Sometimes you can’t push through a problem, frustration, aggrevation or writer’s block.

Sometimes you just need to take a 10 minute walk.

What I have done a few times, is go play ball (volleyball, golf, driving range, batting cage). Those endorphins feel great – and help improve my mood, motivation and thinking.

image from Nicholas Bates

NetFortris presented at GenBand’s show yesterday on why they chose Genband C3G8 platform over Broadsoft. Mainly: it was cheaper and one provider. BSFT requires third-party. Genband licensing is about 40% less than BSFT.

Netfortris is interesting. That is the new name for Telekenex, which TelePacific tried to buy a couple of years ago. The stats that Thomas Swayze presenting are hard to believe.

700 multi-site clients. The average seat size is 67, selling many 10 seat deals up to 2,000 seats. The ARPU is $3250. These customers are still on M6. 100K endpoints turned up by 2008. Did the Sprint mobile integration in 2012. They started a platform review in 2013 and just turned up Genband.

They deployed Genband Experius on Cisco’s blade server for “hardware freedom” – and the first one to do this.

Netfortris upgraded SmartOffice to version 2.5. Next Netfortris will be embedding SPiDR into the CCP platform. Then Kandy. Just so you know, it is very difficult to keep track of the brand names for each service at Genband – kandy, fring, SPiDR, Experius, C3G8. I needed a decoder ring to know what service they were talking about. Some of that was due to being unfamiliar with their portfolio; some of it is that everyone just assumes you know. What happens when you assume?

“Coolest part of QUANTIX/QFLEX is that you can overlay UC over SIP trunks,” said Swayze. I had no idea what Quantix is. It is the SBC line.

from pr: NetFortris deployed the EXPERiUS™ Application Server, Intelligent Messaging , SPiDR WebRTC Gateway, GENView Provisioning & Portals, GENCom Mobility Clients and QUANTiX™ Session Border Controller (SBC).

VZ is buying AOL for $4.4 Billion and getting a billion in revenue to go along with 2.2 million AOL subscribers. The service ranges from free to $27.99!!! But go look at what is included
and see if your packages don’t stink in comparison. Maybe you are a purist about being an ISP — or maybe you have considered adding anything new — or some other reason.

Bundle includes; 15GB of storage and 50 4×6 prints per year with Photobucket; Password storage service; Legal aid; Discounted AARP membership; McAfee security suite; Computer support and repair; and dial-up.

ARPU on membership has gone up $20.83 for Q1 2015 from $19.41 for Q1 2014.

Excellent point about the dial-up business or web-hosting or some other left over service you offer: “Of course, AOL could have just given this business the finger and left it untended to wither and die. Instead, AOL has found a way to create more value for users without investing tons of money in trying to develop new services on its own.”[VB]

AOL has tried other bundles — see here and here – aimed at different targets. They keep trying. That is the key to success. Try-Fail-Learn-Try Again.

“Installing FTTP equipment costs about $600 per home passed and if the company also sells the customer its Prism video service, there is an additional cost of $500 to $600. The company’s business case is based on getting 20% of the video market within five to seven years,” CenturyLink Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Stewart Ewing said.
[source]

“He noted that cable companies have had a marketing advantage because they already have “eyeballs” watching their video offerings, where they can run ads and where in some cases, the cablecos have denied CenturyLink the ability to run ads, Ewing said.”

CenturyLink and Frontier do not have the volume / size to get competitive rates from content providers. AT&T neither, which prompted the deal for DirecTV (which should be going through soon). If you believe Charter, they think they have to get bigger to make TV more profitable for them. Cord cutting has prompted some MSOs to cater to the never-had-cable crowd of millennials and the cord-cutters. [I wonder if they just haven’t considered that there isn’t enough spending money left in the consumer paycheck.]

Will CenturyLink ever make a profit on its video service? Ewing said, “We believe we can make a return long term.”

On broadband: “Speeds most commonly selected are in the 20 Mbps to 80 Mbps range, said Ewing. Bonding and vectoring would be needed in some cases to achieve those speeds over copper, however, and customers “will have a better experience on fiber and much less likelihood of trouble.” [source] Fiber is Better for Customer Experience is what he is saying — and probably more profitable long term factoring in customer retention, support costs and customer satisfaction.

What do you think of this idea?

So you have your mailer, but you wrap it in another mailer for the gatekeeper.

Let me know what you think.