Mid-Year 2015 U.S. Carrier Ethernet Leaderboard, Telecom Top Companies for Layer 2 Transport

U.S. Carrier Ethernet Leaderboard

BOSTON, MA, AUGUST 24, 2015 – Vertical Systems Group’s U.S. Carrier Ethernet LEADERBOARD results for mid-2015 are as follows (in rank order based on retail port share): AT&T, Level 3, Verizon, CenturyLink, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, XO and Cox. Port shares were calculated using the base of enterprise installations of Ethernet services, plus input from surveys of Ethernet providers. The LEADERBOARD threshold is four percent (4%) or more of billable port installations. “U.S. Ethernet port growth was unprecedented in the first half of 2015 and easily surpassed previous estimates.

This market seems to be defying the law of large numbers, as there are few indications of the typical slowing growth patterns that we look for when services reach this size and maturity,” said Rick Malone, principal at Vertical Systems Group. “Primary drivers for growth are massive migration from TDM to Ethernet services, robust demand for higher speed Ethernet private lines and rising requirements for connectivity to public and private Clouds.”

Other providers selling Ethernet services in the U.S. are segmented into tiers as measured by port share. The Challenge Tier includes providers with between 1% and 4% share of the U.S. retail Ethernet market. The following six companies attained a position in the mid-2015 Challenge Tier (in alphabetical order): Bright House, Charter, Cogent, Lightpath, Windstream and Zayo.

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Contact me at tduggan(@)Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable IP Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.

4th Quarter Selling Strategies That Do Not Involve Discounting

It’s the 4th quarter and that means the race is on to make the yearly number. What it also means is we’re only a few weeks away from the time of year when stupid ideas start to become reality. Sad comment is there is no reason for anyone to do anything stupid, and when I say “stupid,” I’m referring to offering discounts to gain a sale before the end of the year. Eliminate right now the idea that making the number requires price cuts. Price cuts make it onto the list of year-end strategies only because nobody took the time and effort to develop other strategies early enough in the year to avoid year-end price discounting.

First, examine where each salesperson is spending their time.
The focus is on gaining business this year, not next year. Too many salespeople get themselves into trouble because they’ve spent too much time dealing with prospects who have zero ability to become customers this year. From October on – and even earlier for some industries – the focus must be on customers who will generate business this year. Some people will take this to mean I’m implying sales shouldn’t be focused long-term. No, that is not the case. As much as the 4th quarter is geared toward closing immediate sales, the 1st quarter should be geared toward long-term business. The objective is to optimize how you use your time.

Second, look for ways you can secure more business from existing customers.

This is often overlooked, and even if it isn’t overlooked, it is rarely capitalized on fully. Reason it makes sense to focus on existing customers is because they are already set up in your company’s system and you’re set up in their system as a supplier. Last thing anyone wants to hassle with at the end of the year is suddenly facing problems with accounting and credit in getting new accounts set up in a timely manner.

Third, develop packages that make it easy for both existing and new customers to buy from you.

Look at your product offering and find areas where you can strip away anything but the basics. Idea is to make it incredibly simple for the customer to buy. Beauty with this tactic is for many companies it means also having the ability to service orders quickly. That allows for new customers to experience your superior level of service even faster.

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Contact me at tduggan(@)Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable IP Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.

SMBs Poised to Fuel the Cloud Services Market

SMBs Poised to Fuel the Cloud Services Market
by Cameron Bell

If there’s a need for more proof that the cloud services market is here to stay for the foreseeable future, research from Compass Intelligence on small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) demonstrates it. The cloud services market as a whole is growing, and the SMB sector is one of the fastest-growing areas. Currently, there are more than 12 million SMBs in the U.S.–and 22 million worldwide–and they’re already spending more than $150 billion on telecom services. This sector is growing rapidly and has been for the last decade. As a result, the SMB cloud market currently has a 40 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR), and it’s projected to remain so for at least the next five years. What’s driving the high CAGR?

1 – Lower Barriers to Entry One of the biggest factors driving SMB cloud adoption is that the Internet is making it far easier for small and medium-sized businesses to get started. When all someone needs is a website to have a business, that means a lot of hungry SMBs looking to grab customers any way they can.

2 – Reduced Need for Expertise On-Staff Currently, 70 percent of SMB cloud spending comes from companies with five to 99 employees. Companies on the low end of that scale simply might not have the budget for an extensive list of contracted experts. Being able to outsource matters like IT management or CMS (content management system) platforms means companies can focus on their core business without spending their budget on in-house experts.

3 – Increased Data-Handling Regulations In most of the high-tech countries around the world, more regulations are being implemented concerning the proper handling of data, especially confidential customer information. Regulations on storage, access, and length-of-retention can change rapidly, but the responsibility is on businesses to be informed of the regulations and to comply with them. SMBs lacking on-site expertise increasingly need industry partners who can ensure their regulatory compliance. Otherwise, the financial penalties from even a single data breach can be ruinous.

4 – Simplified Contact Pathways One area experiencing large booms, even within the cloud industry, is that of telecoms offering direct hosting for computer systems. Besides allowing SMBs to remain relevant to existing customers, this allows SMBs to pare down the list of contacts handling their services. Being able to consolidate all telecom-related tech support to a single partner is a major selling point for SMBs who are currently juggling too many vendors.

5 – Predictable Billing Most SMBs are running on tight month-to-month or even week-to-week budgets, and they cannot afford to have significant spikes in service fees. Since most cloud vendors offer guaranteed contracted rates and sometimes even include hardware upgrades with their fees, it makes both IT and telecom expenses far more predictable from a budgeting perspective.

If a SMB has had one or two “near misses” with an unexpected service bill that nearly breaks the budget, that SMB will be listening when a cloud provider says it can eliminate that uncertainty. How to Grow the Cloud Business The cloud industry is booming among SMBs, who are ready and willing to pay for services that bring convenience and cost savings. Cloud providers that can illustrate these benefits to SMBs will grow their client portfolio, and the SMB clients will be better poised to focus on their core business without unnecessary distractions.

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Contact me at tduggan(@)Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable IP Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.

Amazon, Netflix, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla And Others Partner To Create Next-Gen Video Format

Here We Go!

Amazon, Cisco, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla and Netflix today announced that they have formed a new open source alliance — the Alliance for Open Media — with the goal of developing the next generation of royalty-free video formats, codecs and other related technologies.

It’s not often we see these rival companies come together to build a new technology together, but the members argue that this kind of alliance is necessary to create a new interoperable video standard that will work across vendors and platforms.

While it goes unmentioned in the announcement, it’s also clear that none of the members involved in this alliance want to have to pay royalties to the likes of MPEG LA. logo4As Mozilla notes, part of the reason for forming this alliance is not just to share technology, but also to “run the kind of patent analysis necessary to build a next-generation royalty-free video codec.”

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Contact me at tduggan(@)Cogentco.com at Cogent for more Info or to Network. Cogent delivers customers with Highly Reliable, Secure and Scalable IP Networks with over 190 markets throughout 38 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with over 57,900 route miles of long-haul fiber and over 27,400 miles of metropolitan fiber.