hitting the wire*

Here, there and everywhere!

Despite some rather obvious encouragement from Joe across at SwimGeek, I've not found my muse for "the wire" again just yet.

I have helped Craig Byren get a post together on the ViaData blog called "Have we been ripping off our customers for years?" - ouch!

I've blogged at Umoya's site on "7 good reasons to use VSAT".

I've joined the crew at The Mac Blog to see if I can add value there - first post was "10 reasons I love my Mac" - somewhat corny, but it was interesting to try and quantify exactly what it is about this piece of technology that gets under your skin like it does.

Getting things done in Africa.

I'm often leaping on the old soapbox to rant about the need for government to get the hell out of telecoms and concentrate on setting up clever policies to lure the private sector into achieving their goals for them.  If there is one area which is proving me right, it is the undersea cable 'race' that is underway,(not that any clever policies are involved - just good old fashioned competition and profit motives).

I often find Ivo Vegter's pen more negative and biting than even I can enjoy, but his article in today's ITWeb column "the spike" entitled "Seacom walks on water" is very good. 

I can't wait to see broadband made more accessible, cheaper and actually broad enough to deliver the likes of Software as a Service to South Africans.  I will personally be very annoyed with Seacom if they do not follow through on their promises to drop prices of international bandwidth by close to an order of magnitude.

we live in hope.

Tighten that telecoms belt one more notch!

Being in the 'least cost routing" business always had a sliver lining to the cloud of an economic downturn; it was easier to persuade people that a change to their existing telecoms services might just be needed right now.  I few months back while quoting on reducing telecoms spend at a local corporate, I compiled a post which covered some practical tips for cutting costs. 

While browsing through some articles on silicon.com I came across a similar article by Rob Bamforth of Quocirca an Business & IT research outfit I was unaware of until today, which has some sound advice.  I'll summarise my take on the essence of his article, but it is worth a read.

1. Cut back on fat, but not muscle or bone - assess the real business value of each cost category in your budget, before whipping out the scalpel.
2. Make sure the muscle is toned - are SLA's delivering on business (as opposed to IT) priorities?
3. Push for better deals, consider alternative suppliers, rethink the outsource question (yet again?).
4. Converge - budgets as opposed to technology.  One budget decision-maker on all IT spend can ensure there is less waste.
5. Measure and take control.  If you've not implemented dashboards of some sort to keep an eye on usage, you're going to be cursing yourself now!

Nice one Mr Bamforth, some good sense there (especially the bit about 'getting outside help', nudge, nudge, wink, wink! ;) ).

Dave.

wither the windmills?

If ever there was a time for the South African telecoms industry to pop a bottle of bubbly, it is this weekend.  Yesterday was the deadline for the Minister of Communications to lodge an appeal against the ruling in the Altech case with the Supreme Court of Appeal.  She has not and the DoC has posted this bit of PR.

The entire release is so typical of a bunch of political bureaucrats living in denial and justifying their actions with sanctimonious puffery, I'm not sure whether to laugh or throw up.  Considering the historic moment, I'll opt for a guffaw.

"...The Minister has been made the villain over the past few months for opposing Altech’s court action to obtain a network license. ..."

"...If the Minister continues with a petition, the risk is that ICASA will not be able to convert licenses by 19 January 2009 as required under the ECA, irrespective of the outcome of the petition. This will then require an amendment of the ECA to extend the license conversion period, and may effectively delay license conversion to late 2010. This result is not in anyone’s interest and will not best serve the ICT sector, operators and consumers. ..."

1st you make regulatory changes which enable self-provision by VANS and then cause total confusion by saying (the day before it is effective) that it was not your intention, then when you're challenged in court and found wanting, you appeal, lose the appeal and then decide to drop the whole matter because you suddenly have an attack of conscience (albeit a sulky one) and recall you have stakeholders who are interested in more competition and lower prices?  Ah yes, but they have things called votes do they not, and you have cope with elections next year?

I still think the main problem (as I reiterated to Lloyd Gedye of the M&G just recently) is that the DoC have never been able to communicate in a clear and unambiguous manner what their vision for the future ICT market is (assuming they have one).

One thing I do know, is that an enterprise of any sort without a clear, commonly shared vision of the future is doomed to go nowhere at top speed.  Even King Solomon seemed to know that!

I wonder which windmills will be tilted at next?

PS.

yes, the lack of an "h" after the "w" in the first word of the title of the post was originally a typo, but then I decided I quite liked the pun, so I left it! ;)

12 Tips for saving on your telecoms bill.

I was asked the other day how one should approach cutting your telecoms costs as a business in SA.  Now that my rote answer is no longer "take Storm products!", I had to give it some thought.  The points below are as a result of that thought.  Would be good if some of you could add some wisdom to the pot? ;)

The telephone and the personal computer have become ubiquitous; vital communications tools, for business and private use alike.  We use them many times a day without thinking about what it costs us.  As a company grows, it becomes harder and harder to ensure that these tools are used in cost effective ways.  Monitoring and measuring is key.

