“Even three to four years ago, the presence of broadband at CES was limited,” said CEA Senior VP of Industry Affairs Jason Oxman. “Now it’s not [...]]]>

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) hopes to get more telecom vendors to the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) (www.cesweb.org) in January through a dedicated telecom pavilion this January.

“Even three to four years ago, the presence of broadband at CES was limited,” said CEA Senior VP of Industry Affairs Jason Oxman. “Now it’s not about the RJ-11, but the RJ-44 [Ethernet] jack, where [consumer devices] come into the home.”

The fall of SUPERCOMM provided an opportunity for CEA to provide a somewhat-but-not-totally new forum for telecommunications vendors and service providers to do business. “We saw a community that was very focused and we have a logical part of the technology value chain on exhibit at the International CES, so we created this telecom pavilion to and for the telecom and broadband equipment industry,” said Oxman.

CEA talked to a number of organizations, including its member companies which also happen to be TIA members, and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA). Oxman pointed out that TIA and CEA used to be parts of the Electronics Industry Association (EIA) and until three years ago were in the same office building in Virginia.

But who will participate? “We expect both” network core and CPE vendors to show up, said Oxman. “The integration between broadband networks and CPE in the last few year has exploded. It’s hard to find an HDTV that doesn’t have broadband capability built in… that’s something that didn’t even exist three years ago.”

The CEA tie-in to broadband devices and the fact that CES 2010 brought in the executives from the top 50 global telecommunications service providers would seem to make a telecom pavilion with a network component a logical complement to the CES show next year, bringing together service providers, CPE companies, and network hardware vendors.

Since the CES telecom pavilion announcement was just made this week, it has generated “a great deal of interest” but it was too soon to discuss vendor commitments.

1) The copper is dead between my house and the distribution point, there are no alternatives, Verizon is going to have to [...]]]>

At 11:40 AM, a Verizon supervisor — the second tier guys who actually know what the f*** is going on — called me back and clarified the status of the phone repair–

1) The copper is dead between my house and the distribution point, there are no alternatives, Verizon is going to have to dig and put in new copper.

2) This process may take up to 7 days (worst case), since it is now a weekend, Miss Utility has to be called to mark the lines and then Verizon’s contractor has to come out to dig-dig-dig… *sigh*

3) “Bob” the supervisor noted that if the first-line person who had taken the call had scrolled down the record a bit more, she should have seen that A) Phone line was dead, Jim and B) There was another work order generated for replacing the copper from this morning’s tech assessment.  So, she should have not told me that I had service restored and go through the rote ritual of “unplug the phones, wait 5 minutes, try again, that doesn’t work, call back.”

The supervisor — who I bet installed his share of network when he was younger — did not think kindly of the first line response person. Ya gotta love a guy who doesn’t sugar coat things

*sigh*

The moral of this story should NOT be “I hate Verizon.”   I love the line guys and techs who don’t try to B.S. me, they just tell me what’s going on, like the guy yesterday up from Richmond working through the backlog of repairs.  These are people who care about the customer and have pride in their work and they know that they can make a person’s day because they’ve dealt with some of the back office crap and it doesn’t make them any happier.

I really wish Ivan and the rest of the Verizon senior leadership would stop and take a moment to reassess and repair Verizon’s customer service organization on the landline side.

P.S. Shoutout to Andy Abramson — happy to make you smile!

Seven days for a tech to come [...]]]>

My Verizon landline went dead on Monday. I filed a trouble ticket on Monday evening. At that time I was told that “the latest someone would be out to look at my line would be Monday, July 13, but if there’s someone free earlier, we’ll call you…”

Seven days for a tech to come out seems excessive by any stretch of the imagination. I suppose I could call the President of Verizon Virginia to complain — that’s the secret ninja trick that all Verizon employees know — but I don’t have his number in my cards.

Instead, this morning I went to the Virgina PUC and emailed in a complaint this morning. By the time I returned from the gym today, I received a response which read in part…

“As to the current service quality regulations, 95% or more of all telephone company outages should be cleared within 48 hours.  The quoted ‘seven days’ interval is not acceptable to the Commission’s standards and should not be a company policy within Verizon.”

My Verizon landline died sometime yesterday. I placed a service call last night and was told the latest someone would show up would be July 13 – seven days from the [...]]]>

If you want to know one of the supporting reasons why Verizon continues to lose landlines, it boils down to one word: service.

My Verizon landline died sometime yesterday. I placed a service call last night and was told the latest someone would show up would be July 13 – seven days from the time I placed the call.

Seriously, WTF?

A test from the CO indicated that yes, indeedie, there was a problem, so a truck roll was scheduled. Iif a dispatcher could get someone out there earlier,  Verizon might be able to get someone out there; could I please provide two (2) other phone numbers to reach someone at the household.  So they have a “work” number (which, BTW, is a Cox phone line working fine) and a mobile number.

