We all knew big telecom was stealing from us, but like indulgent parents, we let it tell a lie or two. We wanted to believe it when it promised to improve service. We forgave the pretense that bandwidth was scarce when we all knew it was as plentiful as rain.
Telecom often got into scrapes with the law. It acted in questionable and corrupt ways. Some of its leaders turned out to be criminals. It built an entire industry around defending itself in court, even writing legislation for lazy lawmakers. The large incumbents refused to fight with one another and instead created a cartel. Government tried to create competition, but like an overprotective mother, it couldn't just let the boys fight it out on the playground. It couldn't bear to see the incumbents get hurt.
Big telecom slept around a lot, professing love to many partners simultaneously, all the while fighting with them as competitors. It was abandoned at the altar more than once, and it suffered many failed marriages. It put on excessive weight.
The monthly letters it sent us in private were barely readable. It was always demanding more money, often in obscure ways, with its USF charges, 911 equalization fees, portability fees and emergency service fees. There was even a collections surcharge--in other words, a charge to cover the cost of taking our money. We got a headache every time we read those bills, but we just shook our heads and mailed the check, sensing we were being taken advantage of.
By 2005, it looked like big telecom had held the market by doing nothing and watching its competitors die. But just as local carriers were declaring victory, along came voice over broadband, then the cable operators and the wireless carriers paired up, and then the WiMAX vendors entered the broadband market. Toward the end, big telecom tried radical surgery--chopping off an arm here, lopping off a division there. But it could cut only so much before bleeding to death.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