You're paying too much when:

1. You are unable to measure voice and data usage in your company.
2. When you are expending hours of valuable time in reconciling bills and usage reports to give you intelligence about telecoms usage.
3. You are using more expensive rate plans than you could (it is not in the telco's interest to ensure you're on the most cost effective rate plan).
4. You are not using Least Cost Routing (LCR) on your PBXs.
5. Staff are abusing the phone and internet connection for personal use.
6. You are using outdated or inappropriate technologies which can be costly to maintain, upgrade and manage.

Ways you can save on your communications bill:

1. Review your bills and determine where most of your money is going and where the quick wins will be made.
2. Install a Telephone Management System (TMS) that provides you with customisable reports for every PBX, consolidated into one, web based reporting tool.
3. Install reporting on all your servers and routers that will allow you to monitor individual usage patterns.
4. Provide automated monthly reports to all staff from the CEO down o,n their usage.  Publish a “Top 10 report” each month (warning : it is v. likely that your CEO will feature high on that list).
5. Set the TMS system to distinguish between business and private calls and first report on, then begin to bill for private calls.
6. Install LCR (a mix of Fixed Cellular Terminals and VoIP is likely to give you the best value)
7. Request itemised billing in 'soft-copy' from your telco suppliers and analyse these to ensure staff are on the appropriate packages.
8. Place limits on what staff may and may not do on the internet – usage of youtube, Facebook, etc should be blocked.  Your reporting tool will alert you to the 'arrival' of new sites which distract staff and tempt them to abuse your bandwidth!
9. Review your data links and send out an RFI for more cost effective alternatives.
10. Consider implementing IPPBXs (such as Asterisk) to reduce the need for paying the PBX vendor to add, move and change extensions, and enable value added functionality like voicemail, IVR's, VoIP LCR, etc.
11. Introduce technologies such as Instant Messaging (MSN, Skype, Fring, etc) and train staff on the appropriate use of such tools.  Bear in mind the risk that exists of abuse which is not easy to monitor and control.
12. Review where most of your calls are being made to (suppliers, business partners, customers, etc) and consider persuading them to implement a VoIP technology which would cut the costs of communications between your companies to a minimum.

Questions you need to be able to answer:

1. Where is most of my telecoms budget being spent?
2. Do I know how much each staff member / office / branch is costing us?
3. Can I present reports at management meetings that allows the CEO to review cost per head per department?
4. Am I sure I'm getting the best deal possible from my telcos?
5. Am I getting detailed billing from my suppliers in a format which I can easily analyse?
6. Have they been able to respond to my requests for improved detailed reporting, usage analysis, and discounts.
7. Have I explored all the LCR options open to me?
8. Are we using communications technologies appropriately?
9. Have I limited the possibilities for staff to abuse the communications tools?
10. Do I have adequate ICT policies in place?

While we're talking about TMS systems - the one I have been impressed by and have yet to see bested is Ti by Aspivia.  Apart from liking the people behind the company (one of whom works out of a house on a Greek island - I kid you not - the system is clever and user friendly).

Now go find that Telkom bill of yours! ;)

Done deal!

Today we received the final official unconditional approval from the Competition Commission for the Vox purchase of Storm.

From here, we wrap up retrenchment and redeployment processes and kick off integration processes and of course pay out monies owed for shares and options.

The long wait is over.

OK, so telecoms was fun... anyone for taking on Eskom? ;)

855,000 handsets down the loo

Total Telecom, getting into silly season mood, sent me this frivolous gem:

A new phone you can really dig
If you don't fancy the latest in mobile Web surfing technology this Christmas, or if you're exceptionally clumsy, there is an alternative.
JCB, famed makers of 10-tonne diggers used the world over, have brought out a ruggedised branded handset, presumably for big boys who love Tonka toys.
What's more, rather than a big boring list of technical specifications, such as whether or not it's 3G and how many megapixels the camera has, the JCB phone sells along different lines, like the fact that it's waterproof, dustproof and shockproof.
Although it might also have something to do with the fact that it's 2G, and doesn't have a camera.
Aptly called the Toughphone, it comes in a yellow and black design, and as well as being available from traditional outlets, it will also be sold in equipment hire shops from February 2008.
Its sturdy design is bound to appeal to U.K. consumers: without going into too much detail, Brits drop 855,000 handsets down the toilet every year, generating a whopping £342 million in insurance and replacement costs.

That's one every 36 seconds!

Is your mobile phone bugging you?

Bretton picked up this story in c|net news.com.

The FBI seem not only to be able to turn on your mobile phone's microphone remotely and use it to monitor any conversations within range, but they are allowed to do so and use the evidence in court!

The technique is called a "roving bug".

"Kaplan's opinion said that the eavesdropping technique "functioned whether the phone was powered on or off." Some handsets can't be fully powered down without removing the battery; for instance, some Nokia models will wake up when turned off if an alarm is set.

...

Because modern handsets are miniature computers, downloaded software could modify the usual interface that always displays when a call is in progress. The spyware could then place a call to the FBI and activate the microphone--all without the owner knowing it happened. (The FBI declined to comment on Friday.)

