{"id":191,"date":"2004-07-21T19:01:01","date_gmt":"2004-07-21T19:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/viodi.com\/classic\/2004\/07\/21\/article1-23\/"},"modified":"2023-08-13T18:27:19","modified_gmt":"2023-08-13T18:27:19","slug":"article1-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/viodi.com\/classic\/2004\/07\/21\/article1-23\/","title":{"rendered":"OPASTCO’s Calgary Roundup"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/p>\n

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Indie Telco Local Content Workshop Information<\/a><\/p>\n

Quick Jump Menu to this Issue’s Articles July 21st, 2004 Overview OPASTCO’s Calgary Roundup Plenty of Cowboys, How About a Chief Entertainment in the Networked Home <\/p>\n

OPASTCO’s Calgary Roundup<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

by Ken Pyle (ken.pyle@viodi.com), Viodi, LLC<\/a><\/p>\n

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July 21st, 2004 Issue<\/strong><\/p>\n

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OPASTCO\u2019s selection of Calgary as the home to this year\u2019s summer convention proved to be quite popular. Held during the famous Calgary stampede, just about everyone came away with a cowboy hat and a fuller appreciation for the changes affecting all OPASTCO members. And one of the major changes discussed was the need for telcos to \u201cdiversify their revenues.\u201d<\/strong> <\/p>\n

As a bit of background, OPASTCO<\/a>, the O<\/strong>rganization for the P<\/strong>romotion and A<\/strong>dvancement of S<\/strong>mall T<\/strong>elecommunications CO<\/strong>mpanies, is a group consisting of over 500 U.S and Canadian, independent telcos (most are ISPs and many are also cable operators) in the United States and Canada. The summer convention offers a number of benefits to telcos and suppliers alike including multiple educational sessions and panels, a very intimate tradeshow and some great opportunities to interact with friends and families involved with telecom. <\/p>\n

The need to diversify revenues was heard from many of the speakers, regardless of whether they were addressing technical, marketing or regulatory topics. The session on VoIP<\/strong> was a fast-paced review of VoIP and included speakers from four different operators, as well as several suppliers of the technology. The operators are finding that VoIP, allows them to reduce cost<\/strong>, provide better service<\/strong> and offer new products<\/strong> to a broader customer base. <\/p>\n

The wireless session highlighted how independent telcos are using wireless as another tool to increase revenues and grow their customer base. Bill Stark<\/strong>, President of Excelsio Communications<\/strong>, an Engineering Consulting firm specializing in wireless, suggested that telcos are, \u201cfilling in the gaps<\/strong> [in existing service areas] with wireless technology \u201c, and are using, \u201cwireless as an edge out strategy<\/strong>.\u201d <\/p>\n

Raymond Henagan<\/strong>, CEO\/Manager of Rockport Telephone<\/strong> explained that they are building a, \u201cwireless moat<\/strong>\u201d, around their existing exchange to solidify their position as the premier provider of telecommunications in their area. They envision adding video and VoIP to the wireless data they already provide. Again, these ventures were done to diversify their revenue and make them less dependent upon the uncertain future of access revenues. <\/p>\n

Robert Russell<\/strong> of DCI Voice Solutions <\/strong>presented a practical way telcos reduce long distance costs by using VoIP to connect to multiple long-distance carriers, enabling \u201cleast cost routing\u201d. Keith Scarzafava<\/strong> of WVT Communications <\/strong>pointed out, in the same panel, that VoIP is not the ends, but just may be merely part of the means of getting packages of services that customers want. I was honored to speak on the same panel about the importance of marketing in a telco\u2019s operation. The panel moderator, Mike Fox <\/strong>of CCG<\/strong>, reinforced an important point that the big box retailers already pose a form of competition with their 2.9 cent per minute<\/strong>, pre-paid phone card offerings. <\/p>\n

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All displayed trademarks, logos and service marks are the property of their respective owners. \u00a9 2004, Viodi, LLC<\/a>. All Rights Reserved<\/p>\n

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\"Learn
Learn About Telecom04<\/a><\/p>\n

IP Video Conference Agenda<\/strong><\/p>\n

Economic and Product Feature Considerations for Telecom Network Architectures<\/a><\/p>\n

The Consumer Electronics Interface \u2013 Can You See Me Now?<\/a> <\/p>\n

Regulation 101 \u2013 What a Telco Has to Consider When Deploying Video & Other New Services <\/a><\/p>\n

Equal Access for All<\/a><\/p>\n

Telco Content Options<\/a><\/p>\n

Get in the Game \u2013 How do Games Play in a Service Providers\u2019 Plans?<\/a> <\/p>\n

Advertising and other Alternative Revenue Sources <\/a><\/p>\n

Integrating VoIP Content Into a Telco\u2019s Bundled Service Offering<\/a><\/p>\n

Making Sticky Bundles \u2013 Baking up new ways to gain and retain customers <\/a><\/p>\n

Link to Registration Page<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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Indie Telco Local Content Workshop Information Quick Jump Menu to this Issue’s Articles July 21st, 2004 Overview OPASTCO’s Calgary Roundup Plenty of Cowboys, How About a Chief Entertainment in the Networked Home OPASTCO’s Calgary Roundup by Ken Pyle (ken.pyle@viodi.com), Viodi, LLC \u00a0 About Viodi, LLC July 21st, 2004 Issue Subscribe to Viodi View Previous Issue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsletter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/viodi.com\/classic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/viodi.com\/classic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/viodi.com\/classic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/viodi.com\/classic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/viodi.com\/classic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/viodi.com\/classic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":795,"href":"https:\/\/viodi.com\/classic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions\/795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/viodi.com\/classic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/viodi.com\/classic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/viodi.com\/classic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}