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Corporations must grow. They must increase their share price. They must continue to do more and more and more to get more money or they die. If you aren't growi

Corporations must grow. They must increase their share price. They must continue to do more and more and more to get more money or they die. If you aren't growing you are dead. True, although do they have to do that by trying to decrease service at every opportunity, and by trying to enter markets outside their core competencies? There's nothing wrong with being a big dumb pipe. For a cable carrier or telco, trying to do anything else will either divide the company against itself, or pit the company against its own customers. It could be argued that by trying to grow into inappropriate areas, the carriers are contravening their fiduciary duty.

fnid2 17y ago
Telecom is a red ocean. Too many providers and too few customers. To grow, they have to extract more out of their customers, provide less costly services (increasing margins) or venture into areas outside that red ocean. But blue oceans are uncharted territory. They are scary and risky and require a level of creativity that exists in few telecom companies. Most telecoms are so big that to grow at a rate above 1% would require massive opportunity. It's much easier to charge 1% more to all their customers or include a hidden fee or provide 1% less bandwidth. They've done that to an equilibrium now and breaking the deadlock with their competitors is destructive to their own organization. They can't cut costs because they don't have the margins. They can't raise rates because customers will go to a cheaper alternative. They can't reduce services because the FCC comes down on them. Remember what happened to comcast when they tried to treat bit torrent differently? It seemed reasonable to me. If the FCC wants to turn the internet into a transportation system, then they will need the equivalent of a weigh station, because the heavy trucks cause more damage to the roads.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  Ah, but the trucks are the same size and weight. There are just different numbers of trucks delivering different things. UPS, Fedex, and DHL all offer commercial delivery services. DHL is much smaller than the others (and so they have fewer trucks), but all pay the same prices per truck at weigh stations and for vehicle licensing. If they were data companies, UPS and Fedex would have more and larger servers (sorting and storage facilities) than DHL, but their packets (trucks) are treated the same way on the open road.

fnid2 17y ago

Telecom is a red ocean. Too many providers and too few customers. To grow, they have to extract more out of their customers, provide less costly services (increasing margins) or venture into areas outside that red ocean. But blue oceans are uncharted territory. They are scary and risky and require a level of creativity that exists in few telecom companies. Most telecoms are so big that to grow at a rate above 1% would require massive opportunity. It's much easier to charge 1% more to all their customers or include a hidden fee or provide 1% less bandwidth. They've done that to an equilibrium now and breaking the deadlock with their competitors is destructive to their own organization. They can't cut costs because they don't have the margins. They can't raise rates because customers will go to a cheaper alternative. They can't reduce services because the FCC comes down on them. Remember what happened to comcast when they tried to treat bit torrent differently? It seemed reasonable to me. If the FCC wants to turn the internet into a transportation system, then they will need the equivalent of a weigh station, because the heavy trucks cause more damage to the roads.

anigbrowl 17y ago
Ah, but the trucks are the same size and weight. There are just different numbers of trucks delivering different things. UPS, Fedex, and DHL all offer commercial delivery services. DHL is much smaller than the others (and so they have fewer trucks), but all pay the same prices per truck at weigh stations and for vehicle licensing. If they were data companies, UPS and Fedex would have more and larger servers (sorting and storage facilities) than DHL, but their packets (trucks) are treated the same way on the open road.