{"id":223,"date":"2004-11-03T21:10:22","date_gmt":"2004-11-03T21:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/viodi.com\/classic\/2004\/11\/03\/article1-30\/"},"modified":"2023-08-13T18:27:19","modified_gmt":"2023-08-13T18:27:19","slug":"article1-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/viodi.com\/classic\/2004\/11\/03\/article1-30\/","title":{"rendered":"Heads California, Tails Carolina"},"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 November 3rd, 2004 Overview Heads California, Tails Carolina: A Real Interesting Approach to Streaming: Don\u2019t Like the News? Go Out and Make Your Own!: <\/p>\n

Heads California, Tails Carolina<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

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

\u00a0 <\/p>\n

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About Viodi, LLC<\/a> <\/p>\n

November 3, 2004 Issue<\/strong><\/p>\n

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NeoNova<\/strong> had a nice mixture of partner companies and NeoNova staff presenting on various topics of interest to telcos that are also ISPs. One of those speakers was Michael Camp<\/strong>, General Manager of Hosted Services<\/strong> for Tekelec (<\/strong>this group is a result of Tekelec’s purchase of VocalData). Camp was a driver of Nortel\u2019s efforts to create all sorts of neat PBX features, many of which people did not use. He pointed out that the reason many of us never went beyond what he called the \u201c276\u201d club<\/strong> (2 for retrieve messages, 7 for delete, 6 for next) was the difficulty in using a telephone key pad to select and customize PBX options. <\/p>\n

On of the big advantages of IP telephony is it allows individuals to self-provision<\/strong> services through the use of a web portal interface. He talked to the importance of serving businesses services to an independent telco\u2019s business plans. He suggested that the easy configuration of voice services and visual scanning of voice mails is becoming a must-have or table stakes these days for companies providing business telephone services. He believes it is critical<\/strong> for independent telcos<\/strong> to have solutions for businesses<\/strong>, both those at traditional business locations as well as solutions for the Small Office Home Office (SOHO<\/strong>) segment. <\/p>\n

He suggested that if IOC\u2019s don\u2019t take control over the advanced residential services, then someone else will.<\/strong> He gave an example of a father-son duo that created a new VoIP business PBX offering for businesses in their hometown of Tupelo, MS. Their business is impacting the incumbent LEC. They have grown to 1,200 customers. Some of those customers are taking their service as a second phone line offering at their home, so they can easily extend their business lines to their home. <\/p>\n

Providing SOHO services as a bundle<\/strong> represents a potential new revenue source for rural ILECs, as many people are moving to the hinterlands, but still working in a large corporate environment. It was also suggested that storage services is another revenue source as a back-up for small businesses data. This can be mission critical for companies such as lawyers, doctors and other small businesses. Independent telcos could probably charge a premium for these services, as they can leverage the trust in their established brand<\/strong> and provide the hand-holding that is still so necessary in order for people to exploit fully the capabilities of the technology. <\/p>\n

What I didn\u2019t realize is that NeoNova also provides VoIP services in partnership<\/strong> with independent telcos and in competition with companies, such as ANPI and Spirit Telecom. Their model is a bit different, as they work from the outset putting themselves out of business to some extent. That is, as the telco becomes more sophisticated the telco can take over more of the operations. <\/p>\n

The other difference is that their architecture is distributed, such that their equipment is distributed among the IOCs it serves. This conserves bandwidth as opposed to a approach where the soft-switch is remotely located somewhere else in the United States. NeoNova\u2019s focus is on integration of services, popularly called bundling, to maintain pricing levels<\/strong>, in the face of the commodization of local and long distance POTS. <\/p>\n

Warren Lee provided a couple of examples of potential VoIP service packages, including:<\/p>\n