More Hell As Nortel Races To Zero
December 22, 2008
Telecom powerhouse, Nortel, is facing a devastating series of punches, can it recover?
The Wall Street Journal reported that Nortel has sought Bankruptcy advice in the event that it is unable to complete restructuring plans. Stock price promptly plummeted (trading at press time in the 22 cent range).
That would have been bad enough, but now Nortel has received a delisting warning from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), that they must bring their average share price above $1 within the next 6 months or face being removed from the NYSE. All of this framed by a recessionary economy and a sudden drop in sales.
This has been a difficult year for Nortel and other traditional phone system manufacturers, but it was a fantastic year for cheap open source phone systems systems from Asterisk and FreeSwitch. IT departments are becoming increasingly comfortable with the features and flexibility of open source systems especially given tightening budgets.
Will Nortel be able to pull a rabbit out of the hat? Or will they fall victim to the changing economy, consumer fear, inexpensive open source alternatives, and possibly a bankruptcy court?
Major Internet Cables Severed - How Bad Is It?
December 19, 2008
3 of the 4 submarine cables carrying Internet data across the sea floor have been inexplicably severed. There has yet to be an indication of sabotage or any other malicious intent, and most user in the United States remain unaffected; however, the potential for this to become a world-wide data fiasco if the remaining cable is cut or overwhelmed remains a possibility.
Many VoIP based Call Centers in India are reporting unacceptable call quality or are completely off line. Other companies have lost their private data networks and are attempting to access the less secure public Internet. Internet speeds have been impacted sporadically around the globe.
United Kingdom network carrier, Interoute Plc, reports that 75 percent of the data traffic between Europe, America, and the Middle East has been impacted by the cuts.
Asia and the Middle East seem to have been hardest hit with over 80% of India out of service at one point. Attempts are being made to reroute traffic. It may take until the end of the year for repairs to be made.
The cuts reinforce the dependency we all have on the Internet and how fragile the world’s Internet backbone really is.
Homesource Your Call Center
December 11, 2008
No doubt about it, when auto industry executives hop aboard their private jets to beg for congressional handouts, times must be tough. The sad thing is that for most of us, there won’t be a bailout check to keep us floating. It is up to the rest of us to react to market conditions as we see fit and hope that we have done enough to save the family business.
For thousands of companies, boosting the bottom line has resulted in layoffs of employees and closing offices. More often than not, those workers are inCustomer Service. It is true that big money can be saved by shutting down a contact center, but it comes at the risk of driving away your customers and reducing your sales. Tough decisions need to be made.
There are many notable examples of companies who have ruined their reputations by making it too difficult to reach a customer service agent. In the chaos of the current economy, good customer service is a positive differential that keeps you ahead of the competition. Fortunately, there is something that can be done to lower costs and still maintain service levels. The option that I’m going to float to you today is to send your employees HOME to work! This has been an option for quite some time (often referred to as Homesourcing, Virtual Call Centers, or Remote Agents), but fear of change and loss of control have dampened the practice. However, that is beginning to change as companies attempt to cut costs by ever more creative means.
New Voice Over IP (VoIP) options make it easy and less expensive to route calls and work to remote employees than old public telephone options. In fact, some VoIP and SIP providers make the portion of calls that you place between your office and your remote agents free, further reducing the cost of virtual employees. Terminating calls to customers with Voice over IP systems (VoIP) is almost always cheaper than old school PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) options. Read more
Telecom Monthly - December: Merry Crashmas
December 5, 2008
Editor’s Note :
Happy Holidays everyone!
Jingle bells, Wall Street smells, finance laid an egg. Oh what fun it is to watch our retirement slip away. . .
That may not be the way the song goes, but it sure did feel that way last month. It was a hard month to find something to be thankful for. December didn’t start off much better; as we were preparing this month’s newsletter word came that the United States did in fact enter into recession . . . a year ago! Well, hit me on the head and call me lumpy. I’d never have guessed what with all the layoffs and bankruptcies. I thought things were going just peachy. Read more
Ho Ho Holiday Layoffs
December 5, 2008
Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like a pink slip. Yesterday, workers heard that Telecom Industry behemoth, AT&T, would layoff 4% of its workforce (12,000 people). Shudders of fear rushed down the spines of already skittish communications workers across the country.
We have been watching CNET’s Tech Layoff Scorecard with perverse curiosity since it was first posted in late October. When we noticed the huge addition of AT&T, we couldn’t help but post this link again. The telecom industry is moving into a new phase in this recession; it will be most interesting and terrifying to watch what happens through the beginning of the new year as everyone adjusts to decreased orders, increased bad debt, and a need to cut costs.
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