Besides the artificial distinction between local and long distance, name a fundamental difference between the services provided by AT&T, MCI, SBC, Qwest and the other major telecom providers. Gillette has an easier time differentiating its Mach3Turbo shavers from Schick's Quattros. "Innovation Is Gillette" is the company's rallying cry. "Survival Is Us" is more like it for the petrified progeny of the Bell system.
At least AT&T, which has faced real competition in long distance for two decades, has invested in the world's most extensive fiber optic IP communications network. Local operators like SBC and Qwest (the former U S West), having decided years ago to pump their monopoly profits into overseas boondoggles and domestic lobbying campaigns, still rely mostly on copper wires installed generations ago. SBC spent 42 percent of its revenue on construction and capital in 2001, but only 24 percent in 2003. Is it any wonder its business is a bore?
Although SBC and its Bell brethren have been upgrading their copper plant to provide broadband data services, they still derive most of their revenue from plain old voice, a commodity that would cost next to nothing were it not for regulations that prop up prices. Voice over IP will kill that cash cow, whether or not the former Bells participate. Then what? The consolidation growth strategy will work for only so long.
SCO's Last Stand
Speaking of industry has-beens, SCO Group last month won a temporary victory in its two-year legal assault on IBM when a federal judge ruled that IBM must turn over all its Unix source code for SCO inspection. What SCO hopes to produce from those 2 billion lines of code is evidence that IBM infringed its SCO Unix license by contributing pieces of that licensed software to the Linux development community. Will IBM now settle?
Making the jump from outdated legacy technology to a more modern digital infrastructure will allow businesses to innovate at the speed and scale needed in today’s marketplace.
The business world is speeding up. The longer IT leaders wait to get their needs met, the more at risk their businesses and their jobs will be.
By arming SD-WAN networks with end-to-end intelligence, analytics-driven predictions, and predictive automation solutions, IT teams can simplify infrastructure management and assure higher levels of quality experiences for users.
