The Telephonosaurus
Regardless of whether Qwest Communications or Verizon Communications wins the MCI bidding war, the challenge facing the industry will remain the same: survival.
When AT&T split up in 1984 the pot of gold was assumed to be the long distance revenue, with the Baby Bells being the poor country cousins. But the universe didn't unfold that way. As I and a few others predicted in the mid-'90s, long distance voice revenue would evaporate in about a decade. In the digital world, long distance is an oxymoron.
The future for local phone companies could be equally bleak. Life was good a few years ago when homeowners were installing second phone lines for the Internet and fax machines. But now tens of thousands of landlines are being abandoned monthly as users turn to cable modems, e-mail and cellular.
Cable companies now offer bundled television, Internet and voice services, but the phone companies can't retaliate by offering the same. Despite best efforts it's still not possible to move high-quality video over a phone line. And around the corner is WiMax -- broadband wireless that works like 802.11 hot spots except the hot spot is up to 30 miles wide. A few well-chosen WiMax distribution points could blanket a city with full broadband service, giving consumers a means to bypass the phone (and cable) system completely.
So as dramatic as the changes have been in the telco industry during the past 20 years, even more upheaval will happen in just the next five. Its most distinctive new characteristic is that it will be brutally competitive.
Does the telecommunication industry have a future?
There is some money to be made in owning and managing the national data pipes. Phone companies could be the leaders in exploiting the new wireless technologies such as WiMax, except for the reluctance to cannibalize their existing business, which is always a problem for incumbents. One advantage they have, because of size and geographic reach, is that they can provide seamless connection to the Internet whatever device the consumer has, wherever he goes. Customers don't care how the bits get to them -- all they care about is cost and functionality. If these carriers focused on providing Web-tone with the same reliability that we expect from a traditional telco (99.999% availability) they would be offering a service that no one else can replicate.
The much bigger profit lies in the networked applications the pipe delivers. In the business market, a company's software and expertise in exploiting new information and communication technologies can confer decisive competitive advantage. Enterprise customers are demanding. They want high quality, reliable service and tools, and ongoing assistance to extract maximum value.
Any Papa Bell's biggest competitor will not be another long distance carrier but companies such as IBM, Accenture and increasingly Asian service providers. These companies haven't gone through the demoralizing cost-cutting exercises endured by the long distance carriers. Their focus has been more on innovating new services and building customer relationships, something the carriers haven't been doing.
The consumer market will follow a similar path. The old business model was to hook your customers through your monopoly of the wires into his premises, and then exploit his high switching costs by loading him with more and more services, bundled in more and more arcane, opaque ways. But as customer choices expand, this abusive strategy collapses. Tomorrow's success will stem from real innovation, and execution in bringing a steady stream of genuinely useful applications and services to the market.
If you could listen to the flow of digital bits around a home today it would be a quiet whisper. Soon it will be a load roar, as hundreds of devices in the house communicate and co-coordinate with one another. Already your wireless iPod sends the latest playlist to your home entertainment system, as your personal digital recorder downloads the entrants from the Sundance Film Festival. There will also be big money made in orchestrating all this technology, and right now its up for grabs. Will it be Verizon or Best Buy?
Mr. Tapscott, CEO of the consulting firm New Paradigm, is coauthor, with David Ticoll, of "The Naked Corporation: How the Age of Transparency will Revolutionize Business" (Free Press, 2003).
电信业竞争展望
不管在对MCI的竞购中是Qwest Communications还是Verizon Communications获胜，电信行业都依然面临生存挑战。
当美国电话电报公司(AT&T)于1984年被分拆时，长途业务被认为是个聚宝盆，而小贝尔公司(Baby Bells)是弃之可惜的鸡肋。但事情并没有如此演变。90年代中期笔者和其他几个人就预言，长途语音业务的收入将在约10年内消失。在数字世界中，“长途”失去了意义。
本地电话公司的未来也同样黯淡。几年前当很多家庭开始安装第二根电话线用于互联网和传真机连接时，本地电话公司的日子过得很滋润。但现在每个月都会有数以万计的固定线路被弃置，因为用户们已开始转向有线调制解调器、电子邮件和手机。
有线电视公司现在可以提供电视、互联网和语音捆绑服务，但电话公司无法进行回击。而且，电话公司也依然无法通过电话线提供高质量的视频服务。WiMax正在走进我们的生活，这种无线宽频服务的工作原理类似于802.11标准，但覆盖宽度最多可达30英里。只要天线设置点选择适当，几根WiMax天线就足以覆盖整个城市的宽频服务，使得消费者可以从根本上绕过电话（和有线电视）系统。
因此，尽管过去20年电信行业发生了剧烈变化，但未来5年可能发生更多翻天覆地的变化。最显著的新特点是竞争将极其残酷。
电信行业有未来么？
谁能拥有和运营全国性的数字传输网络谁就有机会挣到钱。电话公司可能会在采用WiMax等新的无线技术方面成为先锋，除非它们不愿牺牲现有业务，而这正是大型电信运营商们存在的一个问题。电话公司拥有的一个优势是庞大的规模和广阔的地理分布，无论消费者采用何种设备或身处何处，他们都能提供无缝连接。客户们可不在乎信息是如何传递的，他们只关心价格和效果。如果这些运营商集中精力提供与传统电话服务一样可靠的网络语音服务，他们的服务将无人能替代。
更大的利润来自借助网络提供的网络应用服务。在商用市场上，如果一家公司在开拓新的信息和通讯技术方面拥有独有技术及专长，那就拥有了决定性的竞争优势。企业客户的要求都很高。他们要求提供可靠的高品质服务和工具，以及持续的业务支持，以便使自己的投资创造出最大价值。
美国电话电报公司最大的竞争对手不会是另一家长途电话运营商，而是国际商业机器公司(IBM)、埃森哲(Accenture)以及亚洲服务商等。这些公司没有经历过长途运营商的大幅成本缩减，他们集中精力于服务创新和建立客户关系，而这正是电信运营商们忽略的。
消费者市场将呈现类似的演变。旧的商业模式是通过对电话线入户业务的垄断来获得客户，然后利用高昂的转换成本留住客户，并不断增加服务项目。但随著客户的选择余地增加，这种粗暴的策略已经失灵。明天的成功将源于真正的创新，以及能否不断地向市场推出真正实用的应用和服务。
现在，普通家庭的数字化程度或许还不高，但不久就可能成泛滥之势，将有几百个设备涌入你的家中，设备之间互相联通并进行协调。现在，无线iPod就已能将最新的歌曲播放清单传送至家庭娱乐系统，而个人数字录像机则会下载Sundance Film Festival的入选清单。所有这些设备的协调也蕴藏著巨大的商机，目前就是抓住这个机会的好时机。谁能抓住它呢，是Verizon？还是Best Buy？
编者按：本文作者Don Tapscott是咨询公司New Paradigm的首席执行长，与David Ticoll合著有《The Naked Corporation: How the Age of Transparency will Revolutionize Business》一书(Free Press, 2003)。
