwave Sale May Exclude AT&T, Verizon and favor Google. Of course, he does. Cleland is the guy behind NetCompetition.org. "Scott Cleland is the world’s leading Google critic. He has testified before the U.S. House and Senate three times regarding Google, and is author of the new book, Search & Destroy: Why You Can’t Trust Google."

Being anti-Google has paid him handsomely, especially since there are companies like AT&T and VZ that like the way he demonizes their competition.

Cleland blogs here about how the FCC is out of control and just wants to raise revenue for the US Treasury. That is actually the history behind spectrum auctions: revenue! Rarely does spectrum get taken back or enforcement of auction rules occur. Even deployment rules are not enforced. Even the GAO is behind the FCC's auction ability.

ASIDE:: Sinclair has an alternative plan for TV spectrum here.

2 Challenges You Face

2012-01-30T18:06:00.003-05:00

According to this article, 'Customer loyalty, according to consulting firm Protiviti, is at the top of business challenges that non-financial services firms will face in 2012. Other challenges include managing supply chain risks, privacy and security issues, and attracting and retaining top talent."

I think the big 2 in 2012 will be Retention and Security.

In security, we have hackers everywhere, including inside the organization. To wit, this Windstream employee who stole numerous accounts to buy stuff. Then you have the 24M Zappos accounts that were hacked. Security is something to take seriously -- and to make certain that your customers take seriously.

The other challenge is Customer Retention. I face it all the time. Circuits come off term and clients bounce for a few dollars, even when they didn't have a single billing issue or outage.

Part of that is my not having a retention plan in place. Proactively calling customers 90 days before the circuit expired to discuss their needs, growth, etc.

The article mentions "there is one other critical element to customer retention – customer service." However, if there are no issues - billing or otherwise - the customer won't call, so how do you provide service? Thank you notes, phone calls, surveys, and needs analysis. Provide Value Upfront!

I liked this tidbot from the article: "Studies have shown that IT customers are more interested in reliable technology and efficient customer service than getting the best price. For managed services providers (MSP), this requires explaining the value of the services upfront and continuously showing proof of that value to maintain the customer relationship."

These are just two things to think about - security and retention - for 2012 as we close out month 1.

Is It Time for Metering?

2012-01-26T12:45:00.002-05:00

As we head into ITEXPO East 2012 in Miami Beach next week, one topic of discussion will be metering of bandwidth. The carriers must be happy that this is finally being talked about. Apparently, about half of American broadband users already have a cap. Certainly, mobile data is metered and capped. Satellite is definitely capped.

As usage continues to increase and as more data goes to the Cloud, how will network operators keep up with demand not just for capacity, but throughput and latency? Will Metering will bring in the extra dollars to pay for it?

One viewpoint from LogiSense is in this article from Channel Vision magazine.

There are companies now that are just providing the ability to meter services (at least one will be at ITEXPO). It should make for an interesting year as both Cloud and Hosted UC try to take off (so that those service providers who have invested millions in these services can gain revenue) at the same time that broadband access will increase in price (and uncertainty because with metering you don't know what your bill will be month to month).

More Stats

2012-01-23T15:07:00.002-05:00

I got these stats from an email as a Parallels Summit 2012 registrant:

"We would like to give you a sneak peak at some of the findings for 2012:

"Cloud Services and the Developing World --- The cloud services market in the developing world is growing over 3 times as fast as the developed world market."

From IT Authorities, a prezi on cloud market.

Hosted PBX -- "The U.S. hosted PBX market grew 84% this year among the smallest SMBs - and more and more SMBs demand hosted PBX to give them access to enterprise-level communication tools. Can you to offer this cloud service to you customers?" [Obviously, Parallels is in the Hosted PBX space now via a relationship with 4SPA and a provisioning tool in the hosting control panel. Do you see how the Hosted VoIP sector is just so hyper-competitive?]

Sole Proprietorships -- "77% of U.S. sole proprietorships design their websites in-house. Do you know how to target these SMBs with site building tools?"

SaaS Market -- "Globally, the worldwide SaaS market will grow to $20B by 2014. Are you prepared to take advantage of this growth?"

Premium Hosted Email and Medium SMBs -- "In 2011, U.S. medium SMBs' use of premium hosted email grew an incredible 110%, driven by these companies upgrading from free email accounts. Do you know how to target medium SMBs with your messaging and collaboration offerings?"

I'll be at the 2012 Parallels Summit in Orlando, let me know if you are going.

BC/DR Planning

2012-01-23T14:08:00.001-05:00

From a VZ email about BC/DR Planning:

"According to research by the University of Texas, only 6% of companies survive a catastrophic data loss, while 43% never reopen and 51% close within two years. In spite of those shocking statistics, Gartner Research estimates that only 35% of small and medium businesses have a comprehensive disaster recovery plan in place."

"Researchers estimate that companies lose, on average, over $80,000 for every hour of downtime."

I like BC/DR stats.

Rate Increases

2012-01-23T12:06:00.002-05:00

Last year we saw big rate increases in AT&T Metro Ethernet. This month, AT&T raises its cellular data rates but also changed the data cap. They also added about 25 different data plans "to fit your needs".

Windtream raised the prices on its DSL. (see here.)

That likely means you can raise your rates a little too! Depending how you do it, you will increase revenue and margin and only lose a few customers. However, the revenue increase will more than make up for the few customers you lose.

Use the Phone More

2012-01-19T14:03:00.004-05:00

from Khali Henderson of Virgo who was live tweeting from CenturyLink's Channel Advisory summit: "#CCAExpo Michael Stephens: Email is a lousy tool for communicating. We need to do more in person or by phone. We will do less email in 2012."

That's the second time in a couple of months that advice has been to let go of email and use the phone more. A Harvard Biz Review article said that a phone call is quicker and clearer (if you can get through voicemail obviously).

Another tweet: @thesocialpro: Great advice from Michael Stephens, no need to write emails in ALL CAPS for me to respond.

And you don't need to Reply to All every time either.

Sales Math and Marketing

2012-01-17T10:09:00.004-05:00

Most CLEC/ITSP/ISP/WISP do little marketing. And Branding isn't even in the picture. Heck, something as simple as having an updated website seems beyond the reach of some service providers.

What most execs don't grasp is that most sales are moving online. Buyers do research before they buy. They check reviews. They ask their networks on Facebook, twitter, Linkedin, Google+. All of this online.

If you are not online - or worse your image online is awful - sales will be hard to come by.

I think one issue is that service providers don't have a grasp on who they want to market to because they think everyone is a prospect. WRONG!

Your marketing should target the most profitable prospects with the most profitable services.

Don't worry it isn't just you. I read this article yesterday, "Most entrepreneurs have NO idea how much they really need to be marketing in order to effectively and consistently attract more clients and make more money. You need to be really clear on what you want to accomplish that will make you happy with your progress."

Do you have a monthly sales goal? Do you know what/who/where that will come from? [i.e., from two medical offices at $750 per month for Internet and Hosted PBX.] This gives you a target prospect and a product bundle.

What is the average dollar amount each client is worth to you each month? What is your ARPU?

next we do sales math. How many prospects do you talk to? How many proposals to you send? How many contracts get ink? Closing Ratio = INK/proposals

More sales math: Your closing ratio times your ARPU is your monthly revenue. So if you want 2 sales and you close 10% of the time then you need to do 20 proposals and that means talking to XXX prospects OR talking to 40 qualified prospects.

So how does Marketing come into the picture?

You want to have a certain message go out to your marketplace, especially to your most potential prospects. Email, website, social media, networking, direct mail, webinars/seminars, trade shows, search marketing (SEO/SEM) and guerrilla marketing are all possible tactics. The strategy is to reach the targets that the message and product bundle will resonate with. The fact is that it takes a lot of touches to make an impact on a prospect. That's where the tactics come in.

So you need to identify your best prospects.

What will they buy from you?

Why would they buy from you?

How will you get this message to them?

How do those messages convert to sales? Branding a consistent message to your best prospects means that sales will be more targeted and if you have the right message, product and target --> KA-CHING!

Need help with this? Give my office a call at (813) 963-5884

FYI, these slides sum up what I said.

Perfect Products is Disasterous

2012-01-12T15:31:00.003-05:00

In the Economist article about the collapse of Kodak, the story tells a tale of why Fujifilm is going strong while Kodak is seeking bankruptcy protection.

One reason is the monopolist mindset that RBOC's and Kodak have. That mindset is why products don't get launched quickly. Rivals with less market share can win by launching many imperfect products into the marketplace. Kodakk "executives “suffered from a mentality of perfect products, rather than the high-tech mindset of make it, launch it, fix it."" Software and apps developers think this way. Apple does not. Google certainly does. Failing is okay. Failing is important. It means you take risks. No risk, no reward. Also, failures have lessons embedded in them too.

Another quote from the article: "Even when Kodak decided to diversify, it took years to make its first acquisition. It created a widely admired venture-capital arm, but never made big enough bets to create breakthroughs, says Ms Kanter." It is pointed because I see it with the powers that be in Tampa and I see it with many service providers. They won't partner with others. They have to build it all themselves.

It's a good read.

2 Interesting Things Plus ITEXPO

2012-01-11T23:28:00.000-05:00

Alteva has sales training for agents - and they charge for it!! Two days for $350. Alteva will be offering this training at ITEXPO East in Miami Beach on Jan. 31- Feb. 1.

Alianza landed a deal with Clearwire. "Alianza will oversee day-to-day voice operations for Clearwire and supply all end-to-end software components of the hosted voice platform, including soft switch, application feature server, call rating, CPE provisioning, monitoring, security, and end-user self-support tools," according to the article. Apparently voice over 4G won't be the same as voice over 1G and 2G networks. Interesting.

This is kind of cool:

Change the way you think about the phone call! I found this video about Thrutu via Rich Tehrani's eye opening article about the future of telco competition. It isn't about the phone call -- it's about how customers want to communicate.

ITEXPO East 2011 is Feb. 1-3 in Miami Beach. I will be moderating 4 panels. There will also be a dutch dinner gathering on Feb. 1st. If interested, contact the office at (813) 963-5884.

Knology Buys e-Solutions

2012-01-10T10:35:00.002-05:00

"Knology has acquired E Solutions Corporation for $13.8 million in cash. E Solutions is a premiere provider of colocation and data center services, operating two state-of-the-art SAS 70 Type II certified data centers in Tampa, FL," according to the press release. Rick Nicholas, Jr., COO of e-Solutions, says that he is sticking around to manage their other data center projects. I had heard rumors back in November that an LOI was on the table. This deal sounds like a smaller version of the TWC-Navisite deal.

CenturyLink Debt Sheesh

2012-01-10T03:41:00.002-05:00

This is interesting from SeekingAlpha about CenturyLink: "The balance sheet for Dec. 31, 2010 shows total assets of $22+ billion with liabilities of $12+ billion. Of those total assets, nearly half are categorized as goodwill and intangible – vague and ambiguous at best. The 2011 acquisitions for future growth will no doubt increase operating costs and company debt in the near term." This Morningstar chart has CLink debt at $22B, which fits in with corporate debt schedules. Revenue for the last quarter was $4.6B with $140M in profit. CenturyLink is a stock darling because it pays dividends. Just saying.

Thoughts on VoIP at the Top of 2012

2012-01-10T01:20:00.004-05:00

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower." - Steve Jobs

It's an interesting quote because back in the days of dial-up and the early days of DSL, ISP's were the leaders. Today, it seems there is too much me-too. There is still for room for profit in verticals.

ZDnet has a post about what they want out of Google. Now that you get SMS, chat, docs, email, voice, transcription, calendar and more with Gmail and chrome, ZDnet suggests that fax come to that platform along with document management. It's not a bad idea. I have thought the same thing. My pal at FaxBetter.com would love to work with service providers to offer an efax solution to customers.

You all know how I feel about Fax over IP. I receive faxes via an efax solution from Astro, but I can't send faxes. When I have to sign a PDF, I have to print, sign, scan and email. Yet this is not always an option, since some agencies - like my credit union - don't give out an email address. I still have a fax machine, but no POTS line to use it on.

Document management wise: I can't believe that with Kodak, Xerox, HP and Polaroid all struggling, not one Engineer and Manager could team up to launch a Doc Mgmt SAAS product that integrates with email. Maybe Microsoft Lync does that with Sharepoint and Exchange all the other 80 boxes and licensing. HyperOffice and Zoho tried to do this. It needs an integrator to put the pieces together I think.

In an article on SearchIT, "As health care organizations update their computing capabilities in order to support electronic health record (EHR) systems, interoperability and standardization, many are considering whether to replace their existing phone system. As with any product purchase, IT executives are looking for real ROI in order to justify the cost." It continues with Ten tips for using VoIP in a clinical setting which include customized voice broadcasts, speech recognition, click-to-dial, CRM (but really patient record) integration, voice-to-text reminders and more. Besides scheduling, what if you could send out health tips to your patient base every week to remind them to get a physical or get diet help or botox. There is money when it isn't about VoIP and the tech but what the tech will allow the business to do.

In other VoIP news:

A article about PSAP's migrating to VoIP details the reasons for the switch: cost savings and flexibility. "With its portability, cost savings and the promise of enhanced functionality, Internet-based telephony is becoming the de facto choice in jurisdictions whose PSAPs are approaching the end of their five- to seven-year life cycle." If PSAP's are going VoIP, shouldn't your customers?

In UC (unified communications, the catch-all new buzz term for all hosted communications - voice, video, chat, text, social), there's a new study showing that potential customers for UC struggle to justify the expense of converting to UC. Maybe they don't believe all of the ROI calculators that are available. The study, written by IDC analyst Rich Costello, is titled IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Unified Communications Voice Infrastructure 2011-2012 Vendor Analysis. "Educating potential customers is critical to UC sales." The funny part? The study is about premise equipment vendors like Avaya, Cisco, Microsoft, NEC, IBM, and ShoreTel. In the case of Cisco, MS and IBM, you would think their sales force is trained to be Consultative. [Are yours?]

