GoogleWorld 2010

GoogleWorld 2010 appears in the December 2005 issue of Total Telecom (subscription required)

The article summarizes the main points embedded in our scenario Google World: How the Phone (and almost everything else) Became Just Another Web App

1 December 05

War of the Worlds - Who Gets Broadband's Profits?

Telecom is colliding with unfamiliar new competitors threatening to disrupt its broadband future — Our War of the Worlds series of publications covers strategic developments in the growing competition for broadband-related profits between telecom, media, consumer electronics, software, and retailing.

As an umbrella, thematic piece it sets forth our point of view on a number of strategic issues. It also serves as background to other, very narrowly-focused reports in this ‘War of the Worlds’ series, ranging from sector-specific investment theses, to product strategy and economics in, for example, enterprise communications markets (PBXs, corporate communication servers, etc.).

12 October 05

War of the Worlds - Part I: Broadband 2010

Five scenarios for the year 2010 illustrate a wide range of ways in which a multi-industry collision over broadband’s spoils might play out. Some scenarios exact a heavy price on telecom as it is outflanked by new, unfamiliar competitors. Others illustrate new opportunities, not just for telecom, but for adjacent industries as well.

12 October 05

War of the Worlds - Part II: Telecom's Uphill Battle

The near-term worries for telecom strategists include another round of sharp decline in the legacy wireline business, and wireless’ and broadband’s shaky ability to shoulder the load of growth expectations.

12 October 05

War of the Worlds - Part III: Beyond Networks

Telcos face their greatest challenge and opportunity – envisioning and implementing alternatives to their historically successful, but regulation- and network-centric business models.

12 October 05

War of the Worlds - Part IV: Broadband's New Playbook

Telecom has the potential to play to its strengths, maintain a balance of market power vis-à-vis non-telecom industry competitors, and establish itself as an essential “marketplace” hub between connectivity and applications.

12 October 05

Full-Service Network: Telecom’s Lost Decade

The full-service vision was largely video-centric, with an eye on the still-fragmented and debt-burdened cable industry as a threat in the “battle for the wire.” Fearing they might be relegated to transport services, while others “up the value chain” helped themselves to the multimedia booty, telcos decided to cut to the head of the line.

10 October 05

Consumer DSL: Are US Carriers Crying Poor All the Way to the Bank?

Equipment providers and carriers are crying out for regulatory intervention to jump-start the depressed telecom industry. Chairman Powell is jawboning carriers to increase their equipment purchases. But for the business that matters most to US incumbent carriers’ long-term future – consumer broadband – business is good, growing, and about to get much better.

• Carriers have talked themselves into believing DSL is a ‘bad’ business—in fact it is the already-profitable way out of an otherwise dead-end future
• DSL profitability is higher than early models suggested—key costs, operational efficiencies, and high prices are leading to unexpectedly good results
• The new “core business” of incumbent carriers is to do for broadband what they did for the PSTN—extract maximum long-term value as a utility

1 October 02