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  issue highlights May 12, 2008 | A Penton Media, Inc. Publication  
Analyst on Occam's Fairpoint deal

Breaking down NextWave's licenses

MetroPCS launches in northern Florida

Towerstream lights up first building


editor's perspective
Learning by walking around

May 12, 2008, by Joan Engebretson

Public speakers often like to poll their audience on a topic to keep people engaged and to gauge how to tailor comments to match the needs and sympathies of the audience. But as a journalist who often attends telecom industry speeches, I sometimes pick up some useful information by jotting down the results of these informal polls. At the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association’s IP Possibilities conference in Chicago last month, for example, I learned that Independent telcos in the audience paid between $32 and $100 per megabit per month for their Internet backbone connections--a useful piece of information to know as policymakers consider subsidies for such connections.

The opportunity to have a roomful of potential sources just a handshake away is a great reason to attend a good industry conference. I’ve written numerous news stories based on asking everyone I met at an event about a hot issue. And although most attendees aren’t there as journalists, they often tell me that the interchange at a well-organized event is one of their biggest reasons for attending.

Often the most targeted conferences can be the most valuable, as they tend to have a smaller number of highly focused people. This tends to create a community vibe that’s very conducive to informal, yet valuable, conversation. If you’ve all listened to some compelling presentations, there’s no shortage of topics to talk about.

That’s why I’m really looking forward to the Insights for Next-Generation ILECs conference that Telephony is putting on in Las Vegas on June 16. If you’re an Independent telco planning to attend NXTcomm, you’ll want to consider adding the Insights conference to your plans.

Check out the list of speakers and you’ll find many names that you’ve seen at Telephony's Independent One-Stop and in Telephony’s Independent print supplement. Scott Meier of TDS Telecom, whom we recently interviewed about that company’s WiMAX deployment, will be exchanging experiences with other WiMAX experts. Bernie Arnason of Pivot Media, a consultant and frequent contributor who focuses on Independent telcos, is one of several industry stakeholders who will discuss the quad-play opportunity. And I’ll be moderating a panel about consolidation issues comprising Yankee Group program manager Vince Vittore, whom I’ve known for years as a sharp and entertaining commentator, and three equally sharp industry observers whom I’ve previously met only by phone. These include Bill King of JSI Capital Advisors, Kevin McGuire of the NTCA and Francis Gallagher of Stifel Nicolaus.

Some executives are strong believers in what is sometimes called “management by walking around.” I like to think of conferences such as Insights as “learning by walking around.” What I’ve mentioned is just a portion of the events planned. Be sure to take a look at the complete agenda. Hope to see you there.

I haven’t decided what I’m going to poll the audience about yet. But I’m thinking about it. Let me know if you have a good idea.

E-mail me at JoanEngebretson@cs.com.

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white papers

Service Delivery Platforms: "New Services Made Easy"

Today's service providers are facing well-known challenges: ARPU erosion as voice becomes a commodity; and aggressive competitors offering a broad range of services. In response, they must deliver new high-revenue services. Unfortunately, there is a major obstacle barring their path: their traditional network integration and marketing processes mean that new service development takes a very long time and costs a huge amount. That's why the Service Delivery Platform was developed. This white paper by Daniel Marcus of MetaSwitch describes how an SDP allows service providers to define, develop and deploy new services far faster than they have been able to in the past, all while reducing the cost of service deployment. Download today.
  READ MORE >>  

Addressing Data Integration Challenges with SOA

A big challenge for telcos is validating data exchange as they integrate business applications. SOA (service-oriented architecture) offers tremendous promise to streamline application development and enable productive re-use of existing services. Learn how SOA is gaining ground. Read White Paper.
  READ MORE >>  

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top news

Analyst: Occam's Fairpoint deal could be worth $125M

Occam Networks’ recent contract to supply a broadband access rollout by Fairpoint Communications could yield $125 million in revenue, according to an estimate by Andrew Schmitt, an analyst with Nyquist Capital. And $80 million of that could come in the next 18 to 24 months.
  READ MORE >>  

Breaking down NextWave's licenses

For the second time in its history, NextWave Wireless is engaging in a massive spectrum sale, clearing out its stores of broadband wireless and mobile licenses in the U.S. Some of the spectrum it's offering up has commanded high prices in recent auctions -- notably its Advanced Wireless Service properties -- but other pieces may not be so valuable.
  READ MORE >>  

MetroPCS launches in northern Florida

MetroPCS has turned up its service in Jacksonville, Fla., transitioning the former PTA and Cleartalk PCS networks into its own footprint. MetroPCS bought 10 MHz of PCS spectrum from PTA, along with PTA and Cleartalk’s infrastructure and customers in January, allowing it to expand its growing Florida footprint.
  READ MORE >>  

Towerstream lights up first building

Towerstream is taking a page from Cogent Communications’ book, announcing today that it is providing a gigabit broadband capacity to the General Motors building in midtown Manhattan, marking the first time it has provided service to an entire building rather than an individual business.
  READ MORE >>  

Rural FTTP 'perfectly economical,' says muni fiber veteran

The notion that fiber-to-the-premises is economically prohibitive in rural areas is a myth, according to Dr. Timothy Nulty, director of ValleyFiber, a nonprofit organization focused on bringing municipal fiber to towns in Vermont’s Upper Valley.
  READ MORE >>  

Fairpoint breaks silence, details integration process

Fairpoint Communications held its first conference call as the country’s eighth-largest telco, three weeks after closing its acquisition of Verizon’s local access business in three states. The company offered an unusual amount of detail about its financial expectations for the near future, though some key strategic questions remain unanswered.
  READ MORE >>  

Towerstream moves to WiMAX

Towerstream is officially embracing WiMAX, shifting its technology in the nation’s largest markets away from propriety broadband wireless gear to the new 4G standard going forward. Towerstream said it has completed WiMAX trials in an unnamed metro market using Alvarion gear and plans to use that technology going forward in all new deployments.
  READ MORE >>  


special report

Differentiate your Ethernet Services: Read Telephony's Special Report

Research shows Ethernet market revenue will grow to $16 billion in 2010. How will you cash in? Read Telephony's Guide to Carrier Ethernet to differentiate your services from the competition and prepare for future challenges. Read Special Report.
  READ MORE >>  


in print

Gambling on Utopia

Municipalities participating in Utah's 11-city wholesale fiber-to-the-premises project, Utopia, are being asked to “double down” on that investment in the face of its current financial shortfalls.
  READ MORE >>  


nxtcomm08 news

NXTcomm08 Looks at the Future of Fiber to the Home

In “Future of the FTTH Technologies” on June 19th in Las Vegas, NXTcomm08 will review larger carriers’ efforts in selecting Gigabit Passive Optical Networking (GPON) as the basis of their Fiber to the Home deployments and prospects for helping move service providers beyond delivering voice, video and data. The session will also give an overview of different approaches from various equipment vendors.
  READ MORE >>  


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