So You Want to Sell TV

2012-01-05T13:47:00.003-05:00

I have a few clients that are considering selling TV in 2012. Don't.

I have spoken about this before that due to the expense of head-ends and middleware and set-top boxes, you need scale to get into the TV game. Plus getting access to content (that customers want and will pay for) is a challenge.

If you are going FTTX to the Resi route, you need a triple-play including TV, but when you look at Frontier and ATT, who still just re-sell satellite TV, you have to ask, is it a profitable line of business? Or can I put that capital - both financial and human resource - to better use?

Cord cutting is going up. MSO's will not admit it, but Deloitte just released a report: 9% have cut cable, another 11% are considering it. That means that the market for making money on TV is shrinking.

You don't have to listen to me. (You can just follow what the other telcos do!) I appreciate you just reading this. But there are other areas that are growing, that you could make some bank on. Wouldn't that be worth a look too? Wouldn't it be nice to be the leader again, instead of the follower?

Telecom Growth and Your Business

2012-01-05T13:17:00.004-05:00

"According to the new industry market study, telecommunications services revenue on a worldwide basis will grow from $2.1 trillion in 2012 to $2.7 trillion in 2017 at a combined average growth rate of 5.3 percent." [TechJournalSouth]

"Wireless subscriber growth, particularly in Asia and other emerging markets, will raise wireless revenues by 64 percent from current levels, Insight forecasts, while wireline revenues show only modest growth."

Globally, wireless is where it is at. In the US, cellular is where the Big 2 are betting their marbles on. Every other market segment is flat or declining - wireline, broadband, TV, voice. This is a real problem.

Calix thinks that 2012 will be the year of the regulator due to the FCC's inter-carrier comp and USF reform rules. Already the big 3 rural groups - NECA, OPASTCO, WTA - petitioned the FCC to clarigy and re-think the reform for rate The NTCA is challenging the reform in court. Of course it is. No one likes change, especially when it means all that easy money that you have been sitting back and receiving is going to slow down or stop. It means that you have to put on your thinking cap.

It's time to RE-THINK the ISP and TELECOM business model.

Dane @ Sonic.Net sent me an article about the Net Promoter Score, "a management tool that can be used to gauge the loyalty of a firm's customer relationships," according to Wikipedia. It basically comes down to this one question to your customers: "How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?" You need to be developing WOM - word of mouth marketing - which leads to referrals, which is the best lead generation source. But you need to be doing this proactively. You need to be interacting with your customers - even when they don't have issues.

Some companies look at subscriber numbers or revenue, but the real number is profit (for privately held companies). The metric ARPU isn't as important as Lifetime Value of the Customer (LVC). Why? In The Channel, carriers have found that customers from a Telco Agent (like RAD-INFO) have lower churn and higher ARPU, which actually means that the LVC is higher.

In the year that Copper gets more respect (VDSL2 and EoC advancements); mobile devices (iPhone, iPad, Kindle Fire) get more and more media attention; and cloud is still the raging buzz word, where does your business need to go?

It isn't just about what is the next product to launch, it is:

How to retain your customer base?
What does your customer base want/need?
What will your customers buy from you?
What will they buy through you?
How many will Refer you? How will they do that?
Are you thinking about social media will affect your brand, sales, customer engagement?

Look at all the M&A in 2011. VZ-Terremark, TWC-Navisite, CenturyLink-Qwest-Savvis, and so many others. There is a shake up going on. Are you missing it?

Polycom is known as an IP Phone company. It has big market share. But in 2012 Polycom CEO Andrew Miller wants you to think about Polycom as a software company. And TWC wants to be known as a Broadband company. What do you want to be known as?

App Contests for Publicity

2012-01-04T13:39:00.002-05:00

In this article about contests held by government owned broadband networks, the take aways are perhaps hidden.

One, contests are a great way to get publicity - for a city or for your company.

Two, if it is coached as a startup or entrepreneurship kind of contest, you get big points and PR.

Three, who uses broadband? Well, techies, developers, creatives. Who do you want to advertise to? People who buy broadband. See the point?

Four, why a contest? Because you are NOT selling Internet Access. You think you are, b ut you aren't. You are selling what people can DO with that Internet Access that they buy from you. If it weren't for Facebook, Pandora and Netflix, people wouldn't feel compelled to have always available broadband.

Lastly, in an era of metering, caps, DPI, etc., advertising that you sell clean pipe might be a way to gain customers. Or that you are not the privacy cop. This is differentiation (besides price).

One final thought: the reason that the Duopoly sells bundles is three-fold: (1) churn is lower for triple-play customers; (2) ARPU is higher; and (3) they don't want to sell "just" broadband because the margins are too low.

Just something to think about.

A Look at Cable and VoIP

2011-12-28T16:52:00.003-05:00

David Byrd, VP of Marketing at Broadvox, recently wrote that he has seen marked improvement in business cable bandwidth, including from Cablevision. Mark that: Business cable.

This will likely result in more Type II access going to cable instead of ILEC's and more people trying out BYOB VoIP (over the top VoIP). I would caution that cablecos are just as ruthless to CLEC's and ISP's as ILEC's.

"Cable's VoIP growth engine is sputtering," according to Fierce. "Comcast has the most VoIP lines among cable TV players, with almost 9.3 million VoIP lines in service as of the end of the third quarter. That figure puts its penetration rate for VoIP at about 17.6 percent, up from about 16.1 percent a year earlier." Charter has about 16% penetration with 5.3 million VoIP lines. The real kicker was this stat: "Time Warner Cable, which has 4.6 million voice customers, added only 5,000 new VoIP lines overall in the third quarter this year, with business market growth of 13,000 lines covering for the loss of 5,000 residential line losses." One has to wonder if it is job losses and business closings that have slowed Cable VoIP growth. Some of this has to be due wireless replacement.

ILEC's have been seeing wireline loss for a few years now. "As of Q3 2011, AT&T lost 10.5% of its wireline connection from the year-earlier period, Verizon lost 7.6% of its total wired voice lines, and CenturyLink reported losses that would total about 6.8% annually," according to Network World. In fact, WIND and CenturyLink have made acquisitions to offset wireline losses with Cloud and Business Services. What are your plans to counter-balance wireline and voice revenue declines?

The difference between success and failure is just inches. You might be right there, a few millimeters off, let me help you get there. Call 813-963-5884 today.

Super Customer Service

2011-12-27T14:26:00.002-05:00

The bar is so low for customer service in America that it is easy to be remarkable. By remarkable, I mean doing something that others will remark or talk about. In this article there are a few suggestions, including following up on sales and customer service calls.

Do you say Thank You? Here is an article about Gary Vee's new book Thank You Economy. Thank You's are Public Relations. PR can be used effectively to market your business. Sonic.net does a good job with PR.

In this video, Gary Vee talks about how people are talking about your business - online, on twitter, on Facebook - or your competitors - and you aren't listening, which is funny, because if you were at a restaurant or party and overheard someone talking about your business or Comcast or ATT, you would be all over that conversation. Social media is the same way.

Two final thoughts:

"If you say your service is excellent, make it so." Test to be sure that your customers think your service is excellent too. Just your saying so, doesn't make it so.

Want an example of customer service? Zappos and how they Deliver Happiness through customer service and corporate culture.

"Want a bigger brand? Make bigger promises. And keep them."

In case you missed this blog post about marketing before, here it is again.

SOPA and Other News

2011-12-26T11:50:00.005-05:00

Hope it was a Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah for you! Now for news you might have missed.

LightSquared, the company with spectrum next to the GPS space, is aggressively trying to push the FCC for approval before a bill in Congress terminates their LTE plans. [More at eweek]. LSQD doesn't have the cash to build a nationwide LTE network. If Clearwire couldn't do it with over $8B - how will LSQD do it with less?

FCC Commish McDowell is warning that the ITU is meeting next month to take control of the Internet out of American hands as much as they can. We invent it and build it and they want it. Figures.

FCC approved the first White Spaces device, WISP across the country thank Santa!

Congress is working on bills to temper the FCC. Sure, no one likes the Net Neutrality issue, but should the clowns in DC who know nothing about the Internet really be trusted with these issues either? These are the same Critters siding with corporate interests over the engine of the American economy. Here's how SOPA and Protect IP will fix things: YouTube.

I scratch my head over why 1-800-Pet-Meds and 1-800-Contacts, Burberry, Adidas would support SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) - The List is here. So far GoDaddy is one of the few companies taking a hit from consumers - to the tune of 72,000 domains moved - but Apple supports SOPA. You can call SOPA proponents here.

Sprint is suing cablecos - Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Cable One and Cox - over a VoIP patent. That will teach them to align with VZW! "The 12 patents include some that were asserted against Vonage Holdings Corp., which agreed to pay $80 million to license the technology after losing a 2007 trial."

Of course, the rumor mill (disguised as news) is crying over the death of T-Mobile and that it HAS to sell to Sprint.

Andy has some insight into how a $200 Android tablet can help VoIP and VidTel companies - and how Polycom is morphing into a software company. Apparently, Polycom has hit the wall on hardware (or shall we say phones).

EarthLink went with Metaswitch to offer multi-media communications to its customers. Deltacom and ONE Comm were both Metaswitch shops. STS was still using Sylantro.

Do you have any news to share?

Looking to Sell Your VoIP?

2011-12-23T12:58:00.003-05:00

A couple of companies are looking to buy your VoIP base.

One is VoIP Your Life LLC. "WE'RE BUYING small, residential and\or business VoIP customer bases (preferably, US-based). Interested in divesting? Kindly message me and we can arrange for a time to discuss." [from LinkedIn BroadWorks Group]

Flat Planet Phone Company is looking for VoIP companies in the US with up to 10,000 extensions for sale. Terms depend on the deal.

Marc Says Software Killing It

2011-12-19T17:40:00.002-05:00

In this WSJ article, Marc Andreesse talks about how software is eating the world, one industry at a time. Then in this CNET interview he mentions a bunch of apps/websites that are going to blow up, including TaskRabbit, Airbnb, Fab.com, and Shopkick. It's more about the opportunity and perspective for me, but the web has flattended out much of the world.

Retail Sales Rules from Ma Bell

2011-12-19T13:36:00.006-05:00

So Ma Bell developed 6 steps for customer service for the 26,000 employees that work at the more than 2,300 stores that Ma Bell owns and operates. The key is that Ma Bell wants to get away from transactional sales. It "is not in the business of selling products. They are in the business of selling solutions." That's the right mindset.

"Build value. An employee will ask the customer specific questions to understand the purpose of their visit." You need to have real open ended questions that will elicit the information from the prospect.

6M Are Wireless Only

2011-12-15T08:58:00.002-05:00

New study out about the cord cutting consumers.

By the end of 2011, 6.05 million US households will depend on a wireless or mobile platform (including 3G or 4G) as their only means of accessing the internet, according to research just published by the Strategy Analytics Service Provider Strategies program. This represents 6.9% of total US broadband connections—and a 430,000 net increase over 2010 levels. These “Mobile-Only” customers typically connect to broadband using 3G or 4G-enabled smartphones or PC dongles, and are unable or unwilling to use a wired broadband service such as cable, DSL or fiber.

Cable is winning the broadband war. DSL is shrinking. Mobile is increasing, At least according to this study.

Remember that this is a consumer (residential) study. This will have impact triple-play bundles. It will also seriously affect the revenue of telcos in 2 ways.

One: they spent all these billions to get into TV - the least profitable service in the bundle - at a time when content charges are increasing, killing off profit and customers. Instead of trying to win the phone/Internet war, telcos wanted it all - despite the partnerships they already had with DBS companies (DISH + DirecTV).

Two: more data only usage of the 3G/4G network will require more and more investment in network, spectrum, towers and backhaul. Cellcos are finding that ARPU is not increasing at the same rate as investment and maintenance of the cellco network. Plus most cellcos - especially VZW and ATT - have lost all the wireline revenue of the wireless-only customers. Revenue that was almost pure profit since the network was paid for.

What's the future of DSL? Who knows really. Can the ILEC's just let the copper go to waste? Frontier, FairPoint, Windstream, Cincinnati Bell, TDS and CenturyLink can't. The RBOC's might, but I'm not certain that they have a plan to get out of the combined debt. VZ has $54B in debt of which $8.5B matures in a year. Ma Bell has $69B of long-term debt, which it spreads throughout its empire of subsidiaries.

Luckily, CLEC's can still take advantage of the copper plant to deliver business services, but they better have a plan in place for network 20K feet from the CO, because that will likely have to be installed by CLEC's themselves soon.

And if everyone is going wireless, is MVNO a profitable model? By bet is NO.

Are you making plans for What Happens When? Need help? Call RAD-INFO INC at 813-963-5884.

Exit Strategy

2011-12-14T19:17:00.003-05:00

Saw this while looking through cartoons for my new business cards @gapingvoid. This cartoon is here.

[side note and not an affil link: You can get cool business cards with a cartoon on them here.]

Hugh MacLeod is a great marketer. His page about smarter wine has a couple of interesting thoughts via cartoon, because Hugh is a cartoonist, marketer and entrepreneur. Go take a look.

Farewell to Copps

2011-12-14T18:42:00.002-05:00

My favorite FCC Commission is resigning at the end of his 10 year term. Commissioner Mignon L. Clyburn gave him a nice send off today. You can read it here. "He’s part professor, part watchful critic, part sage, but is all friend, all mentor, and all public servant." He's been fair, which is more than I can say for most of them. Good luck, Mr. Copps.

What Business Are They in?

2011-12-09T15:12:00.002-05:00

The VZW-SpectrumCo deal has every blogger in a frenzy. GigaOm is writing how DirecTV's partnership with VZT is over since VZ will start selling cable's TV product. My head hurts from even reading that. The Duopoly are going to start re-selling each others services? Where and when?

