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June 2007 - Posts
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A recent survey has found that the U.S. is behind many other nations in broadband speed, access, and affordability
By Linda Rosencrance, Computerworld, IDG News ServiceJune 25, 2007
The U.S. is lagging behind other industrialized nations in the availability and use of high-speed broadband connections according to a report released today by the Washington-based Communications Workers of America.
The report, based on aggregated data from nearly 80,000 broadband users, found that the median real-time download speed in the U.S. is 1.9 Mbps, compared with 61Mbps in Japan, 45Mbps in South Korea, 17Mbps in France, and 7Mbps in Canada.
The report is based on data collected through the speed test at SpeedMatters.org, a CWA project launched last September "to help bridge the digital divide and keep America competitive by encouraging the government to adopt national policies to bring about universal, affordable high-speed broadband access for all Americans, no matter where they live." The CWA is a labor union with a membership of more than 700,000 in fields like telecommunications, media, manufacturing, health care, and aviation.
According to the report, the U.S. is 16th in the world in deployment and availability of high-speed networks.
"Speed defines what is possible on the Internet. Speed determines whether we will have the 21st century networks and communications necessary to grow our economy and jobs," said CWA President Larry Cohen. "It's clear that other nations -- all of our economic competitors, in fact -- have made the decision to promote true high-speed networks. The longer we delay, the more we put our economic growth at risk."
The CWA said it supports many of the provisions in the Broadband Data Improvement Act, a bill introduced in May by Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii). The legislation would require the collection and evaluation of data on broadband deployment, an upgraded definition of "high speed," and grant programs for states and local communities to conduct their own broadband mapping.
"The first step in an improved broadband policy is ensuring that we have better data on which to build our efforts," Inouye said at the time. "In a digital age, the world will not wait for us. It is imperative that we get our broadband house in order and our communications policy right. But we cannot manage what we do not measure."
The CWA report also ranks individual states based on average Internet download connection speeds. The state with the fastest connection speed is Rhode Island, at 5.011Mbps, followed by Kansas at 4.167Mbps, New Jersey at 3.68Mbps, New York at 3.436Mbps, and Massachusetts at 3.004Mbps. The states ranking at the bottom are Wyoming at 1.246Mbps, Iowa at 1.262Mbps, West Virginia at 1.117Mbps, South Dakota at 0.825Mbps, and Alaska at 0.545 Mbps.
That means that it would take 15 seconds to download a 10MB file in Rhode Island and nearly two and a half minutes to download the same file in Alaska, the CWA report found.
The voluntary speed test was conducted online at SpeedMatters.org between September 2006 and May 2007. Most of the people who took the test had either a DSL or cable modem connection. Because 30-40 percent of Americans still use a dial-up connection, the median speeds in the report were higher than if dial-up users had also participated, the report said.
In May, U.S. Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, held a hearing on draft legislation to address broadband mapping and data collection in the U.S.
Markey said at the time that the current data-collection methods used by the Federal Communications Commission are "inadequate and highly flawed." He said that according to the FCC, a single broadband subscriber in a certain ZIP code area could indicate that the entire ZIP code area has broadband availability, even if the sole subscriber is a business and not a residential consumer. Such interpretations could result in inaccurate measurements of broadband availability and use, Markey said.
He also said that the federal Telecommunications Act compels the FCC to assess the nationwide availability of "advanced telecommunications capability," which Congress defined as having "high speed" capability. However, he said, the FCC defined "high speed" in 1999 as meaning 200Kbps. Markey said the draft bill proposes increasing the definition tenfold to 2Mbps.
Markey also said that the U.S. lags behind other nations when it comes to cost of broadband access. He said speeds of 50Mbps, which are not available to residential consumers in this country, are available to Japanese consumers for roughly $30 per month. U.S. consumers typically pay $20 for about 1Mbps service and $30 to $40 for about 4Mbps service.
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Verizon Business' CPA will offers businesses 'broadband on demand' By Grant Gross, IDG News Service June 19, 2007
Verizon Communications' Business unit will expand its business-level data platform to parts of Europe and the Asia Pacific region this year, the company said Tuesday.
