The Fire Alarm

VZ has stopped letting ISP's resell FiOS even though their own penetration with FiOS is at 20% (far below what they promised Wall Street). That was the warning bell. The fire alarm is going off now that AT&T has released Retail DSL Promotions far below any wholesale resale contract pricing. And they have dropped pricing on Naked DSL - no phone line needed for just $15 to $20!!! And ISP's don't even get to resell Naked DSL!

Oh, wait, there's more. AT&T has dropped pricing on U-Verse too! 12 month Promo offer, NO Contract, No Early Termination. U-verse 3meg / 6Meg / 12Meg / 18Meg ....... are all $24.95 / month with a $29 activation fee. No charge for router/CPE installation.

Now if that isn't a fire alarm going off in your head, you might want to check in with a doctor.

If you weren't selling value-added services to either make the customer sticky or to create a bundle to market, you better start now.

Back-up, desktop support, managed security, firewall, IDS, managed server, secure email, Blackberry service, Hosted Exchange, etc. even SAAS options.

Moving clients to T1 will be hard since the perceived speed of DSL are "faster". But you need to get a few Metro E clients too.

Some of you will run to cable to switch your subs over to cable. Mark these words: Consumer broadband is a fight between the Duopoly. You are caught in the middle. Cable will do what the ILEC has done very soon.

If you HAVE to be in consumer broadband and you don't own the network, you will need a better plan. Like Now!