Yes, the SpectrumCo MSO's - BHN, TWC and Comcast - will be selling VZW mobile data and voice as sales agents (like Qwest). I don't know how they leap from that to VZT is going to be selling Comcast TV. But the WSJ printed, "Then these rivals will cooperate and cross-sell their services in ways to confound regulators who pay lip service to creative destruction but still expect businesses to stay in their neat categories."

FiOS is done. That project was a financial failure for VZ, because it costs more than they thought to pass a house with fiber, acquire that customer, install that service over the FiOS network, and retain that customer. The costs were higher, the take rate was lower (expectation was 50%, they are at 28% partially due to MDU FiOS projects) and the ARPU was lower. It's as low as $79 for a triple play bundle in Tampa - not including the huge fees and add-on charges.

VZW is piloting fixed LTE, maybe in conjunction with DirecTV to sell more broadband and voice. DirecTV has installers for this. However, GigaOm reports that Verizon Communications CEO Lowell McAdam confirmed this pilot is dead. This doesn't mean DSL is dead (as DSLR is speculating and what LightReading is saying). DSL has always been under attack by cable. Cable won. Cheaper and faster (at least as marketed.) But not everyone cares! Some people want cheap broadband (DSL). Some people still want to pay $20 per month for dial-up!!! So who knows?

Has VZ given up on copper and fiber? Maybe for this quarter. As soon as the landline revenues drop enough for a stock hit, Lowell will have to re-steer the ship again.

And wait for it....

What are the cable magazines writing? That Cable is getting out of TV!!!

Why? Because content - especially ESPN and other sports stations owned by cablecos - is getting too expensive. Cable-cutting has started. Google, Netflix, Apple, Amazon and soon DISH (which owns Blockbuster) are all eating into the lucrative VOD/PPV (video-on-demand and pay-per-view systems). The economy has not helped.

As there was a shift at ATT and VZ when they announced that they were mobile companies last year, Time-Warner Cable's strategy chief, Peter Stern: "We're basically a broadband (Internet) provider....As a convenience to our customers we (also) package and distribute television (programming)". See that shift?!

Cable is the winner because the MSO's had $100B in debt from DOCSIS 2.0 upgrades, which gave them the necessary network plant for HDTV and Internet. TV gave them the eyeballs. Moving to Internet was gravy, since TV is the least profitable service in the triple-play (just ask Frontier or VZ).

VZ and ILEC's can't give up the ghost on wireline yet anyway. Why? Business services. Voice and data to businesses is a huge revenue silo for ILECs.

If Clearwire had its act together, it could have been the LTE or WiMAX provider for the cablecos. Sprint has been too busy rearranging deck chairs to do what it needed to do to solidify its partnership with cablecos (going back to Pivot).

Having dealt with VZ, I wonder how long the 3 SpectrumCo partners will feel like "partners" before they are reaching for lawyers.

Too many moving parts. The FCC has to approve it.

Section 179 for 2011

2011-12-08T11:03:00.002-05:00

Disclaimer: We are neither accountants nor tax lawyers. This should in no way be construed as tax advice. Talk to your CPA or visit www.irs.gov for details.

"If you’ve been contemplating a software or hardware purchase, there is no better time than now to take action. Congress has extended IRS Section 179 to cover the 2011 tax year," according to this VAR. "This means, businesses are allowed to deduct the full purchase price of qualifying equipment (including software and hardware) purchased or financed during the tax year instead of being amortized over several years. In 2011, the amount you can write off has gone up to $500,000 (from $250,000 in 2010) and the total amount of equipment that can be purchased increased to $2 million. It’s an incentive created by the U.S. Government to encourage businesses to buy equipment and invest in themselves."

This VAR writes that "Congress decided to prolong IRS Section 179 to cover the 2011 tax year. That means eligible business equipment purchases (including most computer hardware and software) can be deducted at full cost on your 2011 business taxes, instead of being amortized over several years."

For tax year 2011, this means the equipment must be put into service between 01/01/2011 and 12/31/2011.

Section179.org seems to have up-to-date info. But the IRS has pdf's here and the instructions for form 4562 are here to claim your deduction for depreciation and amortization; make the election under section 179 to expense certain property; and provide information on the business/investment use of automobiles and other listed property.

Again check with your tax specialist, but it could be a way to make purchases AND to get prospects to buy NOW!

For example, if a prospect was to purchase $10,000 of IT equipment by December 31st and were in the 35% tax bracket, they could write off $3,500. The equipment’s net cost to them is $6,500.

What's the Difference Between a Contractor and Employee?

2011-12-07T12:56:00.004-05:00

Today, many companies are bringing on temporary workers, 1099's, contractors, freelancers, and other types of workers to fill projects and skills. How do you classify them and pay them? That's a job for your CPA and attorney.

The Top 10 Payroll Mistakes are here. The top three mistakes are misclassifying nonexempt employees, failing to apply the latest laws/regulations and incorrect Social Security numbers on W-2 forms.

The IRS has a page that explains: "Independent Contractor (Self-Employed) or Employee?". Employers must way 3 factors about the degree of control and independence that a worker has:

"Does the company control or have the right to control what the worker does and how the worker does his or her job?"

"Are the business aspects of the worker’s job controlled by the payer? (these include things like how worker is paid, whether expenses are reimbursed, who provides tools/supplies, etc.)"

"Are there written contracts or employee type benefits? Will the relationship continue and is the work performed a key aspect of the business?"

Consider carefully - and define it clearly - the relationship with any worker.

MVDDS for New Mexico Internet (Maybe)

2011-12-07T11:30:00.004-05:00

So this is the press release. The correction is at the bottom.

Even more corrections at the bottom as of Friday, 12/9/2011

ALBUQUERQUE CHOSEN AS FIRST COMMERCIAL U.S. SITE FOR NEW BROADBAND TECHNOLOGY ROLLOUT

Albuquerque is the first U.S. city selected to receive breakthrough, Internet connection technology that promises up to 50Mbs, wireless Internet speeds at very competitive pricing.

The technology is called Multi-Channel Video and Data Distribution Service (MVDDS) and is already operating in the UAE, Ireland, France, Vietnam, Greenland and Serbia.

The technology was developed by Florida based, MDS America. Deploying the technology in New Mexico is Agave Broadband, the exclusive licensee for New Mexico.

“This partnership with MDSA will provide the latest internet, high‐speed connectivity technology to the Albuquerque market and outlying areas,” said Les Matthews, Agave Broadband Director. “This is another step in our long‐term strategy to bring affordable, high‐speed connectivity to both commercial and residential users in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and in parts of rural New Mexico.”

MVDDS uses patented and patent-pending technology to take advantage of a licensed broadcast spectrum owned by Agave partner, MDS America.

“We’ve successfully deployed this technology in many rural parts of the world,” said Kirk Kirkpatrick, MDS America, President and CEO. “The Albuquerque market provides an excellent opportunity to deploy in a combination of rural/urban markets containing a wide variety of climatic conditions. New Mexico is just the beginning of our roll-out of MVDDS technology into the United States.”

Agave recently acquired Cibola Internet Services, who had begun the preliminary discussions with MDS America. Lou Uttaro, Cibola’s owner, who had for many years been on the forefront of bringing innovative Internet services to New Mexico, will remain involved with Agave in deploying the MVDDS technology in the state.

Agave Broadband currently provides wireless broadband internet service to the East Mountains from Edgewood to Mountainair. The partnership with MDS America will allow expansion of the company’s current service offerings to many population centers in the State of New Mexico.

Now the correction and tech specs:

"I'm not sure I would call this "NEW BROADBAND TECHNOLOGY", 20 some years ago this technology was first developed."

This technology uses the DBS (Direct Broadcast Satellite) frequencies but at a terrestrial level.

It uses spectrum (US / FCC) in the 12.2 - 12.7 Ghz range.

The technology is UNI-DIRECTIONAL, in other words its a SEND TO SUBSCRIBER ONLY technology. [ME: like the original satellite broadband service.] The Internet is a BI-DIRECTIONAL technology, needing traffic in BOTH directions.

The primary use is to deploy multi-channel VIDEO via wireless and thus circumvent existing "Cable TV" franchise rules that municipalities presently have and are required by FCC.

The technology was initially developed in the mid 1980's and was known then as HyperCable.

In 2002, the FCC decided to hold a spectrum auction (Auction 53 and 63) for the land based use of the spectrum. The Albuquerque-Santa Fe market (Market ID MVD049) was granted on 7/26/2004. It EXPIRES on 7/26/2014. There is potential for renewal, if there is substantial service. The licensee has a requirement to provide substantial service within five years of the initial authorization grant. The initial authorization grant was on 7/26/2004. Add five years and you get 7/26/2009. [ME: missed by THAT much. So how come the spectrum didn't revert back to the FCC?]

Permissible Operations: MVDDS licensees may use this spectrum for any digital fixed non-broadcast service (broadcast services are intended for reception of the general public and not on a subscribership basis) including ONE-WAY direct-to-home/office wireless service. Licensees are permitted to provide ONE-WAY video programming and data services on a non-common carrier and/or on a common carrier basis. Mobile and aeronautical services are not authorized. Two-way services may be provided by using other spectrum or media for the return or upstream path.

So the licensee can use the service for ONE-WAY service and MUST NOT provide common carrier services. This could impact "VoIP / Voice" service offerings.

To deploy this technology Agave will need to deploy a DIFFERENT technology to get the packets from the subscriber BACK TO THE INTERNET. [ME: like a telephone modem :)] This can cause significant problems in actually achieving the bandwidth claimed.

Further, MDS Operations SHALL NOT partition or lease any portion of its license within the prior approval area, including Bernalillo County, Sandoval County. There do not appear to be any FCC approval records filed.

A few technical issues:

1. The licensee is permitted a SINGLE TRANSMITTER located at Sandia Park [35° 13' 01" North Lat. - 106° 27' 08" West Long] Since MDS Operations can only have a SINGLE TRANSMITTER, then is is a SHARED bandwidth system. The more customers they put on the system the less bandwidth will be available for each user.

2. The total amount of bandwidth will also be limited by the amount of bandwidth they can reliably get to the top of Sandia Peak. I do not believe there is FIBER at Sandia Peak. So they will have to use additional wireless technologies to get up to the peak. *** For 100 customers to get the 50Mb/s they will need to have 5000 Mb/s of uplink to Sandia (That's 5 Gbps) *** Unless they oversubscribe the system.

3. There is no "redundancy" in the system. If the single FCC authorized transmitter breaks, then all subscribers are DOWN.

4. Bandwidth will be limited by the latency and reliability of the back-channel technology deployed. Same problem that Satellite based systems have. The latency won't be quite as bad, but that really depends on the back-channel medium they use.

5. I suspect there will be NAT and other network address / routing issues that will cause certain Internet based applications to break or not work very well.

6. Assume they also deploy video on this technology (Video is/was the major driver of this technology), then the aggregate bandwidth available for "Internet" will be significantly less. A single HD video stream requires around 6 to 8 Mb/s, raw. That does NOT include the overhead of IP. So a 100 channel video service all in HD would need around 600 to 800 Mb/s of Bandwidth, in addition to the bandwidth consumed by Internet applications.

BREAK

New update comes from "Kirk Kirkpatrick and I am the CEO of MDS America. We designed and built the MVDDS system denigrated below. I have been the CEO of MDS America since 2000 when the company was formed. I was the first Manager of Information Systems for the Public Data Network in Kuwait.....MDS America and its associated companies have been building MVDDS systems since their inception. We have build the largest such system in the world, in the U.A.E., with a total capacity of 700 digital television channels of which over 385 are presently lit. There are more than 15 active transmission sites and MDS America holds a current purchase order from that company for 14 more transmission sites. This system has been running, uninterrupted, since 2004."

Kirkpatrick took to the user group to reply to the journalist mainly with biting replies, which I think were unwarranted, but that's just me. The journalist was writing about MDS in America, not MVDDS deployed internationally. Spectrum usage is different in every nation.

Kirkpatrick wrote, "We called the technology HyperCable in the early 90s and sold it from our French subsidiary, MDS International. My engineer, Fabrice Ducasse is the one who coined the term HyperCable and also the terms (obsolete as well) HyperGate Internet distribution system and HyperBoost."

"The FCC decided to auction this [spectrum in Auction 53 and 63] on the basis of the 98-206 proceeding. This public proceeding was dominated by three parties, the DBS satellite industry, Northpoint Technologies Inc. (who claimed to have patented these systems but never built one), and MDS America. MDS America wanted the FCC to put this spectrum up for auction in the US. It was already being used by our systems in over 15 countries..... This is a standard spectral license from the FCC bought at auction. Virtually all FCC licenses are written this way and come with something called “renewal expectancy.” This means that if the license holders make an honest effort to use the licenses, they will be renewed. The 80 DMA license we hold, of which Albuquerque is only one, have already been renewed once."

About the bi-directional capabilities: What the journalist wrote "is inaccurate and simply shows that the author does not understand the issues involved. The MVDDS spectrum is used for the downstream. Our CPE are capable of using any path as an upstream. The CPE have a 3G card built in with a slot for a sim. This is very much a two-way system. It is simply using another spectrum for packets going back to Internet. In this case, Agave Broadband will provide an upstream link in another spectrum." [This doesn't make the author wrong about the uni-directional use of the spectrum. It just clarifies how MDS will make it bi-directional.]

"“This can cause significant problems in actually achieving the bandwidth claimed.” Could the author be a bit more vague? This is known as FUD. I have had a real world screen shot from one of our installed CPE in Albuquerque placed on the MDSA website." [ME: the screen shot is NOT there.]

"MDS America is operating this system and has not leased out the spectrum." So no FCC paperwork needed.

