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Customer-owned Networks: ZapMail & Telecoms
sasha writes "Here's a good article that describes how we, the consumers, can play the role of competitors to the vendors of products and services we buy. The author draws a parallel between FedEx's ZapMail failure and current situation with VoIP and WiFi in regard to the phone companies."
But it failed to point out that the big players in the telecom game are already well aware that their product (voice services via copper) are already obsolete. Why do you think the big boys (MCI, Sprint, Qwest) have such massive investments in the internet backbone? They recognize that the future of communications isn't land-line telephones, it's massive internet backbones. This is where every major player in the telecom game has banked their future. They're not idiots sitting in a smoke-filled conference room with no vision -- these people understand that their revenue stream on the internet side will ultimately replace their revenue stream on the consumer / voice side and they are already geared for it.
The point is that switching to the internet backbone for your voice services doesn't hurt them -- it simply moves your service from column A to column B on their balance sheet.
-- People who hate Windows use Linux. People who love UNIX use BSD.
Don't the phone companies already have pretty good control over internet access? Dial-up through the phone lines, DSL kind of goes through there too, and the cable companies are either phone companies or closely related to them. Once the phone companies lose the revenue stream from over charging us for phone access, they'll just charge us more for internet access. Well, I guess they'll do that either way.
The problem that faced Zapmail doesn't translate here. Zapmail failed because Fed Ex didn't own the underlying technology behind it, the telephone wires. Fed Ex had to buy the technology, the line and the fax machine, just like its customers. That's why the pricing never made sense, since nobody would pay the Fed Ex premium when they could go directly to the source.
That analogy doesn't work here, because the telcos own the underlying technology. Once they bundle phone and internet together, you have both no matter what. Sure, you can cancel the phone, but why, you've already paid for it.
Take my case for example, I can only get SBC DSL here. I don't like SBC's phone service, so I want to quit. Well, that's too bad for me, because I can't. In order for my DSL to work, I have to have SBC phone service. Since, I can't get a cable modem, I'm stuck with the service.
You're comapring apples and oranges. Don't think that today's Type 3 plain-paper "just plug it in and it works" fax was like the fax machines of 1984. Those fax machines costs thousands of dollars, had poor quality, were difficult to set up, and required lots of maintenance for their toner replacements and special fax-only paper.
The reason we have easy to use cheap fax machines today is that there was a market for difficult expensive ones 15 years ago. The same thing happened with radios, calculators, and, of course, computers.
Today's VoIP and WiFi installations are cheaper and easier than they used to be, and will be both cheaper and easier again by the end of this year. Comparing a mature technology with one still in early adoption phase, and concluding that the latter has no chance, is to mistake the acorn for the oak.
-clay