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.

Peter Radizeski is a telecommunications consultant and analyst with RAD-INFO INC. Service Providers have called on RAD-INFO INC for assistance building a channel, improving sales, managing online marketing efforts, and overall company strategy. Contact RAD-INFO INC at 813-963-5884 or http://rad-info.net

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.

Peter Radizeski is a telecommunications consultant and analyst with RAD-INFO INC. Service Providers have called on RAD-INFO INC for assistance building a channel, improving sales, managing online marketing efforts, and overall company strategy. Contact RAD-INFO INC at 813-963-5884 or http://rad-info.net

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.

Peter Radizeski is a telecommunications consultant and analyst with RAD-INFO INC. Service Providers have called on RAD-INFO INC for assistance building a channel, improving sales, managing online marketing efforts, and overall company strategy. Contact RAD-INFO INC at 813-963-5884 or http://rad-info.net