On a single site: "Actually we are allowed a single transmission site at this power level. As well can build out this site to its full capacity. The license is for the entire Designated Market Area which is 80% of the state of New Mexico. MDSA is fully empowered to build as many transmission sites as it needs to serve its customers. ... In addition, yes it is shared bandwidth like a Cable Internet service, Like DSL, like the Internet backbone, like ethernet, it is a shared bandwidth. That means it is even better that MDS is able to instantiate more bandwidth as we need it." [ME: I don't even understand that last statement.]

"This part is true. This transmission site will be limited somewhat by available bandwidth to the site. MDSA does not anticipate being able to supply more than 2Gbps to the top of the mountain. The system will be oversubscribed as well."

On Latency: "This part is where I started wondering why anyone would take this person seriously on a technical level. Satellite signals traverse from, at least, the Clarke belt, meaning minimally 35,786+ km of free space. Given the speed of Radio Frequency propagation there is almost 25 ms latency inherent in the round trip to/from the Clarke belt [geostationary satellite orbital arc]. ( [distance to Clarke Belt / c ] is (2)3,600,000 m /(299,792,458 mps) ). Our furthest customer at 22dBm will be in the range of 30km from the transmitter so our signal will add, not 25ms, but in the worst case, .1 ms of latency. YES that’s ZERO POINT ONE compared to 25 milliseconds. Like comparing a one second wait to a 4 minute wait. I am guessing Mr. Brown has not done any RF systems design." [ME: the journalist was talking about the MINIMUM 25 ms of latency to the satellite. And 0.1 ms added by gear is unlikely. Gear usually adds a minimum of 1 ms of latency to the path IRL.]

,p>On the bandwidth capability: "Sounds like a pretty good argument for the provision of television for our system since we can put down considerably more 800 Mbps. Of course the writer forgets that there are already 2 operators operating in this spectrum (DirecTV and Dish Network). Both operate on exactly the same frequency as MVDDS, yet a consumer can receive both DirecTV and Dish Network signals at one location. This is because the Ku band is highly directional. This means that one consumer could receive our signal from two different towers (different vectors) as long as we could show (and have done it before) that we would not raise the Ku band noise floor."

Kirk Kirkpatrick, President and Chief Executive Officer, MDS America "Bringing Wireless Broadband Back Down to Earth" [800 Lincoln Ave., Stuart, Fl 34994 USA * Phone 877-677-MDSA]

Hiring a Leadership Team

2011-12-05T15:31:00.002-05:00

The article is titled "How to create collaboration around a shared vision", but it is really about “How do you hire your leadership team?”

One response: “I hire my senior leadership members like I buy shoes for my kids, two sizes too big.”

Cbeyond's CEO writes, "You have to cultivate vision and purpose so your teams are moving in the same direction and are inspired to stretch in order to deliver results that go beyond expectations. Results are only one element. If you want to build relationships, listen effectively and create a place of integrity — it’s critical to have a shared vision for success."

Almost 78M Subs

2011-12-02T13:57:00.002-05:00

How many broadband subscribers are there? Who has most of them? Well 93% go to the top 18 ISP's which are ILEC's and MSO's, according to Benton.

"The eighteen largest cable and telephone providers of broadband services in the U.S. acquired about 635,000 net additional high-speed Internet subscribers in the third quarter of 2011, a new report from Leichtman Research Group, Inc. (LRG) finds......These top broadband providers, which have about 93% of the market, now account for over 77.8 million subscribers -- with cable companies having 43.6 million broadband subscribers, and telephone companies having 34.2 million subscribers.

The 499 Applies to You Now

2011-11-29T10:15:00.004-05:00

From the Law offices of Rini Coran, PC:

VoIP providers should be aware of changes to the FCC Form 499-A report and of a new December 31, 2011 deadline that will apply to some VoIP providers.

Form 499-A must be filed annually by most providers of telecommunications services and providers of interconnected VoIP service. In the past, only interconnected VoIP providers were required to file Form 499-A; however, the FCC recently incorporated changes from the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010, which requires BOTH interconnected and non-interconnected VoIP providers to participate in and contribute to the Telecommunications Relay Services Fund. As a result, non-interconnected VoIP providers must file Form 499-A to register with the FCC by December 31, 2011.

More information is available in this Public Notice.

If anyone wants to outsource the FCC compliance work there are 3 choices:

Rini Coran.

Law Office of Kris Twomey

Compliance Solutions, Inc., who prepares and files the FCC 499A, Qs, FCC 477s, manages and pays monthly Fed USF (USAC) /TRS (Rhodes Sinon/.LNP (Neustar)/SOW (Neustar). Also, the annual CPNI and international traffic reports and other FCC returns.

SIP Client

2011-11-27T22:28:00.002-05:00

Do you need a web based SIP client? See this email thread here.

ZoIP

Phonefromhere.com has a good Java based one.

Phono works with Voxeo. See here too.

Open source from Google for Red5

Scheduling and Reminder Services

2011-11-22T12:32:00.004-05:00

Saw this cool service today for scheduling:

"The new Appointment Reminder module for PBXact and PBXtended is a unique way to automate appointment confirmations, cancellations and reschedules. By simply specifing numbers and names to be called PBXact will automatically call at specified times and allow recipients to confirm / cancel / reschedule appointments."

I think that this could be a killer app for small business, but I think that reminder service could also be a killer app. If the phone would ring or text me to remind me of an appointment, that would be cool. as it turns out Vision has that app with facebook integration.

This guy used Asterisk to do this.

It's not about the technology -- it's about how the tech can make businesses more productive or efficient. It's what the tech can enable!

Stay in Front of Customers

2011-11-22T11:17:00.003-05:00

According to Retail Active, the mystery shopping and brand audit company:

Repeat customers spend 33% more than new customers.
Referrals among repeat customers are 107% greater than non-customers.
It costs 6x more to sell something to a prospect than to sell that same thing to a customer.

It is important to stay in front of current customers for 5 reasons:

Upsell them services. More bandwidth. Another phone. Managed router.
Cross-sell them a servcie from a partner like backup.
Get Referrals! Best way to get one is to give one!
Get a Testimonial. Written, audio or video - or a recommendation on Yelp or LinkedIn.
So that they don't leave you.

Why do customers leave you? Here are 4 reasons, but the largest percentage is #4.

They felt your pricing was too high or unfair.
They had an unresolved complaint.
They took a competitors offer.
They left because they felt you didn't care.

Stay in front of your customers while providing value.

To all my readers - and especially to my customers - Thank You! and Happy Thanksgiving!

Draper's Rules for Start-Up Success

2011-11-21T17:01:00.002-05:00

On Matt McCall's VC blog, he summarizes Tim Draper's speech about start-up success.

"Test your product and get it out into market." As Seth says, "Ship it!" Betas are popular. Secret launch of your new VoIP offering or backup service can spread via word of mouth.

"Don't run out of cash."

It's all about Making the Complex Simple or Keeping It Simple Stupid. (It's a Linchpin tenet.)

"Focus...what is the most important thing to customer and what you can do to uniquely solve it."

"You are the leader of organization: take care of self, employees will also. You are the brand and heart of the culture."

I really like this one: "Think Big...go after things that count, one life to lead and go after big problem, change society!"

"Have fun"

"Partner and work with as many people as possible David Rosenblatt of DoubleClick fame added."

Accountability.

Transparency.

You Know I Like DR Stats

2011-11-21T15:42:00.001-05:00

Iron Mountain and TJS bring me some fun facts from a survey about disaster recovery.

68% chose disaster recovery as their biggest data challenge.

Only 44% successfully recovered their information after a recent data recovery event, largely because it either took too long to recover (27 percent) or they did not have necessary files backed up (15 percent).

Cloud backup is only used by 20% and that's mainly small business.

I'll leave you with this: You should be offering some backup to your customers - even if it is from a third-party just to make some revenue and to appear as THE technology partner that the SMB needs!

At the End of the Year

2011-11-21T09:58:00.002-05:00

I hope 2011 has been good to you. I hope that you hit your revenue goals and had some growth.

How did that happen?

Think about that so that you can duplicate it in 2012.

If you didn't have a good year, there's still time to hit those goals. Here are some tips.

There's even time to register for my Goal Setting webinar. I am going to leave you with some thoughts from Seth Godin.

"How does your organization respond to new opportunities? ... Most companies launch new things, try out new initiatives, brainstorm new approaches. The internal response (or reaction) to these ventures is a cultural choice."

"Are you going to succeed because you return emails a few minutes faster, tweet a bit more often and stay at work an hour longer than anyone else? ... It seems to me that you will succeed because you confronted and overcame anxiety and the lizard brain better than anyone else. Perhaps because you overcame inertia and actually got significantly better at your craft, even when it was uncomfortable because you were risking failure. When you increase your discernment, maximize your awareness of the available options and then go ahead and ship work that scares others... that's when you succeed." In a nutshell, Seth is writing about taking action. Try something new - like a cold call or a new product launch or a new partnership. When Seth says ship something, he means take action. It doesn't have to be perfect - like many of my blog posts - but it has to get put out there. No one can buy the idea or the product until it is outside your head and in the market. Right?

Sales and Advertising Tidbits

2011-11-17T17:04:00.002-05:00

Great article from Cliff about "12 Tips to Close End of Year Sales Fast". My top 3 tips are as follows:

1. Upsell and Cross-Sell other items to increase ARPU, total telecom spend and stickkiness.

2. Go Get Referrals or Testimonials!

3. Talk to your top clients.

Gary Vee says, "Take a look at any five people while you’re driving. Three out of four are texting while driving. It’s scary. So people aren’t looking at billboards. They’re not even watching the road." It's the changing face of marketing.

Companies like Freshbooks and Gary Vee's Wine store have used social media information to connect with customers, say thank you and earn more business - without selling.

Should you be on twitter or facebook? If your customers are, then yes. Most telcos are on twitter for customer support and PR.

Open Internet Compliance Statement

2011-11-14T15:36:00.002-05:00

This is from the Law Office of Kristopher E. Twomey, P.C. [1725 I Street, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20006 * phone 202.681.1850 * fax 202.517.9175]

Open Internet Compliance Statement

the Law Office of Kristopher E. Twomey has made an arrangement with FISPA to present a low-cost method for complying with the FCC's Open Internet rules. For non-FISPA members, the cost of the service is $500. [Much lower for FISPA members, join now! Tell them RAD-INFO referred you!]

The FCC's rules require that all ISP's publish an Open Internet Compliance Statement on their websites by November 21, 2011. The rules can be found here. Your document must address a variety of issues necessary for consumers to make informed choices such as congestion management principles; application blocking or traffic prioritization; security measures; privacy policies; speeds/associated cost of service; and complaint procedures.

In order to purchase this service, Join FISPA first! [Go ahead I'll wait... hmmmm...]

Then please click the PayPal link. After payment is confirmed, the Law Office of Kristopher E. Twomey will send an engagement letter to prepare the compliance statement and a survey to gather information about how your ISP deals with the issues that must be disclosed.

After your ISP returns the completed survey, the Law Office of Kristopher E. Twomey will work that material into a template that LOKT has developed and return it to you for posting. As such, every ISP that uses this service will receive a customized Open Internet Compliance Statement prepared by a telecom lawyer with fifteen years of experience."

Firing Customers?

2011-11-14T15:35:00.003-05:00

Do you keep all your customers no matter how difficult they are? There is a quick read from Seth Godin about the Unreasonable Customer. You can't be everything to everyone, except with a small client base.

UPDATE: Here is the GapingVoid's take on Smarter Clients.

Broadband Future

2011-11-14T15:01:00.003-05:00

"None of the world's major economies will escape a slowdown, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said on Monday, highlighting increasing signs that growth momentum is dwindling across the board," according to Portfolio.

Mix this with a 68% broadband penetration statistic in the US and you have to wonder how much more revenue carriers can get from the consumers.

The FCC wants faster broadband to home. "If Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski gets his way, the FCC will set a goal of 100-Mbps service delivered to 100 milliion American homes by 2020," writes Gary Kim. "One hundred meg is just a dream," says Qwest Communications International Inc Chief Executive Edward Mueller. "We couldn't afford it."

"Few customers now buy 50-Mbps services where such speeds are available, in large part because the cost is in the triple-digits range." So it comes down to cost and investment. The real problem is that even SMB won't pay 15% more for faster speed, but let me remind you we are talking about BROADBAND here, not Dedicated Internet Access. Carriers are going to have to get better at selling DIA versus Broadband in order to raise that B2B ARPU.

The 100 MB is part of the FCC's BROADBAND ADOPTION CHALLENGE, which has one problem: "One-third of all Americans – 100 million people – haven’t adopted broadband at home" which is why ELNK, AOL and NetZero are still making millions off of dial-up quarterly!

"About 46% of low-income families have adopted broadband at home compared with over 90% of higher- income families" which means that these low-income family members would be hard pressed to apply for jobs, since "80%+ of Fortune 500 companies require online job applications (including major employers such as Wal-Mart, Target, Costco, and ExxonMobil)". Big problem, unless the apps can be accessed via dial-up, mobile or at the school or library. This means that the E-rate program is even more vital today for the economy and the digital divide than ever before. This will be assisted via the NEW LOW-COST BROADBAND INTERNET OFFER FOR FREE SCHOOL-LUNCH FAMILIES, "Participating NCTA member cable companies will offer all eligible families two-years of $9.95 + tax broadband cable Internet, with a no installation/activation fee option and no modem rental fees (with an option to purchase a $10 modem)."

Reversing Forbearance!!

