Posts tagged Qwest
Spring Comptel 2010
Mar 23rd
Catching up after an active Comptel, I am finally back to get everybody caught up of what is going on in the industry. It seems there is still plenty of capacity and fiber in the ground. Prices are still dropping and more and more dark fiber providers are popping up. Intelletrace does not run into a lot of dark fiber opportunities, but have picked up 3 more providers which can assist our customers. As equipment costs also drop, customers are looking into dark fiber to run 10 Gig networks.
Due to costs, all the big Carriers are no longer exhibiting, except for Sprint. The Carriers are participating by hosting large suites with food and beverages. These are nice meeting places, except when the suite is crowded and there are multiple conversations going on. Qwest, if you are listening, I do not recommend having such a large suite. Verizon Business had multiple suites which were private and can have a very effective meeting. We didn’t get a chance to meet with Sprint during the day, but they had a great party on the Music Queen River Boat. Here I got to speak with several executives and their customer to get a better understanding where Sprint is heading. While most companies are cutting back on the entertainment, Sprint still comes through with a good time.�
While IP pricing is still dropping, Verizon Business feels the market has reached a bottom. I certaintly hope so, although I feel a large provider will have to file for bankruptcy before this happens. Will we see a 2000 bust all over again???
Most importantly, I get to catch up with old friends and meet new ones. We had a fun time in Nashville, catching a Predators Hockey match and bar hopping down town. The live entertainment is great. It is a city I enjoy visiting. Hope to see you at the fall Comptel in Dallas.
Is this the Information Age?
Feb 2nd
I would say we are very much in the Information Age. With the power of the Internet, we are able to grab information almost seconds after an event has happened. When Northern California was hit with a powerful thunderstorm a couple of weeks ago, I woke up at 3am after I thought a bomb must of been dropped in my backyard. I quickly went downstairs, jumped on the Internet to find out what exactly had happened. Within minutes, I found out lightning had struck in Mill Valley (about 15 miles away from I live) and struck down a large tree.
If I can find out information about a thunderstorm within minutes, why in the world AT&T cannot provide customers circuit id’s, demarcation points, and expiration dates for their customers in a timely manner. I met with a client today, he has not once had met his sales engineer from AT&T and all of his technical questions are being answered by a sales person. Pretty scary, when you are relying on a sales person for technical info. I am somewhat technical, but I would be the first to tell you I am not an engineer and will always bring in an Intelletrace engineer when customers want technical solutions. When it came it getting an audit on all of his circuits, it took almost a month for AT&T to provide this. Intelletrace has an online portal, where customer can gain instant access to all of their circuits, id’s, expiration terms, invoices, and trouble tickets.
This same client also has an Internet circuit with Qwest. After a 2 weeks, he is still waiting to get the information about his utilization. This information should be instant and not a mystery to their customers. How can customer manage their network and plan from growth if their Carrier cannot even give them information to assist them to plan? Intelletrace provides a portal so you can run reports on your bandwidth utilization real time.
I still find it hard to believe in the 21st century, businesses continue to fall behind and keep making the mistake that customers will continue to buy form them and keep coming back. Intelletrace recongnizes this and continues to work on making the customer experience simple and enjoyable. We now are utilizing the latest communication tools provided by social networking, online portals for managing bandwidth and tracking trouble tickets, and online fiber building lists.
We understand with PDAs and online tools, people are expecting information instantly. In the Information Age, they should!
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.
Marc Alciati
Age: 42
Gender: Male
Industry: Telecommunications
Occupation: President CEO
Location: Novato : CA : United States
Recent Comments