ThinkingPhones has re-branded as Fuze, a video conferencing company it bought recently. Apparently they are running away from the idea of phones.

Muni merger in Virginia: “Duffield, Virginia-based Sunset Digital Communications announced last week that it will purchase the OptiNet Division of Bristol Virginia Utilities Authority, which operates a broadband network in Bristol, Virginia.”

GTT made another acquisition; this time it picks off Telnes Broadband for just $18M. “For 2015, Telnes reported revenue of approximately $17 million and Adjusted EBITDA of approximately $1 million.” This will beef up GTT’s channel a little.

Broadsoft is buying Transera to beef up its contact center offering. I didn’t dig through the filings to find the figures yet. I would assume this will be only offered via wholesale – as in via the BroadCloud system. All too many items are being offered only via BroadCloud instead of as part of the BroadWorks platform that service providers run themselves. (Although most SPs are behind at least 3 versions!)

I mentioned this before: Cisco buys Jasper Tech for $1.4 billion, because Jasper’s IoT cards are inside GM cars, vending machines and car charging stations.

Tags: broadband, broadsoft, channel partners, fiber, mergers, muni
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Some interesting stats I have seen.

Saw stats that Vonage has 514,000 business seats.

“Birch recently announced the addition of 80,000 buildings to its Metro-Fiber network in November 2015.” I wonder which cable provider they signed a wholesale agreement.

“Broadvoice brings its significant growth trajectory to the initiative: It serves more than 200,000 customers, with its business segment growing by 125% in 2015 alone.” [CV mag]

In the same press release, “The company recently signed its first national master agent, Sandler Partners, giving it an increased footprint of 3,000 technology sales partners across the country.” 3K partners with one master agency? That would mean that master has the entire attendee list of Channel Partners Expo in Vegas with signed agreements in its CRM.

Windstream is raising rates on sub-$1500 accounts – to make them profitable – or to shed them? Apparently shedding some of them according to CRN.

from my LinkedIn feed today*, here’s a some stats about AWS:

• AWS is now a $7.3 billion business, generating a $1 billion run rate on its database business alone
• AWS has more than 1 million active enterprise customers
• AWS has grown 81 percent year-over-year growing among cloud-based storage providers, processing and database services
• About 800 software vendors integrate with AWS in 25 different categories
• In Q2, Amazon reported AWS net income of $391 million on $1.8 billion in sales

*I don’t know who to attribute it to because I lost it in the feed, which is an absolute mess and has no search function.

Sears is closing 50 stores. Wal-Mart is closing 154 stores in the US. Macys is closing stores. Do you see a trend here? What happens to shopping when it is mostly online/virtual? What happens to malls? And most important what happens to JOBS?

Tags: amazon, birch, channel partners, hosted pbx, master agency, numbers, retail, vonage, windstream
Related tags: closing stores, business, partners, closing, stats, stores

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Uh Oh, Microsoft is Closing the Gaps – Jan 15, 2016

Where is the Channel Going? – Oct 26, 2015

Losses and Growth – May 10, 2011

Wireless Combo is Merger 3 – Aug 20, 2010

Channel Partner Take-aways from CVX – Jan 29, 2016

The US VoIP Market 2016 – Jan 06, 2016

End of Year Summary (Tidbits part 2426) – Dec 31, 2015

Lessons from the NGC15 – Dec 10, 2015

Everyone Wants You to be an MSP – Nov 05, 2015

A View of UC from Broadvoice – Sep 24, 2015

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Some interesting stats I have seen.

Saw stats that Vonage has 514,000 business seats.

“Birch recently announced the addition of 80,000 buildings to its Metro-Fiber network in November 2015.” I wonder which cable provider they signed a wholesale agreement.

“Broadvoice brings its significant growth trajectory to the initiative: It serves more than 200,000 customers, with its business segment growing by 125% in 2015 alone.” [CV mag]

In the same press release, “The company recently signed its first national master agent, Sandler Partners, giving it an increased footprint of 3,000 technology sales partners across the country.” 3K partners with one master agency? That would mean that master has the entire attendee list of Channel Partners Expo in Vegas with signed agreements in its CRM.