2011-11-14T13:32:00.002-05:00

"On October 4, 2011, tw telecom, BT Americas, the Ad Hoc Telecommunications Users Committee, Computer & Communications Industry Association, EarthLink, and Sprint (collectively, Petitioners) filed a petition --- Establish Regulatory Parity in the Provision of Non-TDM-Based Broadband Transmission Services, WC Docket No. 11-188 --- to reverse in part the forbearance granted to VZ by operation of law on March 19, 2006. In particular, Petitioners ask the Commission to reverse the forbearance from general Title II economic requirements that apply to non-dominant common carriers or LECs; Title II public policy requirements that apply generally to all carriers; and the BOC-specific Computer Inquiry requirements to the extent that they impose the same transmission access and non-discrimination requirements that apply to all non-BOC, facilities-based wireline carriers in their provision of enhanced services. Petitioners contend this will restore regulatory parity between Verizon and its similarly situated competitors for non-TDM-based services such as Ethernet, ATM and SONET." [PDF of DA-11-1879A1 from FCC]

Net Neutrality and Congestion

2011-11-14T12:50:00.004-05:00

What next for network neutrality? From Benton Foundation, "Verizon and MetroPCS are pursuing lawsuits against the Federal Communications Commission, claiming the agency doesn't have the legal authority to issue network neutrality/open Internet rules. Meanwhile, on the other side of the question, the group Free Press has also sued the FCC because the rules don't apply to mobile services. The question could remain open for years."

UltraFast Networks lead to risks. Benton Foundation writes, "Statistics dictate that the vastly greater number of transactions among computers in a world 100 times faster than today will lead to a greater number of unpredictable accidents, with less time in between them." This article comes on the heals of this one: You’ve got a gigabit network, so now what?

Websites aren't loading well amid the vast array of operating systems, devices and browsers. Plus data heavy and widget heavy (Google maps, etc.) sites hang. Consumers get bored in 8 seconds!

Which leads to this BF article: Traffic jams, ISPs and network neutrality. "Internet service providers would profit from a congested Internet in which some content providers will be more than willing to pay an additional fee for faster delivery to users."

I thought that CDN's did that? And Level3's new website optimization service.

BTW, the US Senate rejected the attempt to overturn FCC's network neutrality rules, 52-46 [BF]

Goal Setting Time

2011-11-13T13:21:00.004-05:00

Since Christmas decorations are already up and one radio station in Tampa is already playing holiday songs!!!!! it must be Goal setting time. So I have updated this presentation:

Goal Setting

which you can download for free from here.

You can also view other slides about Goal Setting and Sales Planning and How to Have your Best Year Ever.

Even better sign up now for the webinar: Planning a Great Sales Year - one for sales people and one for managers.

On Dec. 8th at 1 PM Eastern, Goals for Managers (which includes how to run a Performance Review)

On Dec. 8th at Noon Eastern is Goal Setting for Sales People.

If you prefer one-on-one assistance with goal setting, performance reviews or other sales coaching, you can set an appointment with RAD-INFO. Call 813-963-5884 today!

So is Cellular Flat Yet?

2011-11-04T13:37:00.001-04:00

From the Telecom Monthly: "Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) found that the U.S. has more wireless service subscribers than people. According to the organization, at the end of June, there were 327.6 million wireless service subscribers, compared to 3.15.5 million people living in the U.S." FLAT!

Amazing Tidbits

2011-11-04T11:46:00.003-04:00

Dial-up is still a cash cow (but some of you know that already).

AOL Still Has 3.5 Million Dialup Subscribers

Earthlink still makes cash from dial-up, but they have been on an acquisition run lately, mainly managed IT companies.

The other dial-up giant is NetZero, owned by United Online, which also owns FTD, Classmates.com, Memory Lane, and about $30M per quarter on NetZero. Now NetZero has a deal with Clearwire to offer 4G service starting in 2012.

You probably don't hear it from the customer's side often, but here is a great write-up of what it is like to be a techie customer calling support.

Dial-up isn't the only legacy thing that is a cash cow. PRE-PAID is too.

Cablevision not only launched Hosted PBX service for large enterprise but added some twists due to the Metaswitch server: the service "provides a range of new call-processing, mobility and collaboration features.... Optimum Lightpath sells the service as an add-on to its Internet Voice Bundle with flat-rate pricing for preset bundles of phone minutes. The service also offers free calling to other Optimum Lightpath Hosted Voice customers and support for HD Voice". In addition, Cablevision "has rolled out a click-to-call service that allows users to make phone calls to landline or mobile phones in the U.S. by clicking on phone numbers on web pages," according to this article.

Did you know that Bandwidth.com powers not just Google Voice, but Twilio, Skype and numerous other services that use VoIP to connect a call. Check this out: "Republic Wireless, a division of Bandwidth.com, will launch a $19 per month hybrid VoIP/cellular service on November 8th. That service will provide unlimited calling, texting and 3G data for Republic Wireless customers," according to this report.

Leadership Lessons from Black Hawk Down

2011-11-03T15:06:00.004-04:00

I just read this article, 12 Most Heart-stopping Leadership Lessons from a Black Hawk Down Army Ranger. Interesting enough that I ordered the book.

The book, Get It On! by Army Ranger and Country Music Artist Keni Thomas, is a"bout the leadership lessons gleaned through his experience fighting in the 18-hour urban Battle of Mogadishu that took place on October 3-4, 1993, better known to all of us as “Black Hawk Down."

Be willing to carry the burden of leadership when you are given the gifts of a leader; know when to be a good follower.

Each one of us is a piece of the puzzle that makes everything work.

You, as the leader, must be the source of vision, purpose, expectation and hope.

We are all human.

Tangentially, here is an article about "60% of Work Teams Fail—Top 10 Reasons Why". Some people blame not planning. Some people say you don't have to have a plan. I think the act of planning let's you think out who, what, where, why, how - whether you write that out as a full fledged plan is up to you, but the act of thinking it through is important.

Robert Metcalfe Keynote

2011-11-03T13:50:00.002-04:00

Take the time to watch Bob Metcalfe, founder of Ethernet and 3Com and now VC and Professor at UT, talk about startups. The Q&A is good, too.

Becoming an MSP

2011-10-31T23:02:00.002-04:00

I have been at three shows recently that have urged Agents, VAR's and others to morph into an MSP (managed service provider). Last week in Atlanta, Presilient gave a presentation on making an MSP out of an Agent. Basically, data backup is the first service for an MSP to sell. There are many choices for vendors from Mozy, Carbonite to Qwest (who has been selling Hosted Storage for 3 years). Or you can DIY.

One way to sell data storage is through an assessment of storage goals, compliance, and best practices.

Presilient also offers monitoring of the hardware, LAN and WAN. MSP's utilize PSA software like Tigerpaw, Kaseya, ConnectWise and Zenith Infotech to offer monitoring is an MSP product.

MSP's are also offering hosted VoIP, SIP trunking, MPLS networking, conferencing, email (like MS Exchange) and software packages (Sharepoint and others) mainly to small to medium-sized business (SMB’s).

Migrating from a break/fix model to a maintenance contract is the key to the MSP business model. Who doesn't love MRR (monthly recurring revenue)?

Usage Patterns

2011-10-31T18:08:00.002-04:00

Dane @ Sonic.Net blogged about the Apple effect on his network, including a graph of the traffic spikes.

Connected Planet has an article that describes current network usage as seen through Sandvine's latest study.

Traffic is going up. Usage especially for video is increasing. People are bored and don't want to talk to other people, so they stare at the screen day and night watching bad TV and horrible movies. Metered plans be damned.

Web Developer Versus Designer

2011-10-31T11:42:00.003-04:00

If you are looking to re-do your website (and trust me, most of you should), you need to know the difference between a web developer and a web designer.

A web developer usually does coding and builds a site from the ground up. This is more than just CSS coding. Developers build web properties specifically for client specifications. So if you want someone to program your website, add forums, plug-ins and what-have-you, a web developer is for you.

If you just want a website made based on Wordpress or the like, then you want to hire a designer.

You need to think about some things first:

What is the website for? Static brochure or sales tool?
What do you want visitors to do?
How many services are you going to jam on the website?
How many items per menu? (Did you know there is a math formula for that?)

Remember the 8 second rule. In 8 seconds, the website and all plug-ins have to load plus the content (above the fold) has to be relevant to the person visiting or people bounce. (More on landing pages in the future.)

Are You a Tech Leader?

2011-10-31T10:58:00.004-04:00

This morning the Tampa Bay Tech Forum hired a new executive director. Amid the hoopla, the PR is that Tampa has a new tech leader. No affront to the new CEO of TBTF, but if all it took to be a leader was a title Obama would be doing way better.

What does it take to be a tech leader? That's probably a question that HP asks itself every Board meeting. (HP needs to clean out its Board.) It's a question that Apple, Microsoft and Google work on daily. Not talk about - work on. Leaders act.

Are you a tech leader in your community?

You know how some of your customers call you about PC issues? They don't know where the demarc is. You are already perceived as a tech leader. You can take that steps further and become THE TECH LEADER.

In Sarasota, FL, there is an active group that spends its days working on ways to make the community more friendly for creatives, techies and startups. All the components work together - the Economic Development Council, the Chambers, City Hall, the county and the colleges. The end goal is a better community, more jobs, and cool people to hang with.

I'm not saying you have to go that far. You can volunteer tech time with a public charity for exposure. You can offer up your conference room for meetings for techies. You can sponsor coffee for tech meetings like VMware, Microsoft, graphic designers, etc. Create an intern program for the local tech college. These small things can have big results - like new employees, partners, services and customers.

In Tampa Bay, we have fractured micro-communities. Many never touch each other. It's pockets of techies. It's a tall order to be all things to all people. How does an organization like TBTF keep the 15 Board members happy while also catering to companies like IBM and Microsoft and startups? Tampa Bay has a lot of fingers in the technology pie - STARTEC, Gazelle Labs, WAVE, TBTF, two EDC's, High Tech Corridor, USF, 2 city halls and 2 county governments, BarCamp plus a number of meetups for creatives and techies. It is worse than herding rhinos as this St. Pete Times called it.

I muse about this issue this morning because I have been organizing the BarCamp community in Tampa Bay for 4 years now. When I think of Tech Leaders, I think about the folks in this town who are actually delivering on technology like Sean Davis and Daniel Scott. In New Orleans, one such tech leader is Chris Schultz. No one appointed them. They just went out and did it.

As with any initiative or product launch, the following questions have to be asked:

Who are we targeting?
Why should they buy from us?
What benefits can we provide?
What tactics are required to target them?
Where does the target get its information (Where to advertise)?

"There go the people. I must follow them for I am their leader. - Alexandre Ledru-Rollin

"The real leader has no need to lead-- he is content to point the way." - Henry Miller

"Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes." - Peter Drucker

Louisiana Loses BB Money

2011-10-29T18:00:00.002-04:00

In yet another story about the Broadband Stimulus program going wrong, "The U.S. Department of Commerce has rescinded an $80 million grant awarded to Louisiana last year that would have expanded the reach of broadband Internet to rural and poor areas of the state." Read the rest on WXVT.

Mobility Means Money

2011-10-24T16:37:00.002-04:00

Technology is confusing to most folks. (Think blinking clock on VCR for years on end.) That's why you need to re-think your business as a Technology Advisor.

For example, have you ever been to a charity event that is manually taking charge cards? The line is long and getting antsy. Well, you could introduce that charity or chamber or non-profit to AIRCHARGE by Sprint* or any of these 11 for various mobile O/S.

There are a number of examples of ways that you can assist small businesses with acquiring and utilizing technology and advance your business doing it.

*I rep for Sprint and can pay you a referral fee on this stuff.

Cellular Replacement of Landlines Set to Accelerate

2011-10-24T16:19:00.003-04:00

VZW will start selling home LTE service in Q4, which it is trialing now. At the same time, VZ announced that no new FiOS builds would be happening (because it was a financial disaster).

Meanwhile, Sprint Biz360 rolled out a landline replacement called Sprint Phone Connect. Just $20 per month with a 2-year commit and a $50 port-in credit for your landline number.

This will likely accelerate landline replacement. Just what the ILEC's need.

ASIDE:

Dugout Phones: Last Bastion of the Landline

What Does RAD-INFO Do?

2011-10-20T17:16:00.002-04:00

I get asked this a lot and last week was no exception. So here's a highlight reel of what RAD-INFO does for clients.

If you want specific case studies with outcomes, here you go:

Are you taking part in the Start Your Sales Engine Series? Inexpensive sales training for your sales team.

Don't want to sit through a webinar? Get the Hosted PBX sales training kit and go at your own pace.

My books, podcasts, audio and video are available for sale on SELLECOM.

Because you demanded it: How to SELLECOM Cloud book will be out in January 2012 in kindle format!

Everyone is Jumping on Mobile

2011-10-19T11:56:00.002-04:00

Best Buy is opening new concept stores called Best Buy Mobile, "a new Best Buy concept focusing on sales of smartphones and mobile devices such as the iPad." Radio Shack is heavily into cellular and tablets, now carrying pre-paid from Boost, VZW, tracfone and one other plus the 4 post-paid carriers (ATT, VZW, T-Mobile and Sprint).

Cbeyond has had an MVNO for a while. XO just signed on as a Sprint MVNO.

Tech Data just signed a deal with Brightstar to basically become Radio Shack for VAR's. TDMobility is being messaged as a PAAS, but its an MVNO with Sprint, T-Mobile and ATT services being sold with devices through a portal that TD and Brightstar manage for the VAR (service provider) and the end-user.

Everyone is trying to figure out a mobile play.

Since MVNO plans have not worked out previously for so many companies (mainly due to a scale issue), I don't see how the new MVNO's will make it work either. You need 6K lines a year to break even!

Becoming an MSP

2011-10-19T11:38:00.004-04:00

Monitoring is another hot service. Firms are monitoring hardware, LAN and WAN. Reporting is the key to selling this service because without color charts to show incidents and actions. Presilient says that they can monitor from 5 to 500 servers. It would seem that 1-5 servers would be the sweet spot and anyone with more than (even I think) 30 servers will have a full IT staff.

The MSP model is a migration from break/fix toward a steady income delivered by MRR (monthly recurring revenue).

