“Telecom carriers have long grumbled that they spend a fortune building the world’s data networks only to watch the U.S. tech giants reap most of the benefits,” Thomas Seal reports for Bloomberg. “Now they fear Silicon Valley will take away their customers too.”
“BT Group Plc is warning of a near future in which telecom operators’ crucial connections to households and businesses are usurped by companies such as Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google or Apple Inc., depriving them of the chance to sell them the other services that underpin their profits,” Seal reports. “‘Telecom services are increasingly integrated into wider competing ecosystems based around platforms,’ said Cathryn Ross, director of regulatory affairs at Britain’s dominant telecom company. ‘In this world, the end-customer might not have a relationship with the connectivity provider, but might have a relationship instead with, say, Apple or Google or Amazon, who would provide connectivity as part of a wider bundle,’ Ross said late on Wednesday in a lecture at the Institute of Directors in London attended by industry figures, regulators, economists and lawyers.”
“Ross’s remarks show the telecom companies are anxious that Big Tech could next buy up and resell conventional network access, adding data packages to video subscriptions, music and other content in one bill and breaking the link between telecom companies and their customers,” Seal reports. “‘Part of the interface has definitely been taken over,’ said James Barford at Enders Analysis, citing the popularity of Apple’s Facetime video calling.”
MacDailyNews Take: And Apple’s Facetime audio calling.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The dumb pipes are right to be worried. We’d very much rather be using Apple Services on Apple iPhones than some random network’s arbitrary “content offerings,” thanks.
The Dumb Pipes sat on their hands and did not try to make any of their services or hardware:
1. Easy
2. Logical
3. Convenient
4. Reasonably priced
5. Enjoyable
6. Consumer friendly
Case in point; Virtual SIMs
And BTW, the my link to TelCo companies was broken a long time ago in a galaxy far away.
They never figured out how to actually add value to their “dumb pipes.”
Translation:
“I, Cathryn Ross, am on the side of Capitalism only when it works for me, not when market forces benefit my competitors.”
I’d add that carriers refuse to compete on pricing to consumers until they’re absolutely *FORCED TO* by the changing market. By that time the customer has already moved on to another service/product…companies that are tone-deaf deserve what they get..