Windstream is raising rates on sub-$1500 accounts – to make them profitable – or to shed them? Apparently shedding some of them according to CRN.

from my LinkedIn feed today*, here’s a some stats about AWS:

• AWS is now a $7.3 billion business, generating a $1 billion run rate on its database business alone
• AWS has more than 1 million active enterprise customers
• AWS has grown 81 percent year-over-year growing among cloud-based storage providers, processing and database services
• About 800 software vendors integrate with AWS in 25 different categories
• In Q2, Amazon reported AWS net income of $391 million on $1.8 billion in sales

*I don’t know who to attribute it to because I lost it in the feed, which is an absolute mess and has no search function.

Sears is closing 50 stores. Wal-Mart is closing 154 stores in the US. Macys is closing stores. Do you see a trend here? What happens to shopping when it is mostly online/virtual? What happens to malls? And most important what happens to JOBS?

Tags: amazon, birch, channel partners, hosted pbx, master agency, numbers, retail, vonage, windstream
Related tags: closing stores, business, partners, closing, stats, stores

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Related Entries

Uh Oh, Microsoft is Closing the Gaps – Jan 15, 2016

Where is the Channel Going? – Oct 26, 2015

Losses and Growth – May 10, 2011

Wireless Combo is Merger 3 – Aug 20, 2010

Channel Partner Take-aways from CVX – Jan 29, 2016

The US VoIP Market 2016 – Jan 06, 2016

End of Year Summary (Tidbits part 2426) – Dec 31, 2015

Lessons from the NGC15 – Dec 10, 2015

Everyone Wants You to be an MSP – Nov 05, 2015

A View of UC from Broadvoice – Sep 24, 2015

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So we are at the 20 year anniversary of the Telecom Act of 1996. So many companies have come and gone. So many billions have been invested. And yet the largest telecom providers are Comcast, AT&T and Verizon.

Lots of consolidation – just ask Birch, Level3, Windstream, GTT, Zayo or CenturyLink. But really has anything changed?

There is a lot more fiber in the ground. AT&T just announced 500,000 miles. Lots of lit buildings. Birch just said they touch more than 80,000 commercial locations. I would imagine any of the Top 5 MSOs touch at least that. The one thing that has changed is who owns the small business market. Today, that is the cable company, not the ILEC (at least in NFL cities, maybe not in rural America).

The small business voice market seems to belong to the independent OTT providers like 8×8, RC, Grasshopper and Vonage.

But the CLEC sector borne from the TA96 seems anorexic. VZ and AT&T have more than $75 Billion in Quarterly revenue, which is more than all the CLECs annual revenue combined. In a Quarter. The billion dollar CLECs – XO, Intermedia, Paetec – are all distance memories. Yeah, XO hasn’t been bought yet, but it has faded from memory. The DLEC group that actually started the business DSL market all went bankrupt and were acquired by the Big Telcos.

The fiber pioneers – Yipes, Cogent, MFN, Williams – all went BK at some point. So did MCI after a spectacular financial mess.

The UNE-P players – Supra, Z-Tel, IDS, ITC, MacLeod – all gone. The largest IXCs – MCI, Sprint and AT&T – are no longer. MCI is now VZB; AT&T was bought by the Baby Bell, SBC that consolidated most of the Baby Bells back into AT&T a little more than 20 years after they were broken up by the Judge.

Remember when FREE was a threat? AOL, Bluelight, NetZero, Muni Wi-Fi (from EarthLink). Today, free is a model! Ask Facebook, twitter, snapchat, Whatsapp, Skype or almost any SaaS company.