Verizon Business' Converged Packet Architecture (CPA) combines IP (Internet protocol) and traditional data onto one common network-access interface, with the goal of allowing customers to more easily order bandwidth or make other changes.
CPA is "broadband on demand" for businesses, said Joseph Cook, Verizon Business' vice president for global network engineering and planning. With the CPA interface, customers can order bandwidth ranging from 512Kbps to 1Gbps, he said.
Verizon is pushing into Europe and Asia-Pacific because many multinational corporations have offices there, and they want the same data services available as in the U.S., Cook said. Verizon Business is focused on becoming a top carrier for multinational corporations worldwide, company officials said.
In Europe, Verizon Business will deploy CPA in 19 cities this year, including London, Frankfurt, Paris, Vienna, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Dublin, Madrid, Brussels, and Zurich.
In the Asia-Pacific region, Verizon Business is deploying CPA in five locations this year: Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, Melbourne, and Sydney.
Verizon Business also continues CPA deployment in the U.S. It now serves 37 cities, and by the end of the year, will add nine more, including New Orleans, Louisiana; Orlando, Florida; and Memphis; and Nashville, Tennessee.
CPA supports legacy and newer services including IP, Private IP, Ethernet, private line data, voice traffic, Ethernet Virtual Private Line and Virtual Private LAN Service. It provides a single packet-access connection via an Ethernet interface at speeds up to one gigabit per second, often called GigE.
Customers can also use CPA to migrate from older time division multiplexing (TDM) hierarchy to a packet-based technology.
Some traditional network access plans require separate lines for voice, video, data and Internet, and require specific bandwidth contracts. CPA, instead, converges all applications on a single carrier-class packet access network and improves operating efficiency, Verizon Business said.
MCI, which was acquired by Verizon in January 2006, launched its CPA service in July 2004. Analysts praised the move, saying it would help business customers move to packet-based services.
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Please enjoy the tip of the month from Miller Heiman.
Being an effective negotiator means overcoming two of your biggest challenges:
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Finding the right balance of what to give and get in order to achieve a win-win
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Making sure you receive critical information from your customer
Five Key Steps to Effective Negotiations
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Identify the subjective interests in the sale.
Be very specific. Start by writing down your customer’s key motivators, interests and drivers. These are personal to the individual you are negotiating with… how will they win? You may not know all of them, but make some assumptions. You can confirm it later with your customer. Next to that, write down your own interests in the sale.
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Define objective criteria.
What are the measurable results that your customer wants to get out of the sale? What are the results that you want? How compatible are these to each other?
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Options and alternatives.
Consider what options are already on the table, and what the alternatives would be if the planned agreement didn’t happen. Analyze these because if the alternatives look enticing enough to the customer, they won’t be motivated to move ahead with you. Your job is to make the agreement so enticing that the alternatives aren’t an option for the customer.
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Find out more from your customer.
You'll want to use the lists you created in Step 1 as a guide to developing the questions you'll ask your customer. These questions should aim to confirm or deny your hypotheses about where your customer is coming from. Many times, the objective criteria are more obvious, so you may want to focus on better understanding your customer's subjective interests. What personal gains or losses will they experience as a result of this agreement? As you discover more information, you can write this down next to the information you already know to have a more complete picture of both your customer's situation as well as your own.
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Decide what information to give ahead of time.
Review the information from Steps 1-3. What information would be helpful to reveal to your customer? Which information should you not disclose? Most often, the subjective interests are the most compelling to share and the least threatening. This can also really help your customer understand your position so that you can achieve a solution that will benefit you as much as your customer.
Understanding the hidden motivators of your customer will enable you to really connect with what your customer wants to achieve. This information also enables you to develop additional options and solutions that will benefit the customer both personally and professionally.
