Archive for January, 2010
Working Together
Jan 31st
Recently Intelletrace and O1 Communications had met to see how we can work together to create a closer relationship and greater revenue for both companies. O1 has been a customer for almost 5 years, providing them Internet, backbone services, and custom data solutions. O1 Communications is the leading vendor for Intelletrace when comes to Internet T1′s and MPLS T1 solutions in California. Not only is O1 Communications easy to work with, providing Intelletrace easy flat rate pricing for our sales team, but will provide short term services for special events. Also, O1 can deliver services in less than 10 days. O1′s install time frames seems unreal, when AT&T can not deliver services in less than 30 days, and it does not even leave their network.
O1 Communications is one of several Carriers, which Intelletrace sells to and buys from. The telecommunication market is a multi-billion dollar industry, and we always look to our customers first to provide services, instead of just buying from the big Carrier.
Intelletrace has recently started selling to one of these big Carriers, XO Communications, after being a growing customer of theirs for almost 6 years. Intelletrace is certainly going to start looking towards XO first now, when we believe they are a good solution for our customer. XO saw how a smaller Carrier can quickly act and be competitive to meet their customer’s needs. I encourage other larger Carriers to see this paradigm shift in the market place and see how they can do more business with other Carriers, beside the LEC (Local Exchange Carrier). I challenge every Carrier to start looking at ways to get of the box to provide a better service and solution for their customers.
Really… More than a week?
Jan 27th
How does Level 3 continue to stay in business? We are going on a week of them still not getting back to us on pricing for an Internet circuit that does not leave their own network. Most Carriers have a pricing tool or flat rate pricing for all circuits which are completely are on their network. Verizon Business and Global Crossing make it easy, when we have Internet opportunities at their IP POPs. Both Carriers give us a flat rate and due to our volume, they actually decrease our pricing as we continue to add bandwidth.
Get a hint…Make it easy for people to do business… Sprint kept asking me for years how to get more business from Intelletrace. I had one answer which Sprint could not understand, “Make it easy to price and sell!”. Sprint is still playing catch up with most Carriers.�
Back to Level 3… They are the only Big Carrier who does not have a pricing tool for their services or flat rate pricing. Level 3 continues to fall behind and misses out on opportunities. Level 3 cannot continue to do business this way if they are going to stay around. Verizon Business even gives us flat rate pricing for services which leaves their network. An amazing concept… This enables Intelletrace to turn around quotes quick and most of the time chooses Verizon Business because of this. People move very fast in telecom. Intelletrace cannot afford to continue waiting for vendors to get back to us, when we expect to get to all of our customers with pricing in 24 hours. Now I do expect pricing for large capacity circuits, such as 2.5gig or 10gig to take a little longer, as this is a new service which has only been around a few years and most backbones are still being built out to accept these type of services easily. Companies must continue to improve their systems and need to move faster if they want to continue to be ahead of their competition and grow in the market place.
How do these Carriers sell anything?
Jan 21st
We are going on 3 months now in trying to get a circuit re-designed for a customer and waiting over 3 weeks for pricing. Holiday Season is over, it is time to get back to work. Qwest is the lame Carrier today, which is moving at the pace of a snail in the very fast moving world of telecom.
We have a 10gig circuit from San Jose to Seattle, which has multiple maintenance windows and multiple outages. Unfortunately, the circuit is still not considered chronic yet, it is practically unusable. Qwest continues to stall and continues to make excuses on finding a new path which is usable. It is unbelievable and I am sick and tired of it. Qwest only has two paths from San Jose to Seattle, so they do not have much too choose from.�
I am also waiting for them to get me firm pricing for a direct connection on a 2.5gig, which we need to move on. Sure Qwest got me the monthly cost, which only took about 2 weeks, but still it has not got me the build costs for the direct connect and splicing. What are they waiting for? From my understanding, their is not a lot of new construction going on, so what is the hang up? Sure they got me a budgetary price, but what does that mean. Does Qwest expect us to sign up for a new service, which they can change the pricing on us and stick us for another 36 months for a circuit that is too expensive and possibly unusable. This is exactly why I left the big Carriers. As they continually move at a dinosauric pace, Intelletrace is moving at light speed to meet the customer demand for SERVICE.
The Bait and Switch
Jan 20th
I am sure this has happened to most people when shopping for a car, but this often happens in telecom. Today it happened again…. This time it was Level 3. I requested their new FastPath. They met my target price and had two deals pending. I even questioned Level 3 on the route, latency, and mileage. My rep confirmed we were all good, however, when I requested the Service Level Agreement, that is when the stalling started to happen. I asked repeatedly, why Level 3 cannot produce a SLA for a service they have already sold. My customer was ready to pull the trigger and was happy to see Intelletrace come through again for them. 24 hours had gone by and the phone call came, “Sorry Marc, our pricing group made a mistake and gave Intelletrace the wrong price”. Not only was I pissed, but I had to go back to my customer and greatly apologize. How can Level 3 make this mistake? This is not the first time this has happened to me, but it hurts the most. Had two large deals pending which would have got our year off to a very good start. Unbelievable!!!
No More Mr Nice Guy!
Jan 10th
I am not big on New Year’s Resolutions, but in 2010, I am going to start discussing some of the dealings we have with the Carriers. Why now? I am getting sick of the excuses and the blame put back on the customer. In today’s information age, why does it take 4 to 6 weeks for Carriers to get back International quotes. In fact, I am still waiting 2 months for a local private line circuit price from AT&T in New Orleans. You will not believe the excuses, from there is only 1 person in ALL of AT&T who can price this and he is on vacation, to why doesn’t the end user call the local AT&T rep instead of Intelletrace. You know why, because AT&T will not call them back. Unbelievable! With the powerful tools and applications the Internet brings us, why does this complacency still exist? AT&T is the worst of them all, yet customers still go to them because they feel they will get the best service out of due to their size. With all the layoffs in the past 30 days, this type of service is only going to get worst. More stories to come… I am just sick of it!!!
2010
Jan 4th
The New Year started with a fire in more ways than one. I am ready for it! I do not set New Year Resolution, but work on getting focused on family, work, and having fun.
The day started working on resolving a customer Ethernet circuit which had been taking errors for 7 days and then lead right into taking care of coming up with a solution for a muxed OC3. I was getting calls to place orders and check capacity for multiple Gig services. This type of activity on a Monday seems like 2010 is going to be active year full of new opportunities with new companies and working with current customers to build out their networks.�
I say good riddens to 2009. Although the first day back to work for 2010 was not a typical day, I am glad to have it.
I hope many feel people feel the same way. Happy New Year to all and looking forward to a fantastic 2010.
Marc Alciati
Age: 42
Gender: Male
Industry: Telecommunications
Occupation: President CEO
Location: Novato : CA : United States
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