The IT Skeptic - Comments for "VOIP is not cheating anyone. It is simply the future arriving."

validated by McKinsey

skeptic — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 20:52:09 +0000

it is nice when one of the IT Skeptic's points is validated by thinkers such as McKinsey

"companies do better when they embrace the change as a transformation of their business, not a simple technology upgrade.
Telcos should use the shift to IP as an opportunity to rethink their operating model"

broadband business competes with metered long-distance

skeptic — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 05:49:19 +0000

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Top phone company AT&T Inc. shrugged off concerns on Tuesday that it would need to build a more expensive, all-fiber network to handle an expected surge in high-speed Internet and video traffic. "Our view at this point is that we're not going to have go 'fiber to the home.' We're pleased with the bandwidth that we're seeing over copper," Chief Financial Officer Richard Lindner told a Credit Suisse conference.

"On average, at this point, we're producing about 25 megabits (per second). But in many many locations, we're producing substantially more than that."

While this is great and shows telcos getting into broadband so they can recoup their copper investment through something other than analog calls, the other worry that I didn't mention is that AT&T still derive revenue from those long-distance calls so their broadband business (by aiding and abetting VOIP) competes with their metered long-distance business. As I have discussed before, I worry that this must drive non-competitive behaviours in the way that the broadband unit manages VOIP traffic.

Some get it, some don't, some can't.

skeptic — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 00:15:16 +0000

Yes some telcos are more agile than others. And some are more financially able to walk away from the analog equipment and the copper wires.
The main issue here is whether telcos see VOIP as a way of cheating the system (i.e competing with metered long-distance calls) and try to suppress it, or embrace it as a new market that will drive their broadband IP revenues. Some get it, some don't, some can't.

P.S. I'm not the other side of the pond, I'm the other side of the midriff

There's disruption and then

Visitor — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 00:02:57 +0000

There's disruption and then there's disruption. Take a look at what the folks are doing on the other side of the pond: http://digg.com/tech_news/UK_Moving_to_Internet_Telephone_system