Technology planning, for operators, is the traditional start of their budget cycle. While budgets are usually calendar-year, technology planning typically starts in the second half of September and runs through mid-November. The priorities for each of these planning seasons sets the tone for spending not only in the coming budget cycle, but for several cycles … Continue reading What Issues Shape Operators’ Tech Plans for 2020?
Activist investors are always the bane of company management, and AT&T is surely no exception. Elliott Management bought a stake in the company, and that sent AT&T’s stock on a rally. Elliott thinks that AT&T has lowered shareholder value through its aggressive M&A, and management (not surprisingly) disagrees. The question is who’s right and why, … Continue reading Can an “Activist Investor” Manage AT&T Better?
Network operators are going to both offer cloud computing services and adopt them internally, but the question is “How?” It’s now looking like internal applications for cloud computing are influencing operator cloud planning more than expected. Last week I talked about AT&T, which is about the only provider I can really talk about in specific … Continue reading A Broader Look at Operator Cloud Plans
Recently I had a friend ask me why some things I’d declared as failures were considered successful by the media. The obvious reason is that something that’s good for publicity is good to the media; their standard of success is different. The less obvious reason, and one just as pervasive, is what I’ll call “success … Continue reading Software-Defined Telecom and Success by Subtraction
I mentioned in my Monday blog my mock political debate on “smart versus dumb pipes.” Now it seems that the industry is heading for a reprise of that same issue, which is a good thing because it was never really resolved. The obvious question is whether there are new ideas behind the old question, or … Continue reading Smart vs Dumb Pipes: Are We Still Fighting That?
Verizon and ATT had long marched to different strategic drummers, and nowhere is that as obvious as in their streaming video strategy. AT&T launched its DirecTV Now as a mobile and wireline live TV service, supplementing its DirecTV satellite acquisition, and Verizon stayed with linear FiOS TV. Now, Verizon has done a deal with (gasp!) … Continue reading Taking Another Look at the US Carriers and Broadband Services
Live TV was for years the Golden Goose of wireline services, but we all know what happened to the Golden Goose of fable. The same thing may be happening to live TV according to a Light Reading piece. I don’t agree with everything in the article, but I do agree that the forces of the … Continue reading Could Linear TV Really be Going Away?
Evolutions are comfortable and revolutions less so, but it’s pretty obvious that in many ways we’re facing a revolution in networking. And yes, network technologies are among the things that are changing radically, but the foundation of the revolution is fundamental changes in the role of connectivity. Those changes are impacting both the consumer market … Continue reading Does New Demand Mean New Positioning or New Strategy?
Another MWC has come and gone, replete with the usual spectacular hype and theater. At the end of the day, what did we get out of it? One good way to answer that is to explore what the financial industry thought. While they’re no less biased in their views, the fact that they’re biased in … Continue reading Is MWC Showing it’s Age?
Light Reading did a nice piece on Google and their new hire to head the telecom, media, and entertainment piece of Google Cloud. John Honeycutt came from the TV side, the Discovery Channel specifically, and so he’s much more a content guy than a cloud service guy. Specifically, he was in charge of IT, media … Continue reading Decoding Google’s Cloud Executive Announcement