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The new Long Distance Summer SPIF can heat up your summer. You can earn as much as
$10,000 in a SPIF payout. You have until August 31 to take advantage of this smoking-HOT new
SPIF. Don’t wait – now is the time to sell Qwest Long Distance and heat up your summer.
Net new Long Distance customers to Qwest committing to a minimum monthly spend on Long
Distance services of $100 or greater in MRC over a contract term of 24 months or greater will
earn you a SPIF payout directly correlated to100% of your customers’ first full month Long
Distance bill (maximum payout $10,000 per deal).
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LD Bill |
SPIF Payout
24-Mo. Minimum Term
Non-Channel Integrated |
SPIF Payout
24-Mo. Minimum Term
Channel Integrated |
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Example |
100% first full month bill |
50% first fullmonth bill |
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$100/MRC |
$100 |
$50 |
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$1,000/MRC |
$1,000 |
$500 |
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$10,000+/MRC |
$10,000 |
$5,000 |
Heat up your summer with the Long Distance Summer SPIF. Heat up your customer’s summer
with the current Long Distance Promos:
- Long Distance and Toll-Free 4-4 Promo: Until December 31 interstate and intrastate rates as low as 4¢ a minute.
- Toll-Free Feature Bundle Promo: Feature bundles for small/mid-size customers and 8XX Cap for large customers available until December 31.
- PRS/DSS Long Distance Attachment Promo: Special Long Distance pricing when sold with
PRS/DSS - ends June 30.
- Long Distance Interstate Attachment Promo: Long Distance and IP Long Distance (IPLD)
special pricing available when sold with Internet Port - until December 31.
- Long Distance Self Service Promo: Until June 30 you can use select DM rates without going through DM.
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Dear Qwest Customer,
You're invited to attend a Qwest customer webinar.
CONFERENCE SUMMARY
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Title: |
Qwest Control - Overview |
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Date: |
6/21/2007 |
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Start Time: |
10:30 AM US/Mountain |
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Duration: |
60 minutes |
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Presenter: |
Qwest Presenter |
CONFERENCE DESCRIPTION
Qwest Control - Overview
In this Webinar we will demonstrate the portal and the many ways it can help you:
- Get full online management of your network’s capabilities 24/7
- Spend more time where it matters most—your core business issues
- View and pay bills
- Enter and track trouble tickets
- Access network status
- View and configure your Qwest services
Please join us for this FREE overview.
Once your registration has been accepted, Qwest will send an email containing details to join the conference.
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
If you have any issues registering for this conference, please contact technical support at: 877.549.3140 or online at http://www.raindance.com/rndc/support/techSupport.jsp.
We look forward to seeing you online.
Sincerely,
Qwest Field Marketing
qwest.marketing@qwest.com
Customer Service |
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Date
Wednesday
June 13th, 2007
Time
2 - 3 pm EST
(1 PM CT; 12 PM MT
11 AM PT)
WebEx
View the learning event
via WebEx
Meeting Name
XO Business Partner
Channel Monthly Learning Call
(Under the Training Center tab)
Meeting Password
success
Call In Number
800-263-8506
Confirmation Code
8124922 |
You are cordially invited to:
The XO Business Partner Channel
Monthly Learning Call
Wednesday, June 13, 2007, 2 - 3 pm ET
Join us next week for the June monthly learning call event held exclusively for XO Business Partners. Tune in to hear about the latest product updates, processes and promotions.
Win an iPod Nano!
All participants on the June Monthly Learning Call will have a chance to earn raffle entries to win an iPod Nano, just for participating!
Remember, these calls will be held on the second Wednesday of every month at 2 PM ET. |
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Many analysts see enterprises moving away from traditional desk phones in favor of cell phones, softphone clients, and Wi-Fi devices, but the change may take a while
By Stephen Lawson, IDG News ServiceMay 25, 2007
Enterprise desktop phones face growing competition from wireless handsets, but they aren't going the way of the typewriter just yet.
