At the Las Vegas CES show this year it was amazing to watch the strategies employed, it appeared as if Nokia was trying to preempt the launch of Google’s New Phone, which we learned later would be the Nexus One. Nokia told of its GPS feature which would be standard on its smart phone models – some ten different handsets in fact. And not just any old GPS, we are talking turn-by-turn GPS features. Move over Garmin, Tom Tom, and DeLorme.
Not only was Nokia doing a little tidy’ing up on the smart phone market share front, but also sending some shock waves through the personal GPS markets as well. The Ovi Maps software which run the Nokia turn-to-turn GPS system runs in 75 nations and you can speak to it with voice recognition software in nearly 50 languages. Can you say; “Ah, Hello artificial intelligence!”
Interestingly enough, did you know that Nokia made nearly a billion dollars in profit in 2009 and sold some 1.46 million handsets, and even with the market share attack now from Apple and Google in the sexy, and sleek smart phone space, 2010 appears good for Nokia in world-wide sales. Nokia’s Symbian 4 Operating System is quite the advancement as well, apparently attempting to not fall too far behind Apple’s 3GS iPhone.
In the future we can expect even more features, perhaps, holographic cell phone video conferencing, or perhaps, projection cell phone with mobile TV interface, anyway, if it can be dreamed, these personal tech gurus of science and industry will deliver, you can count on that, for sure!
I received an article today from a cell phone user in Alabama, and thought I’d share it with any agents who may sell cell phone service in the South. What it comes down to, is a choice between AT&T and Verizon, and they differ on coverage and 3G service….
“I know a lot of people these days are seeing Verizon Wireless and AT&T commercials bashing it each other. Well, I would love to tell you my view from each. I am from the state of Alabama and I rarely travel outside of the Southeast. From my part of the country when you decide between AT&T and Verizon you must choose between two things: incredible coverage or 3G.
I chose to go with AT&T for their incredible coverage. I could be in the middle of nowhere Alabama in a basement and get a signal from AT&T while my friend, who has Verizon Wireless, could easily get a signal in the city, but has no signal whatsoever while on the highway or out in the country. On the other hand if you are a business man who can afford bad coverage for great 3G, then Verizon Wireless is your best friend. Verizon has incredible 3G coverage in the city, and if you were to be able to get the iPhone on Verizon then I would suggest going that route. Overall though if you are looking for consistent coverage no matter where you are in the Southeast United States choose AT&T.”
If you are interested in selling conference calling and video conferencing, A+ Conferencing has what you are looking for. I’ve just put up a new article from A+ on our articles page, and there is a link to it on the bottom of this post. Here’s the first paragraph from the article about A+ Conferencing.
“A+ Conferencing is a full service audio, web and desktop video conferencing service that specializes in conferencing services for businesses and non-profit organizations. Founded in 2000 by Michael R. Burns, A+ has its own conference bridge network and deploys over 16,000 ports of audio conferencing with Avaya/Spectel, Polycom/Octave and ThinkEngine bridges.”
OK, here’s a really interesting product that is going to make someone a lot of money, but it probably won’t be you. A company called VoiParty is building a peer-to-peer IXC network. According to what their site says, if you join their program, for around $200, plus $30 more to be an agent, they will shares 70% of the profits with you.
To join VoiParty, you need to have high speed internet access and unlimited local service through another phone company. VoiParty then gives you unlimited phone service in the US and Canada, and uses your high speed internet service and local phone connection to sell call termination using Least Cost Routing for their client companies. They do this with a proprietary box that plugs into your phone service and high speed internet service, and routes long distance phone calls that terminate in your area though your local phone connection.
It looks like a really cool idea, except for a couple of things. I’m pretty sure your local phone company wouldn’t agree to terminate long distance calls for other companies without getting paid for them. That’s one of the ways that local companies make their money, by using their network to terminate long distance calls in their area. If all the calls start terminating through their network, but they’re not getting paid for the traffic, it may hasten their demise.
The second problem is that Google Voice is going to put all other VoIP companies out of business. When Google starts to give phone service away for free, why would anyone pay for it? If you want to take a look at VoiParty, check out their website: VoiParty.com
Birch Communications bought Cleartel’s local, long distance and internet customers last year. While they are billing Cleartel’s old customer base, and making money off of them, they are no longer paying commissions to the agents that brought those customers to Cleartel in the first place.
As telecommunications agents, we are used to dealing with telecoms going out of business, but when customers that we bring to the table are sold to other phone companies, but we stop getting paid, that’s just plain stealing. I don’t know what your contract with Cleartel said, but since those customers aren’t with Cleartel anymore, and you aren’t being paid commissions on those customers any more, they are now fair game again.
So, if you had a book of business with Cleartel Communications, and Birch Communications isn’t paying your agent commissions anymore, you should contact your old Cleartel customers and see if you can move them. Make sure you read your old contract with Cleartel first, to make sure you can legally do so, but if you can, do it!
PS. Move them all if you can, I’m tired of companies selling my customers to each other so that they don’t have to pay my commissions. It’s hard to feed my kids when they keep stealing from me so that they can increase their paychecks and their company’s stock value. (Shame on you Birch!)
Dan Baldwin, of the Telecom Association, gives agents a wake-up call with this video. He discusses where the money is in telecom, and whether applications like Google Voice, or application and hardware products like the MagicJack, are an opportunity for agents to make money, or are they the harbinger of doom.
If you’re a telecom agent, I think you need to watch this video, if for no other reason, than to save your business…
TelCentris is running an agent program, with features like 20% commissions for agents, up to 30% for master agents, no minimum sales requirements for agents, sales training, and an evergreen contract. If you have a customer base that is looking for SMS callback worldwide, softphones, worldwide local phone numbers, VoxPBX or VoxTrunks, then drop by their website and talk to an agent manager.
OK, I’m simple, with a messed up sense of humor, but the first time I saw AVAYA’s toll free number posted over at PhonePlusMag.com, I thought it said 866-GO-AWAY! I’m like, “Now that is some messed up marketing. I don’t know who they use, but they should be able to come up with something better than that.” LOL
Of course, what it really said was 866-GO-AVAYA… Which really isn’t much better. It still looks like some old Norwegian or Swede is telling you to “GO AVAY! Quit bothering me Sven, I haff verk to do.” Anyone else do a double take the first time you saw their number posted?
If you’re a telecom agent looking for more services to sell, NBS Voice has just what you’re looking for. They offer telecom services from all the big players like Verizon, Qwest and XO, and they have everything from local and long distance to VoIP and MPLS. One of the great things about NBS is that they don’t discriminate on the size of the agency. If you’re small, they’ll still take you on, and they won’t make you meet minimums to get paid. In other words, if you sell it, and they get paid for it, you’ll get paid for it. See the NBS Voice article for more information about NBS Voice, their evergreen contract, and what they sell, along with their phone number and other contact information.
Mike Burns, over at A+ Conferencing is offering agents some great ways to make money. Mike offers an Evergreen Telecommunications Contract, which means when you bring in a customer, as long as that customer stays with A+ and pays their bill, they’ll pay you. There are a lot of companies out there that have really crappy contracts that screw the agents blind, just read some of my earlier posts if you didn’t know that.
Here is a copy of Mike’s Conference Calling agent recruitment video from Youtube, if you want to give it a try. Teleconferencing and video conference save medium and large companies a ton of money over travel, and you can replace a full time, $50,000 per year income, with less than 10 good accounts. (There are companies out there using 100,000+ conference calling minutes per month….)
