i have to listen to the conference call.
there's something in the call about '5' deals/contracts, or whatever. i have to figure out what i think the exact context is.
the earnings report did not lift me at all. because i wasn't after numbers, but something fitting in with past quarters. well, i'd have liked a better match to last quarter. i did think if there was one more finalization bad (not really bad) quarter for exiting the wholesale market and adir, we would see it here. i can't tell you it was the last such quarter. i don't like the idea of those ntop shares going over to IDT. I finally have the idea that actually there is something very agressive about it -- assuming ntop can be very aggressive. if they are, they may hit globally every bit as well as vonage, and just possibly better. but vonage is good at going for it.
idt (international) and liberty media (international) shouldn't be downplayed, in the new context of VoiceLine -- competition to vonage at vonage's level. However, can ntop play vonage's aggression re rollouts as well as vonage. That should be taken in a context -- i think ntop was probably right in not being perceived as competing with u.s. tier 2 cable companies -- but providing them a service. [Vonage aggressively sought even more relationships with lower tier cable companies, and hasn't found them. They found lots of marketing outlets though.]
But ntop is a primary llne provider, not secondary or a pretend primary line provider like vonage. That's not meant to be a hack at vonage -- they have really done very well. But vonage has gotten all of one portion of a niche, and net2phone never defined success in it's niche. Except, now, there are apparently 5 something or others cooking.
Now, if were sneaky what i might think because VoiceLink was just announced, and ntop knows it has credibility issues and lack of faith issues, and they deliberately decided, knowing what msos they can mark up as theirs over the near term anyway, to THEN compete. Ntop management, as well as you or i, have seen what and how vonage did well.
But vonage is going to run up against a fence -- it may roll out to subscriber after subscriber, but the more it is successful, them more companies (new startups; voip companies; traditional telecom companies) will compete with a 'vonage' box. It's all income, once a subscriber subscribes, if you can manage calls. Some can; some won't do as well.
So there is a tactical situation appearing now, where ntop may have done the right thing. i don't think they planned it in advance; i think they had the foresight to move into the market with packetcable, and then realize there was a lot of pie (not pig) left.
so we're sitting on another rollout period; the certainly is 5 whatever (with the facesaving comment that 'we're even rolling out a little infrastructure). as far as i can tell (and i haven't yet heard the call), that's not 'actively negotiating with.'
i don't know what happens tomorrow; but if i was a bigger size investor, i'd look at what i looked at here. without the '5' comment, of course we'd retrace. we may, but it won't be sticky. and i lament the downside too.
if i transcribe the conference, i can't do it tonite. have to work on brought home work.
again, what i really didn't like was the ntop shares to idt (actually they are all being assigned to WinStar). but there may be something magical there. i mean by that something decent coming out of competing on two levels, aggressively. i can't tell you what ntop gets; but it gets the company to something better than what is in store for it without VoiceLink. Maybe it had prior magic; i don't know. i do know i feel the cable telephony opportunity is right. Perform.
next year is a different trigger. this is sign up of msos -- going to whatever ntop gets. next year though, there is going to be a lot of hype by a lot of companies that have entered the business, including from second half of 2004 rollouts and comcast and cox 2005 deployments -- about building up subsribers. different sort of take up.
that's the features of my thughts. i accept the but when relationship we keep seeing. i don't approve. i think a promise to us is one thing, and a negotiation is another. the bottom line is 5 somethings. well, we thought today they owed us 1 or magically 2, and they did.
i feel ntop is the best voip company/cable telephony company i could be in. that doesn't mean daytraders haven't taken it to the shorts. look at the comparatives, and there rise and decline. wholesale is a b*tch. cable telephony is a niche, and there aren't other players all the way up at ntop's level. doesn't mean that everyone wants them. i suspect ntop cuts a mean deal, and there is proving too that it helps a company generate income. that's the new feature. Prove. |
