Whatever happened to users' voices?

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: STEVE TAYLOR AND JIM METZLER ON WIDE
AREA NETWORKING
07/07/05
Today's focus: Whatever happened to users' voices?

Dear networking.world@gmail.com,

In this issue:

* Where did the telco user groups go?
* Links related to Wide Area Networking
* Featured reader resource
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Today's focus: Whatever happened to users' voices?

By Steve Taylor and Jim Metzler

Over the past 20-or-so-years, consumers of telecommunications
services - including corporations, enterprises, government, etc.
- have often banded together in formal and informal
organizations for the common good.

In general, there have been two major functions served by these
organizations. The first function, which was particularly
important during the more monopolistic era of
telecommunications, the organizations used their collective
clout to influence the services being offered by a relatively
small number of service providers. While falling short of
"collective bargaining," these organizations were taken quite
seriously by the service providers, and the collective power of
these organizations helped shape the telecommunications
landscape.

Several of these organizations help national and regional trade
shows as a significant part of their mission. Some of you will
remember the International Communications Association (ICA), the
Tele-Communications Association (TCA) on the West Coast, and the
Communications Managers Association (CMA) in the Northeast.

The second function of these groups focused more on education
and advancement of new technology. For many years, the ICA held
an educational institute each summer. Additionally, special
interest groups formed around new technologies, starting with T1
(Independent T1 Users' Associations), plus user groups formed by
the Frame Relay Forum and the ATM Forum. The ATM Forum's
Enterprise Networking Roundtable (ENR) was especially active in
the early and mid 1990s.

Now, to the best of our knowledge, the vast majority of these
organizations have vanished, and we're feeling a great void.
Why? Maybe there's no longer a burning need to promote new
technologies. More likely, in leaner telecommuications shops,
we're guessing that there are fewer resources available, so
these volunteer organizations are finding it almost impossible
to find staffing.

Admittedly, there are still some user advocacy organizations
around, but not to the extent that we saw 10 or 15 years ago.
Several of these are focused on specific vendor's products. But
we'd like to hear your thoughts on whether these organizations
are still needed.

Is there a dire need for these organizations - so that need to
help get the word out? Or are they quickly becoming as
irrelevant as a 212a modem?
_______________________________________________________________
To contact: Steve Taylor and Jim Metzler

Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates
and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. For more detailed
information on most of the topics discussed in this newsletter,
connect to Webtorials <http://www.webtorials.com/>, the premier
site for Web-based educational presentations, white papers, and
market research. Taylor can be reached at
<mailto:taylor@webtorials.com>

Jim Metzler is the Vice President of Ashton, Metzler &
Associates, a consulting organization that focuses on leveraging
technology for business success. Jim assists vendors to refine
product strategies, service providers to deploy technologies and
services, and enterprises evolve their network infrastructure.
He can be reached at <mailto:jim@ashtonmetzler.com>
_______________________________________________________________
This newsletter is sponsored by Nokia
Empower Your Mobile Enterprise

Nokia believes that business mobility will fundamentally change
the way work gets done-and for the better. To allow the entire
organization to get the most from this paradigm shift in
productivity, Nokia Enterprise Solutions focuses on delivering
increased efficiency through enhanced mobility. Learn more by
downloading this white paper today!
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=107735
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