[February 24, 2005]

Know Thy Keynoters: Michael Rouleau

By David Sims, TMCnet CRM Alert Columnist

On Friday, February 25 th, at 9:45 a.m. Michael Rouleau will deliver his keynote address to ITEXPO.

Michael A. Rouleau, Senior Vice President Business Development and Strategy, has been with Time Warner Telecom since November, 1999.

His extensive experience in the telecom and data communications industries has resulted in the successful implementation and delivery of many advanced and innovative products. In his current position, Mr. Rouleau is responsible for developing Time Warner Telecom’s strategic direction and integrating new services and technologies over the next several years.

Prior to joining Time Warner Telecom, Mr. Rouleau spent fifteen years with U S WEST, now Qwest, where he was responsible for the development, deployment and management of data, Internet and DSL businesses.

On March 19, 2003 Time Warner Telecom unveiled its "Metro Ethernet Services – Tomorrow's Network Today" strategy with new metro Ethernet products for large, medium and small business customers.

These high-speed, flexible metro Ethernet solutions that Time Warner Telecom calls Native LAN services were designed to deliver customers up to 100 times faster connection speeds at lower prices than traditional networks could offer.

"Our Native LAN products are available to all businesses in a wide variety of industry applications, including Internet access and storage transport," Rouleau said at the time. "Our metro Ethernet services are already serving more than a hundred customers throughout the country and are now available to over 3,500 buildings in 44 U.S. metropolitan areas in 22 states over our own local fiber optic networks. In addition, we can deliver service to customers in thousands of buildings near our local networks."

"A lot of carriers are delaying capital expenditures in the hopes of boosting short term financial positions, and that's a huge mistake, because it gives competitors with foresight the opportunity to take your customers away with broader and more cost-effective services," noted Daniel D. Briere, CEO of TeleChoice, a telecommunications industry analyst at the time.

Briere added that "Time Warner Telecom is not only willing to make that CAPEX spend, but they've already done it, and have launched and populated several leading edge metro Ethernet services. This raises the ante in the metro loop in all the markets where they offer service."

"Fiber into buildings is gold," Rouleau remarked at the time. "And Time Warner Telecom owns, operates and maintains more than 17,000 local and regional fiber route miles in the U.S. to deliver these capabilities to businesses today. What is critically important is that our Native LAN is a platform to deliver future Voice over IP solutions like IP Centrex, and voice VPN.”

David Sims is contributing editor and CRM Alert columnist for TMCnet.