Zayo, Level3, Birch and let’s include Wind and C-Link ($2Z + $8L + $1B + $6B + $18C) – throw in the $1B from EarthLink (which will be less since shedding the IT business) – and you still only have $19B in a year. All of the money is flowing to the Big 2 RBOCs and the cablecos – still. And since AT&T bought DirecTV, yeah, still.

Unlike Howard Homonoff in his review, I think that the upstarts have been the ones who pushed the establishment forward. The ISPs and CLECs that forced the Duopoly to learn to compete, who did the real work of bringing the Internet to the people. It was also the upstarts that taught real world lessons to the Duopoly – lessons about fiber and DSL and business Internet – and yes even about Converged Networks.

As we start the next 20 years, it will be Amazon, Google, Apple and Microsoft who define some of the race. IOT may change things, but you still need a network. As much as the Big Two Telcos hate to be dumb pipes,they will take your money. (And provide crappy support.)

A couple other points.

Wireless porting between Sprint, AT&T and VZW is done in hours via Syniverse. Wireline porting is still anyone’s guess and is measured in weeks, not hours. Why?

Cable went from the lowest margin business – TV – to the highest – voice, while telcos did the opposite. And probably should have left TV alone.

Comptel changed its name to Incompas. CEO Chip Pickering talks about the anniversary here. ” I want to point out the incredible benefits of the legislation to the economy and society – from the creation of new companies, new technologies and entire new industries to the technology solutions that have risen from the Act to help share information and reshape our world.”

The sharing of the network elements is all but gone. It is a race at either Layer 1 (network plant) or Layer 7 (apps). No one owns both.

No ENUM. No VoIP Inter-connection. Oh, well.

For the channel, it used to be all about voice. Now it is mainly about data, Internet and cloud.

TA96 was about a resale model – unbundling or wholesale – that would lead to facilities based competition. That didn’t happen so much. It was all about voice though. Now way more about data/Internet/Network than voice.

Gary Kim shows the decline of access lines graphically here.

There was frame relay and ATM networks that were supplanted by IP-VPN, MPLS, VPLS and soon by Ethernet private line if cable has their way.

It was AOL and Yahoo! 20 years ago. Now VZ owns AOL; Yahoo is for sale and Google is the giant.

Gary Kim point

Tags: att, bankruptcy, birch, BK, centurylink, clec, cogent, dsl, fiber, ilec, internet, isp, level3, rboc, voip, vz
Related tags: business, still, voice, network, internet, years

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Why Agents Should Be Pro-Copper – Oct 11, 2013

What Will Happen to the Gear Vendors? – Aug 07, 2012

Non-competitive Broadband – Dec 08, 2015

News Tidbits Part 2923 – Nov 30, 2015

Promises Unkept – Jul 12, 2015

A Quick Look at Telco Revenues – Aug 21, 2014

The Telecom INC5000 – Aug 21, 2014

AT&T’s Big Investment – Nov 14, 2012

What’s Up With Private Line? – Jul 02, 2012

US Government Suing AT&T for Fraud – Apr 26, 2012

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So we are at the 20 year anniversary of the Telecom Act of 1996. So many companies have come and gone. So many billions have been invested. And yet the largest telecom providers are Comcast, AT&T and Verizon.

Lots of consolidation – just ask Birch, Level3, Windstream, GTT, Zayo or CenturyLink. But really has anything changed?

There is a lot more fiber in the ground. AT&T just announced 500,000 miles. Lots of lit buildings. Birch just said they touch more than 80,000 commercial locations. I would imagine any of the Top 5 MSOs touch at least that. The one thing that has changed is who owns the small business market. Today, that is the cable company, not the ILEC (at least in NFL cities, maybe not in rural America).

The small business voice market seems to belong to the independent OTT providers like 8×8, RC, Grasshopper and Vonage.

But the CLEC sector borne from the TA96 seems anorexic. VZ and AT&T have more than $75 Billion in Quarterly revenue, which is more than all the CLECs annual revenue combined. In a Quarter. The billion dollar CLECs – XO, Intermedia, Paetec – are all distance memories. Yeah, XO hasn’t been bought yet, but it has faded from memory. The DLEC group that actually started the business DSL market all went bankrupt and were acquired by the Big Telcos.

