The recession is projected to wane in 2010. That’s going to impact the communications industry, and providers in new ways. Investment strategies are shifting, along with business models. In this edited transcript, Mike Jude, program manager in the consumer communications services group at Stratecast, a division of Frost & Sullivan, delves into some of those changes.
Several sectors, including hosted VoIP providers, have enjoyed growth during the recession. What should they do to continue that growth in a recovery?
Mike Jude: For carriers and operators generally, the big thing is turning into what I’d call integrated or blended services. This notion of being like a single service provider or offering one or two components of the triple play, that’s not going to work much longer. The focus strictly on service delivery, especially with competition increasing from just about every direction, is kind of a prescription for failure. So, generally VoIP providers, conventional POTS providers, cable providers – all of those entities need to start focusing on the service layer and especially integrated services.
Which telecom sectors are best poised to take advantage of renewed spending in 2010?
MJ: Right now it looks like the cable MSOs are getting into a position to take advantage of increased spending. They have, over the last year, made a huge investment in digital cable, DOCSIS 3.0 infrastructure. They’re in a position to provide very high bandwidth for Internet access, with much more highly refined interactive capabilities that allow you to control what’s going on in your video delivery. In terms of being able to build some of the more attractive packages they’re probably in a good position right now – although, I have to say the IP-enabled carriers are doing some fairly creative blended services as well.
Do you think there are any products/services/technologies that are on their way out so much that we might even see their death in 2010?
MJ: Nothing ever really goes away that fast although we’re going to continue to see the fairly rapid exit of things like 56kpbs dialup service. Broadband is becoming relatively ubiquitous. Dialup is likely to decrease, and probably some of the service providers that specialize in that will go away. We’re also seeing the decline over time of conventional POTS over wireline, primarily due to cable operators that provide an alternative. The analog-focused technologies have diminished over time and we see that continuing.
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