Saturday, November 18, 2006

Telco - Uninspired

Joan Engebretson writes an opinion piece for Telephony where she describes telecom management as uninspired, lacking BHAG's (Big Hairy Audacious Goals).

Much of the leadership in the telecom industry today appears driven by the cautionary tale. If you don't convert your networks to IP, you'll be left behind. Consolidate your OSS or die. In other words — do a great job, and you won't fail. To say it's not very inspiring would be a supreme understatement.

One has to look a lot harder today to find inspiring telecom initiatives. Telco TV comes close — but it's shackled by the walled garden approach that the telcos are taking toward it. Imagine a brain storming session at a telco TV planning meeting. “We could create a browser to find cool videos on the Internet.” “No, we don't want to do that.” “We could help people create their own video content and share it with other users.” “No, we don't want to do that.” Indeed, telco TV initiatives are driven more by the cautionary tale — if we don't do this, the cable companies will eat our lunch.

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