The fiber pioneers – Yipes, Cogent, MFN, Williams – all went BK at some point. So did MCI after a spectacular financial mess.

The UNE-P players – Supra, Z-Tel, IDS, ITC, MacLeod – all gone. The largest IXCs – MCI, Sprint and AT&T – are no longer. MCI is now VZB; AT&T was bought by the Baby Bell, SBC that consolidated most of the Baby Bells back into AT&T a little more than 20 years after they were broken up by the Judge.

Remember when FREE was a threat? AOL, Bluelight, NetZero, Muni Wi-Fi (from EarthLink). Today, free is a model! Ask Facebook, twitter, snapchat, Whatsapp, Skype or almost any SaaS company.

Zayo, Level3, Birch and let’s include Wind and C-Link ($2Z + $8L + $1B + $6B + $18C) – throw in the $1B from EarthLink (which will be less since shedding the IT business) – and you still only have $19B in a year. All of the money is flowing to the Big 2 RBOCs and the cablecos – still. And since AT&T bought DirecTV, yeah, still.

Unlike Howard Homonoff in his review, I think that the upstarts have been the ones who pushed the establishment forward. The ISPs and CLECs that forced the Duopoly to learn to compete, who did the real work of bringing the Internet to the people. It was also the upstarts that taught real world lessons to the Duopoly – lessons about fiber and DSL and business Internet – and yes even about Converged Networks.

As we start the next 20 years, it will be Amazon, Google, Apple and Microsoft who define some of the race. IOT may change things, but you still need a network. As much as the Big Two Telcos hate to be dumb pipes,they will take your money. (And provide crappy support.)

A couple other points.

Wireless porting between Sprint, AT&T and VZW is done in hours via Syniverse. Wireline porting is still anyone’s guess and is measured in weeks, not hours. Why?

Cable went from the lowest margin business – TV – to the highest – voice, while telcos did the opposite. And probably should have left TV alone.

Comptel changed its name to Incompas. CEO Chip Pickering talks about the anniversary here. ” I want to point out the incredible benefits of the legislation to the economy and society – from the creation of new companies, new technologies and entire new industries to the technology solutions that have risen from the Act to help share information and reshape our world.”

The sharing of the network elements is all but gone. It is a race at either Layer 1 (network plant) or Layer 7 (apps). No one owns both.

No ENUM. No VoIP Inter-connection. Oh, well.

For the channel, it used to be all about voice. Now it is mainly about data, Internet and cloud.

TA96 was about a resale model – unbundling or wholesale – that would lead to facilities based competition. That didn’t happen so much. It was all about voice though. Now way more about data/Internet/Network than voice.

Gary Kim shows the decline of access lines graphically here.

There was frame relay and ATM networks that were supplanted by IP-VPN, MPLS, VPLS and soon by Ethernet private line if cable has their way.

It was AOL and Yahoo! 20 years ago. Now VZ owns AOL; Yahoo is for sale and Google is the giant.

Gary Kim point

Tags: att, bankruptcy, birch, BK, centurylink, clec, cogent, dsl, fiber, ilec, internet, isp, level3, rboc, voip, vz
Related tags: business, still, voice, network, internet, years

Follow me:

Twitter Profile

Related Entries

Why Agents Should Be Pro-Copper – Oct 11, 2013

What Will Happen to the Gear Vendors? – Aug 07, 2012

Non-competitive Broadband – Dec 08, 2015

News Tidbits Part 2923 – Nov 30, 2015

Promises Unkept – Jul 12, 2015

A Quick Look at Telco Revenues – Aug 21, 2014

The Telecom INC5000 – Aug 21, 2014

AT&T’s Big Investment – Nov 14, 2012

What’s Up With Private Line? – Jul 02, 2012

US Government Suing AT&T for Fraud – Apr 26, 2012

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