You can call this post my version of SEO bait to hurt someone’s page rank or a simple rant where I pick on a guy who’s just trying to get ahead but I would like to think of this as me taking 12 minutes out of my day to dissect one of the dozens of “expert” testimony emails I get each day. Today, I heard from Karl Volkman except it wasn’t from Karl, it was from a PR company. Here’s the information for the PR company that emailed my adam@dailytechtalk.com address which I keep active and is redirected to my current address.
- Ashley Gonias
- agonias@empowerpr.com
- Empower Public Relations
- 625 N. Michigan Ave. Ste 2500
- Chicago, IL 60611
- C: 312.593.6689
Here’s the email I received from Ashley:
Is Verizon Destined to be the Next AT&T?
The Newest iPhone Carrier Experiences Problems on their NetworkThere is no arguing that Apple’s iPhone is one of the most successful phones ever. It’s also no secret that AT&T has difficulty providing service to the millions of iPhone users. The slow data and dropped calls created a large uproar in the AT&T subscriber community. Many were hoping for relief form the service nightmare that is AT&T when Verizon announced their plans to carry the iPhone as well.
But as many are experiencing now, Verizon’s iPhone coverage is not a dream come true either. Tech expert and Chief Technical Officer of SRV Network, Karl Volkman notes, “iPhones consume large amounts of data, more so than any other phone that came before it. Obviously, the cell companies did not anticipate correctly the amount of data usage and traffic that would swarm to their network once the iPhone was released. AT&T received a terrible reputation as a result and it seems that Verizon is experiencing some of the troubles that AT&T faced.”
Verizon customers are now encountering a full network and slower response times on many iPhone and for some blackberry users. Is this the beginning of the end for the “largest and most reliable wireless network in the country”? Only time will tell.
Please contact me if you would like to speak with tech expert, Karl Volkman.
Thanks,
AshleyAbout SRV Network, Inc: SRV Network, Inc. is Microsoft Gold Certified partner that offers a variety of IT services, including a variety of flexible service packages that meet any client requirement, from as-needed technical help to intensive, regular on-site work. They work with all technology platforms and have a broad expertise in a wide variety of technology solutions. They specialize in Network Design and Implementation, Network Maintenance and Monitoring, Disaster Recovery and Prevention and IP Telephony.
I’ve never heard of Karl Volkman before and decided to poke around a bit because his claim that Verizon’s network was “experiencing troubles” isn’t a news bit that I’ve seen lately. I subscribe to a few dozen tech blogs and haven’t seen it but I also did a quick Google news/blog search for some key terms and came up empty.
Is this link bait? You bet!
I tried to find more info on Karl and found a few Facebook pages that were using these “news pieces” as notes like this one on June of 2010. It looks like this is the Facebook page for Racing Crow Managed Backup which has the same address as “SRV Network, Inc.” (Karl’s other company). Racing Crow on Facebook has 157 people that like it which isn’t bad for a small Managed IT Services firm in Chicago. They also have a Twitter page operated by “Brian Swanson” with 1,800+ followers but as I wrote in this post last year, any account that has a nearly equal number of following versus followers is using a “get more followers” tool and each of those followers isn’t organic so don’t be too impressed. People following 1,200 and have 5K plus followers is believable but following 38,000 and having 40,000 followers is the work of a hack that Twitter has tried over and over to close.
Moving on.
Our “tech expert” Karl actually runs a blog at http://blogger.srvnetwork.com/ and, after doing some checks, it appears that each of the posts are unique and not copied so that’s a score 1 for Karl. However, 9 posts since November is hardly pushing the limits on blogging. Then again, there are no rules to this so I’m not going to judge.
The thing is, beyond the Facebook page and Karl’s blog hosted at his company’s managed services IT firm, http://www.srvnetwork.com, I couldn’t find any other websites calling him a tech expert or using his name.
