RE: "Bandwidth Advisors" - www.bandwidthadvisors.com
-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of Tim Pozar Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 6:58 PM To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: "Bandwidth Advisors" - www.bandwidthadvisors.com
Just got a call from "Tosten" of a company called "Bandwidth Advisors". They represent themselves as a "Independent Telco & Colo Consultants" (see web page).
Seems that they are calling around ISPs and asking them if they have an "agent" program. After talking to him a bit I find out that they will only recommend a company if they are getting a kick-back from the company. Sounds like a company to avoid if one really wants an "Independent Consultant".
Tim
They're brokers. There's really nothing wrong with what they are doing, although they may not have explained it to you too well. What they do is become an agent, or reseller, for a company and they get a residual on anyone they refer. So if you are a corp IT guy and you have no clue as to who's out there and what the prices are, these kinds of services "can" be useful. Almost everyone will give someone a residual for a referral, but you have to ask. :-) -M<
Hannigan, Martin wrote:
They're brokers. There's really nothing wrong with what they are doing, although they may not have explained it to you too well.
I guess not.
What they do is become an agent, or reseller, for a company and they get a residual on anyone they refer. So if you are a corp IT guy and you have no clue as to who's out there and what the prices are, these kinds of services "can" be useful. Almost everyone will give someone a residual for a referral, but you have to ask. :-)
Brokers are one thing. Consultants or "advisors" are another thing. I don't see anything on their web site that labels them as "brokers". I do see under their FAQ... Q. How does Bandwidth Advisors get paid? A. Bandwidth Advisors receives a small residual payment from the Telcos once the Client begins paying for the service. Nice to see it there. I know a bunch of consultants out there (me being one, Bill Woodcock, etc.) that do not take money from vendors they recommend. How can a client of a consultant really know they have the best deal when the "consultant" will not investigate all of the options out there? For those that don't know... I am now the COO of UnitedLayer. It sounds like, since I am not going to pay the "extortion" fee to Bandwidth Advisors, that their consultants won't know about our pricing and services. Even if I did pay the fee, that means that their clients can't get the best deal as I need to raise my fees to client to cover the "small residual payment" going to "Bandwidth Advisors". Tim -- 1978 45th Ave / San Francisco CA 94116 / USA // POTS: +1 415 665 3790 GPG Fingerprint: 4821 CFDA 06E7 49F3 BF05 3F02 11E3 390F 8338 5B04 "Be who you are and say what you feel because the people who mind don't matter and the people who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss
Tim, I hope you're joking. "Extortion" means something pretty specific, legally. There is absolutely no extortion going on here. The appropriate term is "agency". Its a pretty widely used concept in the business world. In terms of the integrity of Bandwidth Advisors or any other consultant - its caveat emptor. The party buy such services is responsible for asking about how the money flows and about vendor neutrality policies. The consulting Terms and Conditions should clearly state who the consultant is acting as an agent FOR - the carrier or the customer. This is just like Real Estate - the Seller's Agent may seem very nice and even help you out, but they work for the seller, not the buyer. Selling IP transit or other telecommunications services is a business. One of the great problems I've seen in the last ten or so years is that people tend to forget this and take things way too personally or emotionally. - Dan On 3/24/05 7:29 PM, "Tim Pozar" <pozar@lns.com> wrote:
Hannigan, Martin wrote:
They're brokers. There's really nothing wrong with what they are doing, although they may not have explained it to you too well.
I guess not.
What they do is become an agent, or reseller, for a company and they get a residual on anyone they refer. So if you are a corp IT guy and you have no clue as to who's out there and what the prices are, these kinds of services "can" be useful. Almost everyone will give someone a residual for a referral, but you have to ask. :-)
Brokers are one thing. Consultants or "advisors" are another thing. I don't see anything on their web site that labels them as "brokers". I do see under their FAQ...
Q. How does Bandwidth Advisors get paid?
A. Bandwidth Advisors receives a small residual payment from the Telcos once the Client begins paying for the service.
Nice to see it there.
