January 6, 2009
With the New Year upon us, bringing it’s wintry cold and the blankets of snow
– for all you global warming enthusiasts – most of us turn to thoughts of the past
Holidays. Whether our joys stem from the religious, commercial or year-ending
celebrations, many of us reflect on the year past with thoughts of appreciation. Most
commonly, we […]
January 2, 2009
This is the second half of the interview with TMC’s Rich Tehrani.
December 30, 2008
Over the summer, I participated in an interview with Rich Tehrani, president of TMC, at the Voice Peering Forum. Here is part one of the interview.
Happy holidays from all of us at AFS. We welcome your comments and questions. Post a message below or email the Straight Shooter. If you’d like, you can see more […]
December 26, 2008
Here’s the continuation of my recent post on xchange magazine’s blog. You can see part one of this post, Looking Ahead to 2009, here.
Given the credit crisis (and my theory that the current situation will weigh on telecom well into 2010), I believe we will start to see a realization by Wall Street and those […]
December 23, 2008
Happy Holidays to you and yours. While we all take time to be with with friends and family, I thought you would enjoy a look into what is in store for CLECs in ‘09. This is an excerpt of my regular series on xchange magazine’s blog.
There’s a question that keeps coming across my email lately, […]
December 19, 2008
I recently received an email question about the skepticism and resistance to Telecom Expense Management (TEM) services, especially software solutions. A reader wrote:
I’m writing to get your input on why TEM (Telecom Expense Management) companies seem, to me any way, to have sort of a “Multi-Level Marketing” feel to them. The reason I ask is […]
December 17, 2008
I just finished reading the US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) release in fining Siemens AG $1.5 billion for a string of briberies of government officials totaling $1.1 billion. (Read the press release here.) The release said that Siemens was caught “engaging in a systematic practice of paying bribes to foreign government officials to obtain […]
December 15, 2008
Page A18 of the December 11th issue of the Wall Street Journal, The headline read: “Political Favors at the FCC.” Sub heading: “Kevin Martin orders up another rigged spectrum auction.”
Surprise, surprise, surprise … yet another game of Beltway insiders and money-people playing do as I say, not as I do. We have a two tier […]
December 12, 2008
If you haven’t read or at least skimmed the House report, DECEPTION AND DISTRACTION: THE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION UNDER CHAIRMAN KEVIN J. MARTIN, I encourage you to do so. On Wednesday I wrote in the blog post “Hate to say ‘I told you so’” that non-ILECs should stick to focusing time and money on infrastructure.
For […]
December 10, 2008
As Gomer Pyle would say: “Surprise, surprise, surprise …â€
For years at telecom conferences and most recently on this blog, I have heralded the waste of time, money and effort spent on lobbying the FCC or anyone else inside the beltway. I have referred to such expenditures on lawyers and/or lobbyists as money entering a large […]
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Dave,
You are right on point with your remarks regarding Paetec.
I will tell you, the McLeodUSA fiber is not for sale.
Arunas knows his business is dead without it.
Two points: Running a public low-priced T1 CLEC is way different today than in the heyday of private Paetec. (I think Arunas is in over his head; hence the willy-nilly purchases of Allworx and McLeod).
Do you need fiber? It certainly helps. But it isn’t the same model as a T1 CLEC. And Dave, AFS, has a model that no one else has/follows. Most fiber in the ground is in the same route, conduit or sheath as the next guy (e.g., L3 and XO). So router diversity?
As I have seen recently trying to win a deal with a newly merged player, most fiber players give it away. Waves now cost the same as OC3 PL on some routes. This is not the way back to profitability for the industry … but then neither is Forbearance.
Dave, I will give you that maybe the TA96 wasn’t worded right (but then what law is?). It was a major compromise. But the FCC has not exactly helped either. Over stepping bounds. Not looking out for the consumer. I’m not sure anyone in DC has a dictionary or a real handle on language.
If there is going to be a sunset, it needs to be 3-5 years out and set in stone like the DTV transition. But even then, I don’t see billions in fiber being invested. We’ll just have the same as now and maybe 2 more players. Wall Street doesn’t think that Verizon FiOS will have real ROI. And neither do I if you use real numbers and not some Enron-esque accounting.
One thing you don’t see is that in many cases Wholesale pricing from the ILEC’s is the same or higher than Retail.
[…] We welcome commentary and discussion on issues, and the following post is in response to a comment received on my two cents on PAETEC. […]