I've been pretty quiet lately. I spent a week in Vegas at the telecom agent conference at the RIO. Then I came back to find I had landed a consulting gig in Chicago. I attended VoiceCon in Orlando as well as a FISPA event in Orlando before packing up for the weekly commute to Chicago.
Vegas was busy. With telecom being broken (here and here), agents are scrambling to adjust their business model. Carriers want agents to sell more, but the cost of customer acquisition (in my experience) is going up, as commissions decrease. Also, because many carriers are an non-integrated mess, placing orders is a maze of guessing. AT&T (including BellSouth, SBC, and the old IXC, AT&T), VZ (including MCI, UUNET, and VZB), Paetec (USLEC and McLeod), Level3 (and all its subsidiaries), Sprint, Embarq -- it's just too difficult.
On my end, its looking like I quote about 10 circuits to land one, then get one disconnect to go with it. Net nothing.
So along comes a project to migrate a data center and circuits for a Fortune 500 company. Big money. 40 hours a week in Chicago. I had to take it. So where does that leave everything else?
Well, I still get email 2 or 3 times per day. I do not have access to the web during the day. (It is locked down). I just get email access on my laptop. So email away. My response time will be a little slower. (It may take 24 to 30 hours for me to get back to you, but I WILL get back to you). As long as I schedule calls, I can still talk to folks. (But most calls will be returned after 5 PM Central time or at lunch. Thanks for understanding. See you at ISPCON in Chicago on May 13-15. (I am speaking and will be there).
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