I know a bunch of consultants out there (me being one, Bill Woodcock, etc.) that do not take money from vendors they recommend. How can a client of a consultant really know they have the best deal when the "consultant" will not investigate all of the options out there?
For those that don't know... I am now the COO of UnitedLayer. It sounds like, since I am not going to pay the "extortion" fee to Bandwidth Advisors, that their consultants won't know about our pricing and services. Even if I did pay the fee, that means that their clients can't get the best deal as I need to raise my fees to client to cover the "small residual payment" going to "Bandwidth Advisors".
Tim
-- Daniel Golding Network and Telecommunications Strategies Burton Group
----- Original Message ----- From: "Tim Pozar" <pozar@lns.com> To: "Hannigan, Martin" <hannigan@verisign.com> Cc: <nanog@merit.edu> Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 7:29 PM Subject: Re: "Bandwidth Advisors" - www.bandwidthadvisors.com --- snip ---
I know a bunch of consultants out there (me being one, Bill Woodcock, etc.) that do not take money from vendors they recommend. How can a client of a consultant really know they have the best deal when the "consultant" will not investigate all of the options out there?
how do you know that a consultant that you pay will investigate all the options out there? they may not be aware of all the options or may not want to take up so much time working on your deal, for example. good agents have the same reasons to find you a good deal as good consultants do - repeat business and good reputation in the industry. both bad consultants and agents exist who see it differently. comparing a well-respected consultant such as bill to a hypothetical bad agent is an excercise devoid of meaning.
Even if I did pay the fee, that means that their clients can't get the best deal as I need to raise my fees to client to cover the "small residual payment" going to "Bandwidth Advisors".
no, you pay their fee out of the same pot you use to pay your sales guys, your marketing guys (if you have any), your advertising/marketing expenses etc. they bring the deal to you, meaning you've spent $0 to acquire the lead up to that point. unless you operate on word of mouth only and do sales yourself (and pay yourself $0/hr), $0 < $your_avg_customer_acquisition_cost. in short, it's the customer's choice whether they'd like to do the legwork themselves, hire a consultant or use an agent who is paid by the seller. a consultant may find you the best deal, but if you're not buying much the overall cost per meg may be higher than list when you factor in the consulting fees, for example. using an agent in this case may make sense. some agents offer direct ports and do their own billing, so you can get a better price by taking advantage of the volume pricing they enjoy. the world is not black and white.
For those that don't know... I am now the COO of UnitedLayer. It sounds like, since I am not going to pay the "extortion" fee to Bandwidth Advisors, that their consultants won't know about our pricing and services.
i'm curious to see by what feat of logic you managed to classify what they do as extortion. they have leads which you may (or may not, as the case may be) want access to and are asking for compensation for access thereto. if you don't agree with the compensation, you don't have to do the deal. assuming an agent's clients are not intelligent enough to understand how agency works and further assuming that the agent is misleading their customers in this respect, i can see how it would be unethical from a somewhat idealistic point of view (which i happen to share). however, i posit that those two assumptions are rarely correct at the same time and are definitely not correct in this case as the quote from their website demonstrates. i think this has gone sufficiently off-topic at this point (assuming it was ever on-topic), so i'd like to request that replies be sent off-list. -p --- paul galynin
For those that don't know... I am now the COO of UnitedLayer. It sounds like, since I am not going to pay the "extortion" fee to Bandwidth Advisors, that their consultants won't know about our pricing and services. Even if I did pay the fee, that means that their clients can't get the best deal as I need to raise my fees to client to cover the "small residual payment" going to "Bandwidth Advisors".
Tim
Tim, Your completely free to hire your own sales people and advertising agency - if they do a good enough job you won't need someone like "Bandwidth Advisors". Of course those people are going to want some money - and nearly all sales people work on some type of base + commission basis. It's up to you to decide what is less expensive and better for you. Either one is going to cost you something. Sitting around waiting for people to come to you can also be pretty expensive if you have any kind of fixed expenses. Mark Radabaugh Amplex
participants (5)
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Daniel Golding -
Hannigan, Martin -
Mark Radabaugh -
Paul G -
Tim Pozar