ManyMedia

Has Divestiture Worked?
A 25th Anniversary Assessment of the Breakup of AT&T

This looks like a fascinating–albeit short–event. Three panel discussions and a great lineup of speakers on the agenda. If you’re in New York, I highly recommend going.

UPDATE: If you’re not in New York, here’s the link to the stream! (Excellent, thanks!)

Events, Network, Policy, Scenarios ATT, controlling network, divestiture, Network, telecom

NY Times Market Watch has an article entitled Is Verizon Flying Too High Above Its Valuation? which describes something happening to all the Baby Bells to various extents:

With its alluring 4 percent dividend and aura of stability, Verizon Communications has been a stock market star in recent months. Shares in this telecommunications giant, formed two and a half years ago when GTE merged with Bell Atlantic, have jumped 40 percent since the end of September. The stock closed on Friday at $38.50.

To which Susan Kalla, an analyst at Friedman Billings Ramsey in New York, says pshaw. Ms. Kalla, perhaps the sharpest person covering telecommunications at a brokerage firm today, says Verizon is, at best, a $28 stock. It is showing no revenue growth, almost no profit growth; in short, its business is eroding, she said.

I did a paper on this last May (The Future of the Bells). The nature of telephony is changing in important ways, and yet the FCC seems momentarily poised to reaffirm the monopoly granted to the Bells some time ago. Does anyone think there’s any kind of collusion going on that the boundaries between each Bell’s territory is never crossed by each other?

Network closed networks, controlling network, Internet, Net Neutrality, open networks, ownership, Policy, telecom

The future is uncertain. A useful tool for looking into the uncertainty is a set of scenarios. Good scenarios explore the extremes of what is likely or possible (but they don’t forecast the future). This blog project uses four scenarios to explore the future of the Internet and communication as we have come to know it.

To start, I define two significant market and political forces that affect the Internet and shape my four scenarios: intellectual property laws and common carrier laws. Tying intellectual property laws to availability of content, and common carrier laws to the proprietary nature and uses of the network, these forces become axes that define four possible worlds:

• Many Walled Gardens: highly competitive, open content but a proprietary and restrictive network,
• Just Route the Bits: open and available content on an open and accessible networks,
• You Will: monopolistic, restricted content on proprietary, restrictive network, and
• The 10,000 Mickeys: monopolistic, restricted content on open and accessible networks.

These four scenarios help me understand where development of our telecommunications future is headed. I made blog for each axis (content and networks) so I can add news about forces that affect these scenarios. I also invite you to participate in the discussion on my related wiki.

Scenarios Boundary Spanning, choice, closed networks, controlling content, controlling network, Internet, Net Neutrality, open networks, ownership, Policy, relationships, Scenarios, telecom