Presilient did mention that backup is all about: Data storage and assessment of storage goals and compliance and could be sold around best practices. (Be the expert!)

The thing about backup is that there isn't validation on many backup services, so sell validation. "Yes, we have your data error-free and ready for retrieval."

If the business does have IT staff, remember to mention that it isn't always about replacing head count. It can be about taking mundane tasks off the staff plate to an outsourced (local) partner.

Backup must be growing because Intronis is on pace to grow 50% in 2011.

UPDATE: Cox has backup now! So you might be late to the party. Cox Communications has launched new internet service features to help customers protect and store information. The set of tools includes Cox Security Suite Plus powered by McAfee, McAfee Family Protection and Cox Secure Online Backup.

Steve Jobs

2011-10-11T14:18:00.002-04:00

Not to add to the stuff you have read about Steve Jobs, but this article is being discussed at length on a couple of lists. What I Learned from Steve Jobs. I like # 11. Real CEO's Ship. Period. They aren't fighting fires all day. They are working on strategy and design and shipping product out the door.

Seth Godin's last book was Weird Ones. Steve Jobs was that. My homage to him was compiled here. I liked the 3 stories to Stanford grads. Best way to sell your idea is with stories.

Connect America Fund

2011-10-11T14:05:00.003-04:00

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski outlined a plan to reform and modernize the Universal Service Fund (USF) and Intercarrier Compensation system (ICC) in a speech delivered at FCC headquarters. The pro-consumer plan will, if adopted by the Commission later this month, reform USF/ICC to unleash enormous benefits including expanded broadband infrastructure for millions of Americans. Genachowski goes on to say, "Proposal would help bring consumer benefits of broadband to 18 million Americans who are currently denied access to full economic and social participation." (He means rural residents without broadband, except maybe satellite access.)

On the one hand, I am excited that the FCC will FINALLY be resolving the USF and ICC issues.

On the other hand, do taxpayers really have to foot the bill for all rural services, like mail, phone and broadband? The current USF is 15.3%.

Other FCC news:

Using 477 data, the FCC has released 2 reports that contain data up to December, 2010. One is the Internet Access report. The other is Local Telephone Service report.

And that's not all! The FCC has released a report and order on the TRS Relay fund for Inter-Connected VoIP providers who now have to contribute to the fund and provide TRS to those with disabilities. Also, called Advanced Communications Services for the Disabled. Something to do with the 499-A form. But I didn't read all of this yet.

A Look at the SMB PBX Market

2011-10-11T13:40:00.003-04:00

The Telecom Reseller wrote about how both Avaya and Cisco have attacked the SMB PBX market in very different ways.

"Don’t assume that Avaya and Cisco are always selling to similar SMB customers. New research from The Eastern Management Group finds they are not. Avaya sales to first-time buyers are unimaginably strong. Cisco is the go-to company for features that improve employee productivity."

There are others in the SMB PBX space - ShoreTel, Samsung, Asterisk, Fonality, Panasonic and many others. The leaders get business two different ways. Avaya likely because of the brand name in PBX. Cisco always sells on features.

Which are you using? Your Brand? Low cost? Productivity? Or not sure?

The Key to Backup

2011-10-11T13:27:00.003-04:00

I might have said this before but it was mentioned by a couple of MSP's at the agent show that I am at. The key to data backup is not backup but restore. The piece that many staffers miss is validating that the tape backup ran correctly and that the tape itself is without damage.

Back in 1996-1999, I worked for a Novell VAR and HP tape backup was at every client site. Despite that, no one checked the reports even for the warning that printed out about the tape cartridge being locked or that the backup had an error. They found out when the server hard drive crashed.

Hard drives crash. Not maybe, but when. Backing up data, especially sales and client data, is essential to the continuation of your business after a crash (or other adverse incident).

When you are offering Data Storage -- and you ARE selling backup, right? - remember that the key to sales isn't the backup, it's the validation and retrieval. (off-site too).

Also, when selling backup, mention that you are not displacing bodies but making them more efficient and giving them some time back from this mundane but essential responsibility.

VoIP Wholesale Options

2011-10-04T09:38:00.003-04:00

So you decided to jump into the VoIP fray (with the 1100 or so other companies selling VoIP). Good for you. Now what?

You have to pick your switch - Metaswitch, Broadsoft, Stratus, VocalTec, white-label, or switch partition.

You need billing software. Something that will take all the CDR's and turn them into an accurate bill for your customers as well as true-up against the CDR's. Who will send you CDR's?

You will need Origination and Termination, DID's, E-911, toll-free RESPORG and access to the CNAM and LNP databases. Sometimes you can get that all in one shop. Here are some examples.

I used to recommend DASH Carrier Services, until Bandwidth.com bought them. Now that division is called iNetwork. Bandwidth has had a history of billing issues with my clients.

VoIP Innovations is a company that I rep. No complaints. They are utilizing their managed modem network built during the ISP dial-up days.

Point1 is another. Point1 recently acquired assets from PacWest.

Recently, I started repping Starview. I only have one client on them. No reviews yet.

Most of these companies aggregate from Level3, Global Crossing and Verizon. [BTW, L3 and GC closed their merger today.] Since these companies have a large commit and don't cover the whole USA solo, it behooves many companies to use a reseller.

So you have the back end. Now you have to detail a deployment procedure. That's right. Write it down, so ever install is similar. You don't want to support 300 different installations and end-points.

For the customer premise, you will need switches and IAD or QOS Router as well as Phones/handsets. You can have the phones pre-configured and drop shipped by a fulfillment house like VoIP Supply.

A management and reporting system would be helpful. ADTRAN and Edgewater have one that works with their gear and some handsets (like Polycom). Make sure it allows for remote handset reboot.

All this and more is covered in Vegas on Oct. 13th at the VoIP Deployment Workshop - or make an appointment to go over this in detail.

Ethernet NNI's

2011-09-30T11:05:00.003-04:00

While there are Ethernet Exchange POP's in places like TELX, where carriers can inter-connect to different carriers for Ethernet access, one CLEC is bridging the gap with Ethernet network-to-network interfaces. This is similar to NNI's that used to connect Frame Relay systems and Frame Relay to ATM architectures. Now it connects Ethernet networks.

Mammoth spent the summer inking agreements and completing interfaces with carriers to integrate their Ethernet reach into our Aggregation hubs. By utilizing Mammoth, you have the luxury of using AboveNet on one end of a circuit, and a CenturyLink loop on the other. Best of all, Mammoth is the single point of support and billing. The carriers include:

• 360networks • ACT (WY) • AKN (CAN) • AboveNet • Black Rock Cable (WA) • CCT (CO) • CenturyLink E-Line • CenturyLink MOE • CenturyLink Wave • Cogent • Comcast ENS • Cox • Enventis (MN) • FPL FiberNet • Frontier • Hurricane Electric • Iowa Networks Services (IA) • LS Networks (OR) • Lightower • Nebraska Link (NE) • NoaNet (WA) • Noel Communications • Pinpoint Network Solutions(NE) • SRP Telecom (AZ) • Syringa Networks (ID) • tw Telecom • TeliaSonera • Tinet • US Signal • Utopia (UT) • Vision Net (MT) • XO Communications • Zayo (including AFS and AGL assets)

Looking for a quote? Give RAD-INFO INC a call for Ethernet circuits, other transport, Internet bandwidth and any telecom need you have. 813-963-5884.

Logging Your Cell Phone Activity

2011-09-30T10:52:00.002-04:00

How long does your cellphone company keep logs of your text messages?

According to these 3 articles in the Consumerist, WIRED, and INC mag, "A 2010 Justice Department memo that was recently discovered shows just how much sensitive data phone providers keep. From IP addresses to call logs to text messages and surfing habits, U.S. telecoms house a startling amount of data—often for a long time."

"AT&T hold onto text message details the longest, at 5-7 years for post-paid. Verizon is the shortest, at 1 year rolling."

"Verizon is the only company that keeps the content of those messages."

Privacy is such a thing of the past. And how much info will they hold on to for the government in exchange for more spectrum?

Broadband Project in Trouble

2011-09-30T10:10:00.003-04:00

When the Broadband Stimulus project started, the advice I gave to many companies was as follows: strict accounting controls better be in place or people will end up in jail. I advised that if you didn't have a CPA before applying, then don't bother applying, because you will need a CPA and bookkeeper and for the tens of millions a comptroller to oversee compliance, tracking, and more.

Fast forward to 2011, the NFBA is in hot water for no-bid contracts, compliance and spending issues. Read about it here and there. More to come.

Are You Offering CRM?

2011-09-29T12:37:00.003-04:00

"According to AMI-Partners’ latest U.S. SMB Cloud Services Study, the software-as-a-service customer relationship management (or, SaaS CRM) market—already representing 570,000 U.S. SMB firms—is set to undergo double-digit year-over-year growth in the next five years," reports the TSJ. [BTW, that study is just $19,500.00 and was published in Oct. 2010.]

Are you using CRM? You might want to consider it.

The biggest problem I see with CRM is that there is so little differentiation among the CRM providers. In other words, why use Salesforce over MS over Zoho? I asked earlier What CRM are you using?

I remember when Atlantic.Net was rolling out Hosted VoIP service, Marty had the idea that 411 would be answered by his staff, who could then look it up for the customer and offer concierge services - and offer preferred vendors that paid for the service. It was a good idea.

VZ has rolled out Customer Concierge Service. Is there anything that you can learn from that? Or from the fact that MSP's make money from SAAS CRM?

FCC's Net Neutrality Rules on Nov. 20

2011-09-29T12:27:00.002-04:00

The FCC's Rules about Net Neutrality for ISP's and broadband providers goes into effect on November 20th, 2011. The underlying principles include transparency, no blocking and no unreasonable discrimination. "Criticized by opponents as a legally shaky government intrusion into regulating the Internet, the new rules would prevent network operators from blocking lawful content but still let them ration access to their networks," writes the Huffington Post.

"The proposed rules of the online road would prevent fixed-line broadband providers like Comcast and Qwest from blocking access to sites and applications. The rules, however, would allow wireless companies more latitude in putting limits on access to services and applications," writes the NY Times.

CNET gives us the 4 Rules of Net Neutrality from the FCC:

"The first rule requires both wireless and wireline providers to be transparent in how they manage and operate their networks."

"The second Net neutrality rule prohibits the blocking of traffic on the Internet. The rule applies to both fixed wireline broadband network operators as well as to wireless providers. But the stipulations for each type of network are slightly different."

"For fixed broadband networks, operators cannot block any lawful content, services, applications, or devices on their network. Wireless providers area also prohibited from blocking Web sites, but the rule is slightly more lenient when it comes to blocking applications and services. The rule only prohibits these companies from blocking access to applications that specifically compete with a carrier's telephony voice or video services. In each case, the blocking rule also allows fixed and wireless broadband providers to reasonably manage their networks."

"And finally, the last rule applies only to fixed broadband providers. It prohibits fixed wireline broadband providers from unreasonably discriminating against traffic on their network."

Opposition was posed by VZ and MetroPCS. But the court threw out the challenge because the rules were not published yet in the Federal register, which happened 30 days ago. "Congressional Republicans are also not too pleased by the rules. Back in April, the House voted to overturn the FCC's net neutrality rules, but the measure was largely a symbolic gesture," states PC Mag.

Start Your Sales Engine

2011-09-27T13:55:00.009-04:00

Beginning in October, I will be presenting 30 minute sales webinars every other week. A new topic each time.

First up is How Compelling is your Elevator Pitch? On Thursday, Oct. 6, 2011 at Noon Eastern. I'm a firm believer that you need to establish a value statement about your company and services. Telecom has too much competition and too many me-too products (many named similarly), which means it becomes a price war as a commodity. Let's look at your elevator pitch, USP or Value Statement.

Funnel Management is dreadful for both the manager and the sales team. Why? Justification and guess work. "Yes, he's still a prospect." "No, I have no idea when it will close." This may be a symptom of poor sales process. Is your sales team wasting time on people who will never buy? Is the stuff in the funnel real or foam? Sales Process is key. On Thursday, Oct. 20th at Noon Eastern.

Do you have a consistent process for identifying and developing new opportunities? Prospecting or Recruiting for Customers is a scheduled set of activities. Learn more on this call on ~~Thursday, Nov. 3rd~~, Wed., Dec. 6, 2011 at Noon Eastern.

Follow Up: before and after the sale. Follow up is the key to more sales. Most salespeople stop after 3 touches - it takes 7-11 touches to close a warm prospect. (More if he/she haven't started the buying process yet.) On ~~Nov. 17~~ Tuesday Dec. 13, 2011 at Noon Eastern

Stalking Your Prospects (and Preparing for the Sale). How to utilize the Internet and social tools to prospect and prepare for each appointment. On Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011 at Noon Eastern.

Is it Product Knowledge, Rolodex, Sales Technique or Mindset holding you back? A quick look at the 4 pieces of the sales professional toolkit. On Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011 at Noon Eastern.

That's six webinars. You can buy all six for $99! Right now.

Wisper Helps Employees With Debt

2011-09-27T10:33:00.003-04:00

One of my clients received some nice press, syndicated nationwide. The article was about helping his employees get out of debt. Nice job, Nathan at WisperISP! See it here in the digital copy of the TBT.

>Alternate URL

What's a BarCamp?

2011-09-26T09:46:00.005-04:00

Saturday was the 4th Annual BarCamp Tampa Bay. BarCamps happen around the world. Started as FOO Camp (Friends of O'Rielly), the first few were in fact held in a Bar. Here in Tampa, we prefer a more business like setting as Year 1 & 2 were held at the USF School of Business and the last 2 years at K-Force HQ in Ybor. We like having 5 rooms for talks.

This year was record setting with over 350 people showing up, including Tampa Mayor Buckhorn.