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What it appears is that Karl and his friend Brian (and hopefully a few other employees) have a standard run of the mill IT company in Chicago. I worked for an IT company doing Windows SBS installs & maintenance and maintaining managed services offerings. This is a pretty standard operation they have including the Microsoft Gold Certs & Small Business Specialist label and Karl’s plan for growing the company is a standard one for companies these days. The goal is to run a blog that talks about what you know. You write about technology, people find it and they may end up using your services.
A success story (and those are few and far between) of this method is http://laughingsquid.com/. Scott Beale has managed to create a brand of passionate fans / followers / readers and he has driven the success of his hosting company based on the brand “LaughingSquid” and the blog is updated daily with really interesting things. In fact, I’ve worn my LaughingSquid shirt all over the world and everyone recognizes it. I went on a date with a girl in Columbus and she knew of it, a British guy in an Amsterdam pub recognized it and a club kid in Miami bought me a drink and then begged me to give him the shirt (off my back). Scott did his branding the right way.
What Karl Volkman is doing now is driving his brand by paying a PR firm to “spam” media labeling him as a tech expert hoping we’ll write about his claims and thus send traffic back to his blog with a result of driving sales of his managed services company.
This is a noble effort but, it seems that this has yielded zero success so far based on my searches of him on Google. Hell, Karl Volkman’s blog or company aren’t even on page 1 of Google for his name.
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I did respond back to Ashley and asked:
“Where is there documentation showing that the Verizon network is suffering? I haven’t seen this in the news or press? Please provide reference material backing up these claims.”
She responds:
The Detroit Free Press writer just wrote a story about how Verizon’s performance with dropped calls is much better than AT&T’s coverage the but the data is slower to load on Verizon’s network.
“Verizon does have one major drawback: Its network is much slower than AT&T’s. In my testing this week, I was often able to approach a data download speed of 5 megabits per second on the AT&T iPhone. Verizon was several times slower, usually managing to cross 1 megabit per second, but not always.”
Also, the Chicago Sun Times wrote a story about the same exact situation. Please see the link below
Also, some consideration should be taken into account that many of the users who are suspected to cross over to Verizon’s network haven’t done so yet because of the expensive fees that are involved with breaking contracts. There have been many stories published about how many more users will be attracted to Verizon’s network now that they are offering the iPhone.
Sigh.
What she and “The Incredible Volk” (Karl’s self-assigned nickname) are talking about is the known difference when comparing HSDPA+/UMTS or (Evolved HSPA) via AT&T’s network as compared to Verizon’s EVDO service. It is true that the iPhone 4 on AT&T compared to the iPhone 4 on Verizon will yield different results as it’s known that AT&T’s network is faster at this moment. The truth is, if you are running an iPhone 3G or 3GS, the Verizon iPhone will be faster because it does not take advantage of AT&T’s “Evolved HSPA” which was rolled out in June of 2010. 3G/3GS versus iPhone 4 on Verizon will yield Verizon as the winner.
Once Apple releases an iPhone that takes advantage of LTE (4G) which has already began roll out on Verizon, it will be faster than AT&T until they start rolling out their version of 4G which will also be LTE. This may even allow Apple to sell the same iPhone to both carriers and unveil a truly carrier independent phone but I’m getting off track here.
Links to back up my claims:
- http://www.ihasapple.com/2011/02/03/verizon-iphone-vs-att-iphone-speed-test-results-att-3g-is-faster/
- http://www.wired.com/reviews/2011/02/verizon-iphone/?pid=749
- http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/02/verizon-iphone-review/
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The point is Ashley and Karl have taken words written by the great Andy Ihnatko and Mark W. Smith and turned them into a claim that Verizon’s network is hurting now that the iPhone is on it. This is absolutely untrue. The iPhone 4 on Verizon’s network is slower than the iPhone 4 on AT&T’s network for now and this is a fact that was known long before the iPhone was released and affects all data using phones that Verizon carries as well as the limitation that you can’t use the cell carrier’s data network while talking on the phone on Verizon but you are able to on AT&T.
I hope that Karl Volkman didn’t invest too much time or money fabricating these claims because he certainly wasted my time with this spam that ended up in my Inbox.