Other highlights of my call: “Did I check the dial tone access on the box outside?” No.  When did checking dial tone on the box outside become standard operating procedure?   “Work on the inside of the house is covered, you pay for maintenance…” Yes, we do,  but this apparently doesn’t get a truck roll out to me any sooner despite paying the extra $3 and change.

All this gives me flashbacks to when I moved about 3 years ago and tried to get service to my new house. It was almost literally a move across the street — no change in CO, no restart in billing, should have been a piece of cake.

Instead, it was a NIGHTMARE.

One phone number was supposed to be transferred over the weekend, but the house owners left their service on.   I called service, took time out of my day on a Friday, and was PROMISED that would be out that day.  10 AM rolled into noon, and I called Verizon again. “Someone will be out by 3 PM”… 3 PM rolled into 4, called again … “Someone will be out by 6 PM”… 6 PM came and went. “We can’t send someone out today, we’ll send someone out tomorrow.”

Saturday came and went, nobody showed up.

Monday rolls around, the dial tone from the previous owners ends and STILL no truck roll.  I call again, am told that because the previous owners didn’t have service turned off, they have rescheduled the truck roll — because they just CAN’T turn up service without a truck roll once the line is turned off — for two weeks later, thank you very much.

Since I live in a cell phone “dead zone” and have a small child, I am not f***ing pleased. I ask for a supervisor and tell her I had a live phone line in the house until yesterday, could she PLEASE try to do something in the switch?

And… 5 minutes later late on Monday I have one of two phone lines turned on. Lot of apologies about how Verizon was switching to a new dispatch/service system…. and that’s it.  No service credit, no paper…

Line number two came up after a truck roll about two weeks later.

A month or two after that, I called up Cox and moved line number two off Verizon.   The cable company gave me a TWO HOUR window when the tech would be out and it took them less than an hour to:

1) Find the right cable

2) Install the equipment on the side of the house

3) Switch the phone number out of Verizon’s CO over to their CO.

It would have been MUCH LESS than an hour, but the installer was training a new guy, so he was taking his time showing the rookie how to do things right, including nicely cutting the cable guys. In addition,  there was about 5-10 minutes on hold with the service center because it was lunch time.

Now, which would you prefer, a two hour service window, or a seven day service window? Cable may have gotten a bad rap for customer service in the past, but they’re kicking Verizon’s rear in my neighborhood today.

The two firms announced their joint sales strategy during a seminar program last week.  [...]]]>

MetaSwitch has announced a “strategic alliance” (i.e. reseller relationship) with Technology Bureau, a larger system integrator in Latin America.  Technology Bureau, headquartered in Buenos Aires, Argentine, is partnering with Metaswitch to deploy MetaSwitch technology for local operators in the region.

The two firms announced their joint sales strategy during a seminar program last week.  Technology Bureau will handle will handle provisioning, installation, maintenance and support, as well as a “range of professional services from network engineering and training to turn-key solution deployment” while MetaSwitch will provide the gear and software.  Currently, MetaSwitch has over 400 customers in North America and the Caribbean.

During its annual user group event this year, MetaSwitch said it would be expanding operations in Latin America, so there’s no drastic surprise in today’s announcement.  Last week, MetaSwitch announced a customer win in the Netherlands Antilles, a small island north of Venezuela.

MatlinPatterson wanted [...]]]>

The bidding for the corpse and pieces of Nortel has gotten more interesting.  The Ottawa Citizen reports “vulture fund” MatlinPatterson Global Advisors is making a play for Nortel.  It couldn’t convince a U.S. bankruptcy court for an extension to the bidding process of Nortel wireless assets to Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), however.

MatlinPatterson wanted a 15 day extension to formalize a bid. Instead, the company must put together something by July 21 for an auction being held on July 24 with NSN currently the only bidder.  NSN and Nortel were hoping to close a sale on July 29.

With about $400 million – about 10 percent of Nortel debt – in Nortel bonds, Matlin feels that Nortel is worth more than the quick bidders believe, with cash reserves of $2.7 billion (U.S.), and notes the company has made $220 million since filing Chapter 11 in January.

However, NSN won’t get a free ride. The bankruptcy court ruled that NSN has to top competing bids to win the wireless assets and has made changes to the bidding process to allow options such as the reorganization of Nortel and the sale of all assets.

Be interesting to see if NSN holds course and what kind of cards Matlin might put on the table by July 21.

Getting chopped are pay-per-view movies downloaded from the Internet and mobile data service. Customers [...]]]>

Over at TMCNet, Gary Kim has unearthed survey data generated by Alcatel-Lucent on global consumer telecommunications spending in these tight times.  People are cutting, but they’re going to keep VoIP and multi-channel video services (i.e. TV) pretty much the same.