BarCamp is an UN-conference in the sense that the agenda is created that morning by the participants. Everyone has complaints about this, but it's a fluid process as talks are added, taken away and moved throughout the day as presenters come and go and people show up later in the day. This year we had iPhone and Android scheduling apps brought to you by Barry Ezell and Matt Munday.

The hardest part about organizing is remembering who to thank. It takes a Village to put on this type of event, so on top of the volunteers and the organizer committee (Joel, Sean, Susie, Stephanie, Aris and me), there are sponsors to thank. BarCampTour (for the pre-party at the Museum and for participating); Buddy Brew (for coffee); SourceToad; StartupWeekend Tampa (Lunch sponsor!); AgileThought; Microsoft; Haneke Design; Madera Labs; Grooveshark; K-Force and Tampa Bay Computer Society. [BTW, many sponsors are looking for talent.]

The schedule was funny this year. It didn't fill up for all 5 rooms until almost lunch. Most rooms were standing room only, but 350 people can't squeeze into 5 rooms that seat 25, 50, or 85 people. Despite the UNTHINK people just showing up to pitch, that room remained full. Dan Denney and company gave a sneak peak at the We are Tampa Bay website re-design and the project behind it. There was a light-saber duel in the Micorsoft SDK demo. Brainstorming in the creative problem solving sessions. Some of us watched Seth Godin's Linchpin video and talked about the problems facing the economy. There were 2 talks about relationships - one from me and one from Aubrey. (I also spoke about Why Blog? slides here.) Head of Lettuce and fellow Cranky Bastard Antony spoke about Twitter, his favorite little toy. It's an eclectic mashup of tech, programming, user design, social media, and more. (No business classes this time round, except maybe the one on affiliate marketing.)

Here are 5 blogs about this year's BarCamp that explain why people attend: Sean Davis, our Grand Poobah 2011; Steve Buehler; Ken Evans; John Adair; and this one.

More about BarCamp. There is probably one in your community: Raliegh, Charlotte, New Orleans, Miami, Chicago, and more. Attend one and you may find some talent for your business or a project. You never know.

One reason for BarCamp is to build a deeply connected community.

And one more cool blog: Peer-to-peer Healthcare at Medicine 2.0

What a Great Band

2011-09-21T16:18:00.004-04:00

Last night I got to watch PJ20, the documentary by Cameron Crowe about Pearl Jam. (It's been 20 years since Pearl Jam was formed.) [You can listen to the soundtrack here.] One thing about the band is that they work great together. They work through stuff too. (Like the death of fans at a concert at the Danish Roskilde festival in 2000.)

Have you put a band together? Do you have the right people making music for your business?

As the lyrics go for this song, the only important thing is rhythm and melody.

You Are the Job Engine

2011-09-21T16:16:00.002-04:00

In case you didn't have enough pressure, you are America's hope. You are the job engine of America. There's a great bunch of stats over at TJS. There are more than 27 million small businesses in the US that attribute to 60-80% of all new jobs. Infographic.

Social Media is Confusing

2011-09-21T13:48:00.002-04:00

Last week at ITEXPO, I moderated a couple of panels - one on Social Media Strategy and on Online Marketing. Similar threads really. And it coincided with the presentations at the CMO Summit the night before.

What you do online has to be the same message, value, etc. that you do offline. Social media tools are just extra tactics that will help you deliver your marketing message to your target audience.

If you are looking for some help with your online marketing, let's talk (813-963-5884).

See the Top 10 Online Marketing tips here.

Unintended Conequences

2011-09-21T10:28:00.003-04:00

The decline in landlines results in a decline in revenues to maintain the 911 PSAP connections. As consumers (and businesses) disconnect landlines, the pool of money going to the 911 decreases. While there are replacement services like VoIP and cellular, the 911 fees collected go to different companies; hence, to different pools of money. In some cases, Intrado or DASH are the 911 provider getting some of the revenue. How that trickles down to the 911 centers I have no idea. Plus why the fees are cheaper for VoIP, cellular and pre-paid wireless is even crazier. Not to mention having the state collect these fees only adds overhead and inefficiency. Disruptive.

Who Picks These Panels?

2011-09-19T15:18:00.002-04:00

COMPTEL has some good topics for panels coming up at their event on October 2-5, 2011 at the (sold-out) Gaylord in Orlando.

Fiber is the next growth opportunity... Speakers include executives from AboveNet, Allied Fiber, Cowen & Co., M/C Partners and Zayo Group. It's interesting that FiberLight isn't on the panel but Allied Fiber is. At least, FiberLight has actually built out fiber. [Fiberlight will be presenting at the FISPA Service Provider Summit in Vegas in October on the economies of fiber build-outs.] A banker and a VC firm to round out the financial model.

"Consolidation Continues: How Convergence of IT, Telecom and Managed Services Will Impact the M&A Market - This panel of experts provide their unique insight and clue you in on what to look for as consolidation continues. Speakers include executives from Broadvox, Q Advisors, Transcend United Technologies, West Corp. and Windstream." Again an interesting mix of a SIP provider, a VAR, a holding company (that owns both InterCall and Smoothstone), and ILEC and a banker. Q Advisors did a presentation at the Cloud Comm Summit at ITEXPO. You can read my review here. Basically, everyone is trying to figure out CLOUD - the convergence of IT and Telecom in a nebulous space with no definition right now. Most M&A has been around Managed Services and Cloud, because it is perceived that this is where all the mid-sized biz and government spending will be in the future. So jockey for position now. (Or start planning your strategy now). BTW, Transcend is now a UC tech reseller.

"Managing your Company in Challenging Economic Times" - I'd rather hear from the CEO's of T-Mobile, Sprint and PAETEC on how they managed to dig such holes for themselves.

Data Center Build vs. Buy Model - good premise, but the hard part is getting the right panelist. I struggle with this at every show. You want a panelist who is not going to be giving just the talking points. Very hard to do in our industry.

White Spaces at the FCC

2011-09-19T09:23:00.001-04:00

FCC is getting ready to trial the first database for Super Wi-Fi, which is the code name for "white spaces". Stacey at GigaOm has one update here. Engadget has another here.

Faxing over IP

2011-09-18T20:05:00.003-04:00

Fax over IP is a struggle. Still. Not incoming, but outgoing. Even with T.38 enabled sometimes. Clients often ask for solutions to the Faxing over IP. Here is a webinar from Biscom about How to Reduce Your Fax Costs with Virtualization, FoIP and Cloud Faxing on Thursday, September 22, 2011 Time: 12:00 PM EDT/ 9:00 AM PST. Register here.

There are plenty of efax services from J2, conferencing companies like PGi, and even my pal at FaxBetter.com.

Here's how one CLEC handles the FoIP issue: Sonic.net offers free FaxLine service.

The Cloud Bandwidth Usage Debate

2011-09-07T13:05:00.002-04:00

This is an excellent article about how the Cloud is going to (adversely) affect the ISP network.

"Charlie Douglas, a spokesman for Comcast, said, “More than 99 percent of our customers don’t even come close to using 250 gigabytes of data in a month. Nationwide, our customers’ median data usage is four to six gigabytes a month. Two hundred fifty gigabytes is an extraordinary amount of data and equivalent to downloading 62,500 songs or uploading 25,000 hi-res photos.""

Another interesting stat about Netflix: "Netflix HD movie consumes about 1 gigabyte to 1.5 gigabytes of data per hour. You would have to watch 166 to 250 hours of HD movies a month to hit the bandwidth cap. That’s about 80 screenings of The Big Lebowski"

So as we go cloud for everything from data to entertainment to shopping - mobile and terrestrial - what do you do about the fact that bandwidth usage is just going to continue to grow?

Sales is Morphing in to Conversations

2011-09-01T15:03:00.003-04:00

There's a study out about Social CRM - the interaction of businesses with their customers through social networks. Connected Planet thinks that telcos need to get social. DUH! Customer service at the ILEC's is dismal. But you need to take advantage of that.

The techies know that they can ping most of the carriers - XO, BHN, Qwest, AT&T - on twitter for faster service.

Are you interacting with your clients on twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yelp, an online community, IM/chat?

It's all about the conversations. I can tell you stories about Zappos and Freshbooks and Grasshopper Group, where their employees stalk customers online - building a loyal following and raving fans, which create referrals for hot leads. This activity also generates stories. Stories are what go viral. (Not the videos themselves, but the stories that the video tells.) And stories are conversations. Conversations are what lead to sales. See the circle?

The INC5000 Telecom Sector 2011

2011-08-31T16:24:00.003-04:00

Fellow FISPA member Aeneas made the INC 5000 list with a 2011 rank of #4880. From 2007 to 2010, the audited revenue went from $6M to $6.4M.

Callis Comm., a FISPA member and Cloud Communications Alliance founder, is in at #2184 with $7.7M in revenue, up from $3.6M in 2007.

Stage 2 is another Cloud Comm Alliance member that made the ranks at #2459 with $4.9M in revenue in 2010, double the revenue of 2007.

Telesphere is also a CCA member that came in at 2011 rank of #965 due to $21.5M in Hosted UC revenue! That's a big jump from $5M in 2007.

M5 says 2010 was $32M, but maybe they didn't have Geckotech revenue that would have bumped it to almost $40M.

Hosted VoIP firms are all over the telecom sector. IP5280 is at #909 with $7.1M.

Aptela is #4156 with but they just merged with Vocalocity (see here), which changes everything for them. According to NPRG, "Eight-year-old Vocalocity, which had roughly 11,000 customers and 150 employees, grew by about a third with the addition of Aptela’s roughly 4000 customers and 40 employees (including one important gain in particular: Aptela’s CTO and founder, Mahesh Paolini-Subramanya, who is now CTO of Vocalocity). ... The new improved Vocalocity, with nearly 15,000 customers, should have annual revenue somewhere in the neighborhood of $35 million, which means the price just went up for anyone looking to buy the company." they will be climbing the INC5000 next year.

IBBS acquired SinglePipe and shows up at #2668 with $37M in revenue from triple-play white label services to tier 2 and 3 cablecos.

TelePacific, a new TCA vendor member, is on the list with $463M in revenue, which should grow due to 4 acquisitions including Covad's Nextweb (fixed wireless), Telekenex (Hosted VoIP and fiber network), OCIX (data center), and Tel West (CLEC).

Masergy makes the list with $97.5M in MPLS based revenue, but got acquired by ABRY.

Two telecom brokerages made the list: my pal GCN and PlanetOne.

Where is Voice Going?

2011-08-31T15:56:00.003-04:00

Gary Kim has an interesting take on where IP Telephony revenues are going. Mainly to cellular, but software and the move to apps makes for some interesting spaces for VoIP revenue. Read it here.

Anotehr good one from Gary Kim is this one titled: For Service Providers, Search for New Revenue is Urgent.

More Speed from Wind

2011-08-29T17:34:00.002-04:00

Windstream added faster business class DSL "in select markets in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas." The speeds are 10 Mbps down/2 Mbps up, 24 Mbps down/2 Mbps up and 24 Mbps down/4 Mbps up.

This is an interesting add to the press release: "Windstream provides customers U.S.-based, 24/7 professional support and offers TechHelp for set-up and repair of computers and other digital devices." And this: "follow @WindstreamBiz on Twitter or Windstream Business on Facebook and WindstreamBiz on YouTube." Apparently they get the social media thing as well as the Buy Local or Buy USA slogan too.

C-Link Adds Hosted

2011-08-29T10:40:00.003-04:00

CenturyLinnk is a merger of Embarq (formerly Sprint wireline, formerly United Telephone), CenturyTel (a rural ILEC headquartered in Monroe, LA), Qwest (a company made up of a Long Distance fiber company and the RBOC formerly called US West), and then Savvis (formerly a ISP turned managed cloud provider). In this mix were a lot of products.

"The company already had a managed IP-PBX offering for large enterprise and federal customers nationwide, but they were experiencing high operating costs, scaling issues and limitations in adding new UC services. They also lacked multi-tenant capability and were not able to offer a web-based management portal....Also, Qwest required a solution to tie their hosted contact center into the managed IP-PBX offer, plus they needed to migrate their Centrex customers, and integrate their BSS/OSS for billing, customer service, tech support and trouble ticketing." This solution ended up being VOSS and Cisco HUCS. C-Link may be using Cisco for Federal and Large Business, but I'm pretty sure its Broadsoft in the SMB space. The toolbar is a CommPilot. And I'm assuming that when you write "such as the ANYWHERE feature" that it is Broadsoft based.

Interesting FAQ here

. The customer has to have a CenturyLink circuit and use IP Phones. C-Link must have figured out - well, Embarq rolled it out first so that side probably finally figured out - that you can NOT scale Hosted VoIP roll-outs without a cookie cutter. Each deployment has to be the same. Think back to the days of dial-up or early DSL, when tech support had no idea what modem was in use and how time consuming that was. Uniformity is important for scale.

"CenturyLink sells and supports a variety of IP phone sets including Cisco™, Aastra™ and Polycom™ brand IP phones."

"CenturyLink Hosted VoIP does not yet support IP faxing. If you would like faxing service, CenturyLink can install a traditional fax line."

Are you rolling out Hosted PBX, hosted UC, hosted VoIP or Cloud Communications? There will be a two-hour VoIP Deployment workshop in Vegas on Oct. 13, 2011. Register here. (You can hit me up for a discount code).

Mission Statement

2011-08-19T17:08:00.001-04:00

Taking Market Share from the Monopolies One Profitable Customer at a time. - RAD-INFO INC

What's the IPv6 Outlook?

2011-08-19T13:53:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I had a webinar with NTT America about IPv6 migration (for agents). It's was a little technical but the key to sales is to be asking your customers if they are thinking about IPv6. With every hardware purchase - PC's, tablets, cellphones, IP Phones, PBX, router, switch, servers, and any Internet-enabled gear - going forward should be checked for IPv6 capability.

