Monday, July 09, 2018

Do More than Re-bill

FISPA grew by being a volume buying group (mainly for BellSouth, later AT&T and then some cable programs). However, most programs are shifting away from wholesale and volume buying. AT&T is pushing either the APEX program for each service provider or a commercial agreement.

The ISPs want a true wholesale program to resell cable, DSL and fiber as their own. This has been the desire of ISPs since 1999 when DSL hit the market. This is at odds with the desire of the Duopoly. Neither cable nor ILEC want to resell their network for wholesale rates to ISPs. The Duopoly wants to own the customer; same as the ISP does.

As I have said many times before, Layer 1 or Layer 7. Either build your own network - fiber, wireless, whatever - or bundle better! SaaS providers have a higher multiple on exits than telcos or service providers.

ISPs like the simple business plan of re-billing someone else's network. I get it, but that model is coming to an end.

The current FCC UNE Forbearance petition by the USTA (ILECs) says that copper is going away. Facilities-based CLECs are in danger after the sunset of UNE, since prices will increase 15% at least -- and who has an extra 15% margin??? Not many when the main selling point is price.

Layer 7 means Bundle Better. You need a triple play or quad play that is NOT the same as the Duopoly.

I've written about bundling before many times. I can just assume that everyone likes just being a smaller replica of the big guys with the motto, "We suck less."

Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple (GAFA) have more value than any Duopoly company - maybe the 4 GAFA have more market value than all 10 duopoly providers. They did it without becoming ISPs -- except Google who did the Google Fiber project to force the Duopoly's hand.

You can to.

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