Getting chopped are pay-per-view movies downloaded from the Internet and mobile data service. Customers plan to reduce spending on network based services if the economy – i.e. their pocketbooks – doesn’t get better, moving from fee-based services to free alternatives.  People will also shift from wireless voice to using email and text messaging to save pennies and dollars. Pre-paid voice and bundled service packs offering discounts get a thumbs up over post-paid plans.

Mixed results when the economy improves: 29 percent of consumers will increase their spending on network-based services while 13 percent will tighten their belts regardless.

Under an agreement rolled out earlier this [...]]]>

Among the remaining titans of ICT (Information and Communication Technology), HP has taken advantage of the failings and chaos of other companies (i.e. Nortel) to expand its positions in the telecom and UC arenas.  In the convergence between IT and telecommunications, HP may have the upper hand.

Under an agreement rolled out earlier this month, HP and Alcatel-Lucent have established a 10 year global alliance to help customers “leverage the convergence of telecommunication and IT,” meaning the companies will jointly market solutions and capabilities for service providers and enterprises.

Once a definitive agreement has been executed, the companies will jointly market solutions and capabilities that enable end-to-end transformation for service providers and enterprises.   HP and Alcatel-Lucent will have a global program for migrating communications networks into converged, next-generation infrastructure, plus services for managing new and existing infrastructures.

In addition, HP and Alcatel-Lucent will work together to selling communications solutions to larger enterprises and the public sector, with options of either buying through HP resellers or purchasing managed solutions.

It should be no big surprise that HP teamed with Alcatel-Lucent for delivering integrated IT/telecom solutions for service providers and enterprises.  Alcatel-Lucent had few options and with Sun being devoured by Oracle, HP was the last remaining independent with scalable server hardware  Alcatel-Lucent brings its IP telephony, mobility, security, and contact center knowledge to the table and HP can leverage its resellers.

Could Alcatel-Lucent have worked with IBM? Not really, as there was too much overlap between the telecom solutions that IBM already has in its portfolio (and conveniently running on IBM hardware). IBM is also sticking its fingers into mobile communications to the tune of $100 million, research that Alcatel-Lucent isn’t likely to be comfy with along with all those mobile apps that IBM is starting to roll out.

HP also has another card up its sleeve:  A four year unified communications deal with Microsoft.  Announced last month at Interop, the two companies expect to invest up to $180 million in a combination of product development, professional services, and joint sales and marketing.

Enterprises looking to embrace UC can now turn to HP and Microsoft, with HP providing additional software for network monitoring, as well as a high-end telepresence solution.  HP’s continued financial success and IT hardware may make the company a much more useful partner to Microsoft than Nortel ever ways; sure, you could run OCS on a Nortel server, but if you had to put HP and Nortel head-to-head in server hardware, HP wins hands down.

I guess I am suffering from Google-burnout, between the hype for Google Voice, how Google is supposed to respond to [...]]]>

After two weeks of hype and rumors, Google Voice is starting to hand out phone numbers to its waiting list.  Although, after yesterday’s “Today” show segment, the company might not have had a choice.

I guess I am suffering from Google-burnout, between the hype for Google Voice, how Google is supposed to respond to Bing, Chrome, Android,  Google’s troubles with China on censorship, Google Wave, and Google Book Search…

In the “Today Show” segment, there was happy gushing from NBC News user Janet Shamlian, how it made her life easier and for her family to get in touch with her yadda-yadda.  Little downside was given in the piece other than potential privacy concerns since The Google gets access to your recorded voice conversations, voicemail (probably a more valid point if they start datamining the contents, even in a generic fashion) and everything else that flows through GV, like call data.   Heaven forbid that The Goog use that data to target ads!

We’ll see how long it takes for me to get a Google Voice number.  I’m not really convinced it is going to do anything greater for me than my current phone service(s) of Cox (landline) and Sprint (mobile).   Cox has added online Phone Tools, so I’ll get the visual voice mail component and call forwarding set on line. I don’t have a gazillion phone numbers to manage, so being able to simultaneous ring a bunch of devices Does Not Make Sense for me.

Finally, there’s the whole “hand Google my primary phone number when they finally get around to supporting it.”  So, I give Google my house number, and I need a new number (no doubt provided out of the million number stash Google has allegedly built) for my landline and this makes sense because…?

If Google Voice such a big-deal/game changing service, it won’t take too terribly long for everyone else (translation: Any voice service provider with a softswitch and purchasing a service pack upgrade) to do the same thing  After all, GrandCentral/Google Voice has had about two years of “betas,” so it has given those mean old phone companies and the vendors who support them plenty of time to figure out how to replicate the services on their own networks.