Ipv4 exhaustion is real and the last /8 has been allocated to ARIN, so ISP's need to start thinking about what strategy - Dual Stacking, Tunneling or some NAT scheme - they will employee to start transitioning from IPv4 to IPv6.

Comcast is already deploying IPv6 set-top boxes and DOCSIS 3 is IPv6 ready. What about your endpoints? Every DSL mode, IP phone, IAD?

No one wants to have to re-address tens of thousands of customer endpoints, but it is coming. It's a reality not a future maybe.

Data Center Power

2011-08-18T10:07:00.003-04:00

TechRepublic has a video about reducing power consumption in the data center. Take a look here.

15 WAYS TO SAVE MONEY IN THE DATA CENTER

Data centers aren't cheap, but that being said, they could be cheaper. Check out this webcast on Aug. 31 from the people at CBS Interactive to learn about ways that you can save money in your data center. Register here.

Inter-Carrier Comp Dockets Active at FCC

2011-08-16T15:30:00.002-04:00

From: Fred R. Goldstein

Date: Mon, Aug 15, 2011

Subject: FCC's latest USF/ICC docket

In case any of you CLECs out there haven't been watching the FCC lately, we are Once Again in a Comment period for the long-running Inter-carrier Compensation and Universal Service dockets. They opened the ICC one in April, 2001 and this is something like the sixth round of comments. USF is just an eternal issue (1996, actually).

The current round is to Comment on a set of questions the FCC raises based upon two recent proposals. The large (price-cap) ILECs have proposed the "ABC Plan", and a group of rural (rate-of-return) ILECs have proposals in a "Joint Letter". Needless to say, both proposals are highly anti-competitive. Of course they propose -- the FCC has already come up with this -- to get rid of competitive USF. Only one carrier gets it for a given location. Just how that is determined is not quite settled though; there is a possibility of a reverse auction (it goes to the one who requests the least subsidy), though they're asking if this should only apply to big ILEC territories or to little ones too. (I for one don't see why the big ILECs, who have gotten rid of most of their rural turf anyway and make huge profits in urban areas, can't continue to average in their rural areas, rather than ask for subsidies.)

They also seem to be back-tracking on inter-carrier compensation. The original idea was to have "unified" ICC, rather than separate rates for local recip, ISP-bound, intra-state access, inter-state access, and mobile. Now they're talking about lowering the inter-state and recip rates, but retaining and even strengthening the classification structure, so billing remains hopelessly complex and the ILECs an argue forever about bills they claim the CLEC owes them.

I've drafted my Comments for a group of CLECs, the Coalition for Rational Universal Service and Intercarrier Reform. Other CLECs might want to get onto the record too, since they FCC doesn't seem to remember that we exist. Comments are due on August 24, Reply Comments a week later. Here's the Public Notice with the FCC's Questions.

If you see something particularly interesting, you might want to point it out so that others can comment on it too.

Fred Goldstein .... fgoldstein "at" ionary.com ...... ionary Consulting

FCC Inquiries Review

2011-08-16T13:50:00.004-04:00

From the FCC's informal quarterly report:

"2010 Fourth Quarter Inquiries. During the fourth quarter of 2010, the overall number of inquiries for the top four reported inquiry categories increased by more than 84% from the number received and processed by CGB during the previous quarter, from 17,782 during the third quarter of 2010, to 32,894. The number of Cable and Satellite Services inquiries decreased by nearly 26%, from 2,614 to 1,922. Inquiries regarding Billing and Rates Issues constituted more than 53% of the inquiries in this category during the fourth quarter. .... Wireless Telecommunications inquiries notably increased by more than 450%, from 3,282 to 18,311, with a substantial number of fourth quarter inquiries, related to Bill Shock (15,263). Wireline Telecommunications inquiries decreased more by than 6%, from 8,396 to 7,878, with Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) matters constituting more than 60% of the fourth quarter inquiries in this category.

I thought it was interesting.

Level3 Directly to Amazon

2011-08-15T21:13:00.002-04:00

Looking to connect directly to Amazon Web Services? I can rep that!

"Level 3 Communications today announced that it is a solution provider for AWS Direct Connect, a new offering that gives enterprises a dedicated connection to Amazon Web Services. Level 3 is one of several connectivity suppliers, including Equinix and AboveNet, to whom Amazon will refer customers seeking dedicated AWS connectivity," wrote ConnectedPlanet.

VZ Troubles

2011-08-10T16:54:00.002-04:00

The 45,000 union workers who are striking are going to cause a revenue stoppage at VZ. No new revenue will be added, but because VZ is NOT porting numbers, they won't lose that much revenue either. They may get tied up in lawsuits though.

I wrote a post at TMC about it's overall effect, but CLEC's aren't grasping the magnitude of the effect. CLEC orders won't get worked either! And I fear that CLEC repairs will take a lot longer. That will cost CLEC's in SLA payments and maybe lost customers. (The old, "It's not our fault" reply just doesn't hold water any more to customers.) One national CLEC just told me that FOC dates have been re-written to 12/30/2011!!

VZ just learned that copper was more profitable than FiOS! In this article, "Verizon Communications' new high-speed fiber optic network will never make as much money as its old copper network, an executive said on Wednesday." the executive was VZ CFO Shammo. VZ spent $23 billion on building FiOS network and TV facilities. Shammo goes on to admit that they clip copper.

VZ has it's issues but it stock went up!

Nothing But Price Increases

2011-08-10T13:50:00.003-04:00

In a glaring statistic, net 200K subscribers cut the TV cord last quarter! Even as the 2 RBOC's cut deals for triple play on their really expensive and hardly used FTTx systems.

But the big news is all the price increases at Ma Bell. Not just the big raise in Metro Ethernet rates in the Southeast but more:

Effective September 4, 2011, the monthly recurring charge for Business Access Line and trunks will increase in Tennessee. The rate increases only affect customers who are paying on a month-to-month basis.

The Southeast region Legacy BSLD MTS (default) rates are changing on October 1, 2011. Legacy B customers that do not subscribe to an optional domestic price plan may be affected by a change to the MTS rates. The current Peak/Off-Peak rate structure of the MTS plan is being eliminated and the current Peak rate will apply 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.

Effective August 15, 2011, the rates for some Analog Private Line elements in Connecticut will increase approximately 20%.

Effective September 1, 2011, the month-to-month rates for the following DS1 & DS3 elements will increase in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin: Local Distribution Channel / Channel Termination, Channel Mileage, and Channel Mileage Termination. This rate increase only impacts DS1 & DS3 service billed in Midwest ACIS.

Effective September 1, 2011, the month-to-month rates for some Analog Private Line elements will increase in Florida, Georgia and Tennessee. Florida's and Georgia's rates will increase approximately 20% and Tennessee's rates will increase approximately 10%

That's a lot of increases.

Why Come to Vegas?

2011-08-09T14:54:00.003-04:00

FISPA Service Provider Forum in Las Vegas on Oct. 12-14, 2011.

On Oct. 12 there will be a 3 hour CLEC Round Table. This is for active facilities-based CLEC's only. Bring your data about building out fiber as execs will discuss the economics of fiber builds.

On Thursday, Oct. 13, there will be a 2 hour workshop for VoIP Providers. After you choose your soft-switch or white-label provider, what do you do next to go-to-market with your VoiP offering? This session will take you step-by-step with 5 minute presentations on all the parts and process. Lots of Q&A time too. You can attend just this session for $100 (or $50 with a sponsor discount code).

Working on Content for FISPA Vegas

2011-08-03T15:42:00.002-04:00

So as we head into the planning meeting for the FISPA Conference in Vegas on Oct. 12-14, here are some thoughts of mine.

CLEC tracks for CLEC Day on the 12th

I was thinking about doing one like this, but it may not go over well.

Do you want Cloud or Sales or Management or what?

The RAD Tour of America

2011-08-02T18:26:00.004-04:00

It seems that there are more and more shows every year.

So I start off in 2 weeks in Connecticut. Happy Hour on 8/17 at Black Swan in Fairfield.

Then Chicago for Channel Partners Expo in Aug. 23-26

ITEXPO and CVX Expo in Austin, TX on 9/12-15, where I am sponsoring the CMO Summit and moderating panels on Online Marketing, Cloud and Channel.

October is a whirlwind:

COMPTEL in Orlando on Oct.2

Atlanta for the Agent-VAR meeting on Oct. 9-11

FISPA in Vegas on 10/12

Phoenix for Broadsoft Connections 10/16-18

TelcoTV by NTCA in New Orleans on 10/25-27

STC in Orlando on 10/25-28, where I am speaking on Marketing for Consultants.

Where to Market or Brand Loyalty

2011-08-02T17:21:00.004-04:00

Do you market like Coca-Cola or the Grateful Dead?

Coke markets to everyone. "Coca-Cola said it spent more than $2.9 billion on advertising in 2010," on total revenue in 2010 of $35B. (8%)

In its heyday, the Grateful Dead didn't market at all! It all was word-of-mouth. Whether you call them Evangelists or Raving Fans, your loyal customers are your best referral agents and best marketers. (Your employees can be, too, if you encourage and incent them.)

Referral Systems are the number 1 source of sales leads. (Tradeshow and event marketing remain top sources of sales leads, too.)

Do you have an active Referral System? Do you attend Chamber events? Do you put on seminars? Do you attend trade shows inside your vertical market?

Three of the top five online marketing tactics for B2B, according to this TJS article: website development, email marketing, and Social Media Marketing. You can view the slides (PDF) of the survey results here.

one stat I liked: "Most companies outsource to fulfill at least some of their marketing needs."

Then there was this study done at RPI that says while Coke can market to everyone, Rock Stars are successful just marketing to fans. Why? Because it is cheaper. The message is easier to craft. They already know you and like you and give you $$.

"it’s about delighting the people that already love you." Examples would be Zappos. Their CEO, Tony Hsieh, wrote a whole book about it, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose.

Another example is Grasshopper group out of Boston that used to be GotVMail, a RingCentral competitor. they have a team of 2 brand ambassadors that travel around to events where their target market is going to be. Speaking, sponsoring, networking, just meeting the crowd. Word spreads.

Another example is Canada's FreshBooks. They stalk their customers online and in-person. Dinners, flowers, notes. Spreading Delight.

All of this means that you could get serious about marketing but you would have to know your target audience and dive in. Want help? give me a shout - or catch up with me on my tour of America.

Why Connect to an Ethernet Exchange?

2011-08-02T15:43:00.003-04:00

It strikes me as funny that Ethernet Exchanges get more press than VoIP Exchanges. You would think that after 8 years of VoIP, most of the VoIP Providers would be in ENUM or some VoIP exchange. Why? One major reason: so that HD Voice and Fax over IP don't break! But I digress.

CENX is one Ethernet Exchange. TELX has one at 56. Covad explains why they use CENX:

The ETHER-EXCH is "designed to give partners the ability to answer the growing demand for Ethernet service without additional build-outs." In other words, you get access to the Ethernet network of those connected to the Exchange.

Obviously there is the revenue angle: "Connecting with CENX broadens Covad's wholesale distribution channel and makes it easier for other carriers to purchase and sell our Ethernet services without compromising our service differentiation."

On top of that is the network reach angel (that still means revenue for Covad (or any other carrier connected to the ETHER-EXCH)): "The exchange provides carriers with seamless access to Covad's Ethernet over Copper services, which provide economical last-mile broadband access at speeds ranging from 3 Mbps to 20 Mbps."

There is also the advantage of Integration of diverse networks. A EVPL here, an EoC there, an E-LAN there - all connected.

Megapath/Covad, Level3, XO, New Edge/EarthLink -- get access to their network reach via an Ethernet Exchange (at a major telco hotel near you).

The Reality of the Debt Ceiling

2011-08-02T11:45:00.003-04:00

Here are 2 articles about the debt ceiling for you (I'm not being partisan):

One is from Small Biz Trends. Key points are:

"Raising the debt ceiling likely means slow economic growth through 2012 and especially during the next three months. The uncertainty in the economy has shaken confidence and reduced consumer spending."

What this means for you:

You should get with your accountant to plan for any cash flow squeezes. It's a good time to reach out to your biggest customers. Maybe even invite them all in to talk about the next two quarters and how you can help each other.

"The problem is that no one is addressing the challenge of growth, and that is the most important thing for businesses large and small. Investing in technological innovation ... We are focusing too much on repaying old debt and not enough on investing in the future."

As our Industry goes through changes from the ILEC's and consolidation, it is also shifting to Cloud based services. Stop focusing on the pipe and focus on helping the customer get what they want from the pipe. It isn't about the Internet; it's about the many things they can do with the Internet. Not the least of which is Social Media Marketing.

US Senator Bill Nelson (FL-D) sent me "some details of the compromise plan to raise the debt ceiling announced Sunday night by President Obama and congressional leaders." It is a graphic from the Washington Post.

Now is the most important time to be communicating with your customers.

Some Telecom Facilities Dilemmas

2011-08-01T15:24:00.002-04:00

Recently, some changes have swept through the telecom plant space. ATM and Frame Relay were removed from tariff and price guides by AT&T. VZ removed them a while ago. The pricing for BellSouth Metro Ethernet really increased (effective today).

VZ FiOS has been snipping copper pairs for over 2 years now. The U-Verse service, the FTTN project ATT builds to provide VDSL2 triple-play service, is removing addresses from the CLEC and ISP databases after U-Verse is ordered. Worse than just clipping the copper, Ma Bell is just saying: We now exclusively own this customer premise. Bye bye."

In Florida, the PSC (Public Utility Commission) no longer has jurisdiction over telecom. It is totally un-regulated! Check in your state.

LNP issues are starting to creep up as well, even in RBOC territory.

And I am working on a report about how call termination is a mess. It seems that calls to rural areas, RLEC's: 'calls intended for high-cost rural areas may not be completed."

All and all, it's not easy being a CLEC unless you are dedicated to your company and its customers. (It can't be a part-time thing.)