Text Box: Continued from Page 4 While avoiding a more than 50% increase in USF fees is certainly good news for end-users, the bad news is that the FCC tentatively announced on December 13, 2004, that the USF contribution factor for the first quarter of 2005 will be raised from 8.9% to 10.7%. For the past several quarters, the FCC has kept the USF contribution factor relatively stable by using surplus collections carried over from previous quarters to partially offset future USF needs. This was not done for the first quarter of 2005, resulting in the substantial contribution factor increase. To the extent that such surpluses do not become available again, or USF revenue does not increase, the contribution factor may remain at an elevated level.

Text Box: efforts. The committee believes that the reason for the STC’s Top Ten showing was due to Google adwords traffic being picked up by the major search engines under the Telecom Consultant category. Special Note: Committee work is one of the most rewarding ways to become involved with the STC. These committees welcome interested consultants and VAC representatives to sit in on their conference calls. For a list of upcoming meetings and dial-in information, contact Cathy Cimaglia at stchdq@stcconsultants.org.

The Education Committee is researching certification options. The committee has invited comments and feedback to help create an index to aid members in locating a certification program that may benefit them.

This index will group certifica-tions by discipline. Each entry will show cost, time required, where and how to obtain any necessary training, and types of work enabled by the obtained designation.

The committee needs to learn of specific programs or designations that might be of interest to other STC consultants. Contact Diane Brown at comlink@frontiernet.net for more details, or to offer insights.

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before you can expect the re-wards to come to you.

Real Benefits

Consultants are more likely to recommend equipment and services offered by providers who are familiar to us on the cor-porate level whom we can trust to make our recommendations look good. Similarly, consultants looking to fill out project teams are more likely to contact other consultants who are familiar and trustworthy.

The STC is truly unique in its capability to offer both its consultants and its VAC organizations opportunities to build connections that can create that familiarity and trust.

STC Membership

Legal Update

New Practice Manual

Task Force

In its December 9 meeting, the STC Board authorized the formation of a task force that will dedicate itself to optimizing the use of the STC Practice Management Manual as an organizational asset.

The group will be led by Henry Baird and will look at web sites of similar professional organizations to learn the most common ways that they have chosen to treat documents such as the PMM with respect to presentation and pricing, including CD, download, and hardcopy format options.

The task force will also review the PMM document for timeliness and consider the most advisable revision plan. The task force will recommend a plan of action after considering the pros and cons of internal-only versus internal and external availability, web site capabilities and broad-scale web promotion opportunities.

Earnings

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specific vertical markets.

In light of the longer-term is-sues surrounding wide scale en-terprise investment in upgrading voice telecommunications equip-ment to accommodate the advan-tages of IP-telephony, the most dynamic segment of the equip-ment market, at least in terms of sales activity, is likely to be in small IP-PBXs.

Avaya, Cisco, EADS Tele-com, Interactive Intelligence, NEC Unified Solutions, Nortel, ShoreTel, Siemens, Toshiba, and others, are all active in this IP-PBX space, and with their in-volvement should follow good earnings opportunities all along the value chain, particularly for specialty applications providers in support of contact centers.

Certification Options