When corporate customers think about their telecom providers, they tend to vacillate between optimism, confusion and concern. No surprise, considering how much the industry has expanded, then consolidated, since the 1980s.
But the mergers are making possible a panoply of sophisticated networking services, new billing and provisioning options, and data-/voice-communication possibilities.
The problem is, they remain possibilities. In telecom, possibility becomes reality much more slowly than its consumers would prefer.
The new supercarriers, including SBC, Verizon and Sprint Nextel, intend to become a single source not only for data, voice and wireless services, but also for sales, billing and management.
How will it all break down, and when will it all happen? Edward Cone maps out the new changes and the real possibilities in the story below:
Lead Story:
Telecom Merged and Converged: The victory of the supercarriers and the transformation of American networking
History of Assimilation: Twelve major carriers shrink to just three.
Deregulation Pays Off: The regulatory picture still looks good—for customers.
Tiny Chips and Lizard Brains: As tech gets smarter, so must the networks that may eventually connect billions of devices.