Qwest de-regulating ATM, Frame relay, QMOE, SST‏

Qwest is in the process of mailing letters to customers who own ATM, Frame Relay, QMOE, and SST OCx private line regarding the FCC decision in Jul 2008 which eliminates dominant-carrier regulation of certain interstate services. Since most of our customers are ISPs / Service Providers who have one or more of these services, I thought I would give you a heads up about this before you get the letter.

First of all, let me say that we do not expect any negative impacts to our customers, in fact it will likely result in some positive benefits over the coming year. The biggest impact will be that we will be using different contracts for the services which are being affected. Since Qwest is removing the "legal" info from the tariff website, they will need to replace it with a master service agreement which is called IPLANS (Interstate Private Line and Advanced Network Services) agreement. Qwest is also sending customers a copy of the month-month IPLANS agreement in case their service is not on a term plan. Assuming Qwest gets approval (which we expect), the effective date for this change will be April 15th, 2009.

We do not expect standard pricing to change for these services but this could lead to better pricing for large deals over $5k MRC in value which we run through offer management.

Here is a complete list of the Qwest products being de-tariffed:

· Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)
· Frame Relay ( 256k and higher )
· Local Area Network Switching Service (LSS) (grandfathered)
· Synchronous Service Transport (SST) -including EoS
· Self-Healing Network Service (SHNS) -including EoS
· GeoMax
· Qwest Metro Optical Ethernet (QMOE)
· HDTV-Net

Regarding how we will be dealing with contracts:

Customers will need to sign new contracts -the Agreement and product-specific Service Exhibits and Pricing Attachments before you can make changes to existing M2M or term contracts, install new QC data products ordered prior to de-tariffing, place new orders for any of QC data products listed above.

You will need to sign a contract amendment to add a new Pricing Attachment for each subsequent service ordered under an existing product-specific Service Exhibit. And will need to sign a contract amendment to add a new product-specific Service Exhibit (and Pricing Attachment) to order a different QC data product.

If you have questions, please feel free to contact your CTG3 account manager and we will be happy to share any information we have about this with you.

Dave


Dave Laskowski
Senior Partner - CTG3
(425) 458-4070
dave@ctg3.com
www.ctg3.com

Updated Bandwidth Builders presentation

I created an updated presentation on Bandwidth Builders.

http://www.bandwidthbuilders.com/FileLibrary/presentations/bbPresentation/bbpresentation.html

..enjoy!

TMC invites CTG3 to be member to 2009 advisory council

Well, we must be doing something right. TMC has also asked us to be a member of the 2009 Agent Advisory Council. Our first meeting will be during the 2009 Channel Partner Conference in Las Vegas.

PS: Let me know if you plan on attending this show and if you would like to get together.

dave

Qwest invites CTG3 to be member to 2009 advisory council

Qwest has asked us to serve again on the 2009 Advisory Council.  I will try to keep my blog updated after each of our meetings this year.

dave

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The Qwest Business Partner Program Advisory Council is a group of Business Partners that represent a diverse set of business models, regions, and sales expertise. The role of the council is to advise, recommend, and inform QBPP sales leadership on issues facing our Partners and to help create solutions that benefit the program and its member Business Partners. Updates on the Advisory Council's topics and progress will be published on Q.Partner for your reference.

How Can You Interact with the Council Members?
The Advisory Council members have agreed to be the "voice" of our Partners, and are open to hearing dialogue from the Qwest Business Partner community. We encourage your dialogue with the Council, however please use discretion in handling your comments and frequency of communications

Internet Basic for Bandwidth Builders

Qwest has introduced a special product for Bandwidth Builder partners called "Internet Basic". This service is less expensive than the standard Qwest MSN offering but only provides Internet access and no email accounts.

The service is available to residential customers in speeds of 1.5-20mbps including the new Qwest Fiber to the Node service (FTTN). The service is billed directly to the end user with a special discount code on the account.

This can be a great solution for service providers who sell applications such as VOIP and email and need to provide high speed Internet to their customers at a discounted rate. All sales of this service are also eligible for Bandwidth Builder commissions which provides upfront spiffs for each DSL orders.

For more information visit: www.bandwidthbuilders.com