Dave Michels comes up with a new acronym for UC – workstream collaboration and communications, or WCC – but that doesn’t change the fact that integration, implementation and training are required to put the comm pieces together with the collab pieces to make this stuff work for the workers in a fashion that they will use it.

In the enterprise, it is mainly a fight among Avaya, Microsoft and Cisco. In the SMB market, the consumerization of the IT space means that people want it to be as simple as their iPhone (Facetime) or Skype or Google. And they want it all at their fingertips.

Maybe UC should just be a screen from a smartphone to pop open WhatsApp, chompSMS, gmail, etc. All notifications in one place. Etc. ideally that is what people want, but it is a huge challenge to deliver anything like that.

It started as VoIP, became Hosted VoIP, then Hosted PBX, then Cloud Phone System, then cloud communications, UCaaS, UC, hosted UC. It pivoted to UC&C for unified comm & collab. All the names don’t change the fact that the benefits and outcomes are lacking due to integration unless you go single supplier.

Here is an interview with Nextiva’s CEO. “We now have 6 geographically redundant datacenters across the United States and serve more than 120,000 business customers using one or more of our hosted VoIP, SIP Trunking, call center or other unified communication solutions.” 120K billing customers but not necessarily HPBX. – See more HERE.

In a video, Diane Myers of Infonetics explains why 8×8 is the #1 Cloud Unified Communications Provider. See it at YouTube.

One of the top requested topics is Sales Compensation. One reason I haven’t done a webinar on it in the past is because it is a profitable part of my consulting business. The other is that there is not a one-size-fits-all for sales compensation. So I decided that I would go over the basics and two different ways to go about it – on a one hour webinar.

The webinar will be July 29, 2015 at Noon Eastern time. Register now for just $49.95! It comes with a money-back guarantee as well as Q&A.

I have been trying to port 4 DIDs from a BellSouth PRI to POTS lines with Birch for almost 3 months. It is a complex port. Here’s why: “The FCC’s current definition for a Simple Ports is as follows:”

• Does not involve unbundled network elements
• Involves an account only for a single line
• Does not include complex switch translations (e.g., Centrex, ISDN, AIN services, remote call forwarding, or multiple services on the loop)
• Does not include a reseller/whoelsale.

There is no such thing as a simple port. Hence, no fast LNP.

Top that off with ILECs shrinking the work force (less people, more activity) and less experienced people doing the tasks now — means everything takes longer and longer. Telecom is Broken. It is one reason cable is eating telco lunch.

Still, Birch should have a better idea of the process and time frame.

FYI, FCC LNP Guide.

Every year Mary Meeker provides her view of Internet Trends. She is a futurist that works for a well known VC (venture capital) firm, Kleiner Perkins. There are almost 200 slides that you can view here.

It is the 20th year she has presented this report. The difference between 1995 and 2015 can be seen with this single slide of companies: click here

“Video accounted for 64 percent of consumer Internet traffic in 2014 (versus 62 percent in 2013) and 55 percent of mobile traffic (versus 52 percent in 2013). Facebook now gets four billion video views per day, up four times in six months; while Twitch has 100 million monthly active users for its live streaming, up 122 percent this year.”

“I for one am really excited about Vessel’s five-second ad. Short-form video, making a point in five seconds, I think is a beautiful thing,” Mary Meeker says. You can watch the 30 minute prezo at Code from her here.

Two things to take away: (1) video bandwidth is eating up capacity on all fronts; (2) consumers consume video — are you using any to market your business????