What’s in the news?

Why Telecom Carriers Are Resisting a Program for Low-Income Internet Subsidies by Fortune magazine. “For decades, low-income households have been getting subsidized telephone service under the federal government’s Lifeline program. Back in April, the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees the program, decided to extend the subsidy to cover broadband Internet service as well. After all, about one-third of the 40 million households eligible for the Lifeline program lack broadband.” AT&T, VZ and C-Link have told the FCC they are opting out.

However, AT&T is taking another government contract. DSLR is reporting that “AT&T is the likely winner of a government contract to build our first nationwide emergency broadband network known as FirstNet.” FirstNet is the nationwide wireless emergency network that was suggested after 9/11!

Cable Nodes Becoming a Choke Point.

“Not all Internet service providers use monthly data caps to control bandwidth usage, but default unlimited plans appear to be rapidly going the way of the dodo. WideOpenWest Holdings LLC (WOW) COO Cash Hagen says when it comes to broadband providers and usage caps, “it’s not a matter of if we all do it at some point, but when, how and how the customers adapt to that.” [lightread]

Presidio is filing for their IPO and “expected to value it at as much as $3 billion”! (Presidio is an MSP, a telecom broker and a Cisco partner.)

GoDaddy has made 3 moves this year. First they bought FreedomVoice for the service that is like Google Voice for $40M. Today it was announced that GoDaddy is buying Host Group Europe for $1.79B. Strangely, in September, GoDaddy bought Serbia’s ManageWP, a multi-site WordPress management tool.

What’s in the news?

Why Telecom Carriers Are Resisting a Program for Low-Income Internet Subsidies by Fortune magazine. “For decades, low-income households have been getting subsidized telephone service under the federal government’s Lifeline program. Back in April, the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees the program, decided to extend the subsidy to cover broadband Internet service as well. After all, about one-third of the 40 million households eligible for the Lifeline program lack broadband.” AT&T, VZ and C-Link have told the FCC they are opting out.

However, AT&T is taking another government contract. DSLR is reporting that “AT&T is the likely winner of a government contract to build our first nationwide emergency broadband network known as FirstNet.” FirstNet is the nationwide wireless emergency network that was suggested after 9/11!

Cable Nodes Becoming a Choke Point.

“Not all Internet service providers use monthly data caps to control bandwidth usage, but default unlimited plans appear to be rapidly going the way of the dodo. WideOpenWest Holdings LLC (WOW) COO Cash Hagen says when it comes to broadband providers and usage caps, “it’s not a matter of if we all do it at some point, but when, how and how the customers adapt to that.” [lightread]

Presidio is filing for their IPO and “expected to value it at as much as $3 billion”! (Presidio is an MSP, a telecom broker and a Cisco partner.)

GoDaddy has made 3 moves this year. First they bought FreedomVoice for the service that is like Google Voice for $40M. Today it was announced that GoDaddy is buying Host Group Europe for $1.79B. Strangely, in September, GoDaddy bought Serbia’s ManageWP, a multi-site WordPress management tool.

So many mergers this year.

• Charter has swallowed both TWC and Bright House Networks to become third largest MSO (after AT&T and Comcast).
• Ma Bell swallowed DirecTV – and is now launching OTT cable service with zero rating on its cell service. Now AT+T wants to buy TimeWarner for $109B with debt included. TW owns movies and TV, but not Time, Inc. The magazine division was spun out.
• Zayo bought Allstream to go big in Canada; then bought ELI for $1.42B to fill in the Western US.
• Birch bought Primus to enter Canada as well.
• CenturyLink wants to get big in Enterprise, so they are buying Level3. The combined carrier will get 76% of its revenue from the enterprise and wholesale market.
• Windstream is buying EarthLink.
• Verizon got the OK to buy XO. Verizon bought AOL and is trying to buy Yahoo, but those hacks have it looking for a discount.
• IN the Master Agent space: ScanSource and Intelysis. Sandler Partners and X4.
• Ingram Micro bought NETXUSA after it was acquired by HNA in China.
• Microsoft is buying LinkedIn for $26B!
• VTech bought snom.
• Polycom did not get bought by Mitel. They went with a PE firm.
• Avaya is in trouble.
• GTT is buying Hibernia.
• Fairpoint just got scooped up by Consolidated.
• You need a chalk board for data center ownership.

IDC research says that by the close of 2016, SMBs (under 500 employees) will have collectively spent $564 Billion on IT hardware, software and services. (That includes SAAS like Salesforce and Office365 and managed services like RMM).

Amazon announced that they are getting in the Virtual Server space at $5 per month. They are starting selling cable-voice bundles for Comcast and Frontier. There is a heavy rumor that Amazon will be offering Hosted VoIP soon (possibly powered by BroadCloud).

You have to start thinking value-add, retention, customer satisfaction and upselling. I have been chanting outcomes and bundles for a long time. Going forward selling product just won’t work — they can buy that via a click on Amazon.

I have been helping a friend with some issues pertaining to “an employee exodus” (4 out 15 people are leaving in a month). Surprisingly, there is a bunch of writing on this topic.

Fred Wilson has written about it twice recently. In the first post, he writes about getting employees back to shipping and coding. He also mentions that most of these companies are mission driven.

He even writes, “And if you don’t work in a company that is mission driven, or if you don’t connect with your company’s mission, then I would encourage you to quit and join a company that you are inspired to work for and then throw yourself at that work.” Well, in sales without belief in product or company, it is a challenge to sell. In many positions, it is probably somewhat similar: if you think the company sucks, it is hard to do your best work. You want employees who believe in the company.

“Take Care Of Your Employees And They’ll Take Care Of Your Business,” Says Richard Branson.

In the second post, “The number one cause of employee unhappiness and unwanted departures is “I don’t understand where we are going.” That is a failure of leadership on the CEO’s part.

The CEO’s main job is to set culture, vision, mission. Next it is to sell. But as Hugh MacLeod points out,
All campaigns are ultimately internal. In other words, selling to your employees comes first. Selling them on vision, mission, culture. (I won’t quote Simon Sinek here because I have done it too often.)

People leave for a number of reasons:

• # 1 People leave Managers, not jobs. 
• Bored or unchallenged.
• Co-workers
• No Recognition.
• Not Meaningfully Contributing (not meaningful work).
• Lack of or a Change in Culture or Vision.

This was a great article about why people leave and how to change that culture. Worth the read!