This isn’t anything fantastic from Cox Business:

“Cox Business has expanded its portfolio of business solutions with the addition of PayLeap, a cloud based merchant and card processing service via a strategic relationship with Acculynk. The first MSO to offer a managed payment solution, Cox Business is rolling out the offering across its footprint based on a successful pilot.”

What it does show is that the Duopoly continues to add products which looks like innovation. New products gives the journalists something to write about. It creates some buzz. It gives the salespeople another reason to contact customers. “Did you know that we just added…..?”

When was the last time you (A) added a new service; and (B) sent out a press release?

Stagnation and Status Quo both mean standing still, static. In Internet time, that means growing old.

The Duopoly spends a lot of money on market research to find out what customers want. Leverage that.

BTW, the Duopoly has to keep mentioning cloud or Wall Street will bash them.

Comcast Business is really looking to take a chunk of the SMB space. Analysts say almost 20% of SMB in-region will be Comcast Business customers. I think that the RBOCs (ATT and VZ) don’t really care – as long as they get the business cellular accounts. But the other ILECs – Fairpoint, Frontier, Windstream and C-Link – do care and cannot afford the loss in that lucrative market that they have always owned by default. The other big losers are national CLEC’s like Windstream (who is an ILEC and a CLEC), XO, Cbeyond and EarthLink.

BTW, Comcast has $47 Billion in debt on $15.3 Billion in quarterly revenue ($60B/yr).

Some selling points that you will find yourself up against:

• Fast internet starting at 16/3 going up to 100/10.
• Business class voice lines include unlimited long distance
• Static IPs available, 1,5 or 13 for a fee
• Hosted Outlook Exchange and webhosting included with the internet service
• Diverse network form the LEC, Comcast owns the first and last mile. We do not use a LEC CO anywhere.

Pricing:

$69.95 16/3 Mbps
$109.95 27/7 Mbps
$199.95 50/10 Mbps
$369.95 100/10 Mbps

If you need help marketing against the Duopoly, give us a call for marketing strategy and execution or turbo charged sales training.  813-963-5884

I was accused of instigating on a listserv this morning. I do that sometimes. I instigate. Why? It’s part of my job.

I want to disrupt your thinking. Thinking like the monopoly will not get you anywhere.

Hugh @gapingvoid says that “My job is no lon­ger about selling. My job is about firing off as many synap­ses in my customer’s brain as pos­si­ble.”

We need smarter conversations about where we are going as an industry, especially considering that DC is having these conversations without us.

If I get synapses firing, you get dopamine. Dopamine will make you feel better, like a runner’s high.

I instigate sometimes, but I hope I am disrupting your day to make you think about your business. If not, I failed.

BTW

Article on GigaOm about wireline cord cutters moving to wireless only. Big discussion. The RBOCs have convinced America that LTE is all you need – even at $100+ per month!

NetZero, AOL and EarthLink all face declining revenue due to their dial-up business. All 3 are also public, so they have to do something about that declining revenue to shore up the stock price.

Netzero and Juno are owned by United Online. ISP revenue dipped $2.2 million since last year. United Online also owns FTD Floral which it is spinning off. All moves to shore up stock.

AOl’s only profitable division is the ISP!

“The company’s only profitable business is its most troubled. The subscription business, mostly AOL’s dial-up Internet service but also search ad revenue from such users, has been losing users for years as broadband has become cheaper and more prevalent….Its number of subscribers fell 15% in Q1 from the year-earlier quarter, about the same rate of decline as a year ago. Average revenue per subscriber rose 7%, however, so the unit’s revenue fell 9% to $165.8 million, less than the 15% year-to-year decline in Q1 2012.” [Investor’s Business Daily]

“AOL’s money-losing businesses include what AOL calls its brand group. This includes Patch.com, its network of local news sites; blogging site Huffington Post; popular tech blogs TechCrunch and Engadget; and MapQuest.” It would seem to me that AOL should have been able to figure out how to make online content profitable by now. Many acquisitions and the whole TW merger should have resulted in 510,000 ways that won’t work by now.

EarthLink used its dial-up cash cow to re-invent itself (several times). AOL is using it to become a new media company – again. NetZero is just riding it out. NetZero has tried 3G/4G MVNO projects. No idea how that is going.

But a lot of companies are experimenting with Mobile Internet via MVNO.

Birch has a USB 3G card and a $10 service.

GLOBALINX started its mobi service off the Sprint network, too.

Dial-up was a highly profitable cash cow. DSL was not. MVNO is not.

UNE-P was highly profitable. UNE-P is dead now.

Cloud (Apps) is Layer 7. It’s the next wave of profit. Companies will need a combination of services to be sticky and be successful. (Maybe layer 1 AND layer 7.)

What’s next for you?