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When Telecom Mergers Hit Home
netbuzz writes "A telecom manager submitted an essay to Network World that paints a sadly humorous picture of what the mega-telecom mergers really mean on the ground." From the article: "Well, when I heard that these companies were about to combine forces, it made my blood run cold. How would they be able to take, in each case, two companies with already broken processes and mediocre customer support and successfully merge them? How could they continue to provide me with the support I need to keep my company's networks functioning as they need to in this age of the bandwidth junkie? The answer ... at this moment, is they can't!"
The telecom's are far from a monopoly and I'll tell you why they are merging, survival. What is a telecom has expanded, the Internet broadened the term. A telecom is just someone with a pipe capable of delivering data. You can deliver almost any service over IP, so anyone who can carry IP traffic is a telecom. Suddenly Comcast and TimeWarner are as much a telecom as AT&T, SBC, or Verizon. Now the prize is also much bigger, its not just voice traffic, its voice, internet, and media (TV, radio, and movies). Bigger prize makes bigger companies because they need more resource to try to win. And more competition is, guess what, great for consumers! This is why we get IP phones for next to nothing, cellular with free long distance. If it were 20 years ago, I'd pay thousands of dollars a month talking to friends around the country, but not with my trusty cell phone. Also, you're wrong that monopolies are always bad for consumers. A monopoly in an industry with low barriers to entry is great for consumers, because the monopolist has to try really hard to keep it, and they have the resources to continously improve the product. Monopolies in industries with high barriers to entry usually are harmful.
The great thing about merging two incompetent companies is they usually collapse faster and make room for someone who can do what the customer wants.
We don't care.
We don't have to.
We're the Phone Company.
Now all we need is Lilly Tomlin to take those orders and we're all set!
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow
It sounds like you weren't around 20 years ago, you would know that AT&T of that time wanted to charge consumers when they hooked up a modem. It went to court and the ruling was the consumer had the right to either talk on the phone or send data over the phone. Shortly after that, AT&T was split up. The internet arrived because of competition not from a monolithic monopoly; however, all isn't that great. Back then my phone bill was ~$8 and right after the split it was ~$20. A ton of money was made during that time and the telcos had money to burn. It is pure speculation whether or not the internet would have evolved like it has today without breaking up AT&T.
As for wireless, you do know that all wireless communications (except same tower talk) goes over the land lines. You can't get away from the Telco just because you think its wireless or it as IP traffic.
t is regulation that creates monopolies, not deregulation.
Ludicrous. Reminder, this is the telecom provider market. That means there will ALWAYS be monopolies - its the nature of the beast, like road, sewer, water, and energy providers. Regulation of those natural monopolies creates regulated monopolies. De-regulation of those natural monopolies creates unregulated monopolies.
Pick your posion, but don't pretend that deregulation will magically prevent monopolies from forming in a market where natural monopolies are unavoidable.
The parent post really does give good advice. My provider (Speakeasy), for instance, uses its private network for all its VoIP and has decent QoS. So no, SBC can't degrade my VoIP traffic. Are they as cheap as SBC or Verizon? No, they're actually a fair bit more expensive. But that is how I choose to vote with my dollar. And when I left SBC I let them know exactly why I was leaving. Poor customer service, one arm of the company not knowing what the other arm was doing, etc. I've never, ever had any customer service issues with my current provider. It's definitely possible to find a provider that doesn't rely on SBC or Verizon, povided you live in a fairly major urban area.
They hate that. But it gets results.
Especially when you say "This call is being recorded for quality control purposes".