...

Security-conscious corporate executives routinely remove the batteries from their cell phones.

...

Malicious hackers have followed suit. A report last year said Spanish authorities had detained a man who write a Trojan horse that secretly activated a computer's video camera and forwarded him the recordings.

"

Can you imagine confidential business meetings from now on where everyone is expected to haul out their phones and pull out the battery, leaving both lying on the table?!

Technically, very neat, but from a right to privacy point of view, seriously frightening.

Bring back my ISDN connection!

Every time I drive crawl through rush hour traffic, I think of what an impact a decent broadband system in SA would make to the economy, with many people being able to work from home.  Just yesterday I wrote the following in reply to a UK based customer complaining about our quote for a 2Mbps connection to the UK:

>The cost is approx 6 times what we would pay in the UK > for the same circuit – I know bandwidth can be
>  expensive in South Africa but is this the best price
>  available or are there any other options?

Considering telecoms pricing in general (driven primarily by Telkom's continued monopoly of local loop and international gateway) is acknowledged to be 10x higher than it should be, and that Seacom (due in 2009) are proposing prices of 15x less than Telkom are charging the likes of Storm for IPLC's now, 6x what you're paying in the UK is bloody good!  There could conceivably be some crowd prepared to cut their margins to ridiculous levels to better this, but I would not buy from them myself.

>do you have an uncontended 2mb ADSL option?

No such beast in SA.  DSL is a contended technology anywhere in the world.  The difference being that in places like the UK you can pay more for a "low contention / business" DSL as opposed to a "high contention / consumer" DSL.  Here, we're stuck with the "consumer" version where the telco refuse to quote contention ratios. 

An here is what my 512kbps DSL line looks like today folks as I write this from my "home office":

ISDN used to give me 64kbps or 128kbps day in and day out.  I cannot access my fileserver.  I can hardly pull mail.

Telkom's quoted speeds for this line:

Down stream line sync speed minimum 416kbps; maximum 512kbps and up stream: minimum 192kbps; maximum 256kbps.

And the Telkom Product Manager for DSL had the bare faced cheek to tell me (when I suggested he differentiate his products based on contention ratio's) that he was not going to degrade his perfectly good product just to charge less!

Gah! Love to know what parallel world he is living in.

Storm sale.

OK.  I can finally say it.  We've sold.  And yes, it is to Vox.  

Mixed feelings.  A part of my soul will be forever attached to the Storm brand and I'm feeling a sense of loss.  But I'd be kidding myself to say I joined up to grow old with Storm.  I'm not a corporate man and I'm more suited to the chaos & stresses of Startup than the order and stresses of Corporate process and politics.

I have no idea where I will be in a few months time, but I'm quite comfortable with that.

One thing I can say is that I've learned that one can do a lot with a team of competent people who learn to trust each other and play to each others strengths.  Stormers are a great bunch & I salute the lot of you for getting us to this point.

ITWeb article(s)

Business Report article.

The press release from Vox:

Vox Telecom to buy Storm

It is official. Vox Telecom will buy Storm, one of its biggest rivals in the least-cost-routing and VoIP market.

Vox Telecom has announced its intention to buy Storm Telecom in a R360m deal. Storm Telecom provides telephony and internet services, including voice over IP (VoIP), least cost routing, international call-back, virtual private networks and internet access, hosting and security to medium and large-sized South African companies.

It has over 6,000 contracted customers and monthly annuity income of over R22 million.

Vox Telecom will integrate Storm’s telephony business into its subsidiary Orion Telecom, the data business into corporate ISP DataPro and the consumer ISP business into consumer ISP, @lantic Internet

“Storm is a major player in the voice and data markets, with a very strong VoIP platform and customer base,” says Vox Telecom CEO Douglas Reed.

“They also bring VoIP skills that are complementary to ours. The acquisition strengthens our stated strategy of establishing Vox Telecom as the preferred telecommunications alternative to the domestic incumbents. It will considerably improve our position in the VoIP telephony market and augment our corporate customer base profile and market share.”

“This is a very positive development for Storm’s customers as they will be able to still benefit from the current Storm services, but will have a further advantage from the economies of scale that the larger Vox Telecom group offers”, said Willem van Rensburg, CEO of Storm Telecom.

“There will be a seamless transition from a customer perspective, with the same products being supported by the merged entity, but they will also be able to take advantage of the other products and services available from Vox Telecom.”

“We continue to look for acquisitions that are strategic, accretive to earnings and allow us to improve our scale and strategic positioning in the South African telecommunications market”, says Vox Telecom Executive Chairman Tony van Marken. Storm is in our strike-zone and is an excellent fit with our existing businesses.”

Van Marken says the deal also offers “significant synergies once the businesses are integrated. Storm is a significant asset to add to the Group and will be a key contributor to future growth and earnings.”

The R360m purchase price is to be funded through a combination of debt and equity financing. The deal is still subject to approval by the Competition Commission and other regulatory bodies including the Reserve Bank and the JSE.