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| Cell phones, already ubiquitous, are now being joined by Wi-Fi handsets and dual-mode devices as popular tools for workers to stay connected. Features that consumers take for granted on their mobile phones, such as call history, text messaging, and a wide variety of ringtones, frequently are missing or harder to find on a desktop set. Softphone clients on PCs, another alternative to desk phones, are gaining more capabilities and generally can work more easily with applications than a desk phone. But as enterprises embrace a new generation of telephony based on IP, they're still buying desktop phones, users and analysts say.
The new wave of IP wired sets comes as wireless options proliferate. Cisco, Avaya, and other major telephony vendors showed off numerous Wi-Fi business phones at the Interop trade show this week in Las Vegas. For employees on the road, there are dual-mode phones that can work with IP PBXs for features like extension dialing and can get better coverage in the office by switching to Wi-Fi. New software also can bring cell-only phones into the PBX fold.
In this light, increasingly elaborate desktop IP phones that often are more expensive than wireless devices are coming under fire.
"Why does my $200 cell phone have 10 times the functionality of my thousand-dollar IP phone?" remarked Yankee Group networking analyst Zeus Kerravala.
"Desk phones are 50-year-old dinosaurs. They shouldn't be there anymore," said Gartner mobility analyst Ken Dulaney. "All the desk phone does is forward calls to cell phones."
Yet Dell'Oro Group estimates the market for IP desk phones will boom in the coming years. The market research company said that 11.3 million were sold last year and that the number will rise to 34 million in 2010. The growth will come even as PC softphone sales grow from 2.6 million to 8.6 million, said analyst Alan Weckel. While strictly Wi-Fi phones will settle into vertical markets like hospitals, which restrict cell-phone use, dual-mode phones will also be popular, he said.
Hanging on to the desk set is partly a matter of tradition.
"People still relate to their physical phone. It's like their office space. It's very near and dear to their hearts," said a network administrator for a large Canadian engineering company, who attended Interop and asked not to be named. The company recently bought about 2,000 desk phones from Nortel Networks as part of a migration to IP telephony. Because it was buying in volume, the company got each set for about $200. It was one easy choice for an IT department that has plenty of more complicated issues to figure out, he said.
Wired phones still tend to have better sound quality than wireless, vendors and analysts said. In some cases, they include more phone-system features than their wireless counterparts. And for softphones, the PC's reliability and startup time are issues, Weckel said.
The right choice may depend on the user and the setting: Dual-mode phones plus laptop softphones for employees who travel frequently, and dedicated phones for workplaces without PCs. For example, Zeus Nestora, a Subway sandwich-shop franchisee in Tucson, Arizona, uses Cisco IP phones in its stores for a variety of functions, including employees clocking in and out.
But while they continue to sell desk phones, major vendors are pushing alternatives. Cisco provides software for Nokia E-Series dual-mode phones that extend office phone system functions to the handsets. The phones are already available in Europe through mobile operators Orange and TeliaSonera and in Japan through NTT DoCoMo, said Chris Kozup, mobility solutions marketing manager at Cisco. U.S. mobile operators are still unsure about the business model for such phones, which could make enterprises more loyal but also cut down on call revenue, he said. Avaya also is working with cell phone vendors on making dual-mode handsets work with its software and will reach more phones through its acquisition of Traverse Networks last year, said product manager Jamie Lawson.
"The future is going to be a future of choices," said analyst Elizabeth Herrell of Forrester Research. However, no one wants to have four phones, she said. One solution may be base stations that turn wireless phones into desk phones while an employee is at the desk. Neither of the two biggest IP phone makers has quite embraced this idea, however. Cisco has a cradle that charges its 7921G Wi-Fi phone and acts as a speakerphone, but the calls still go wireless. Avaya lets users treat a mobile and a fixed phone as one so when one is off the hook the other is, too.
Desk phones can't go away overnight, if only because of an installed base estimated by IDC at about 500 million. Even Gartner's Dulaney thinks it will take five to seven years for wireless office phones to replace wired. In the end, users will have to push vendors to change course, Forrester's Herrell said.
"No one's going to walk away from that revenue stream of business phones until the users decide they don't want it," she said.
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