Wireless And Telecom Analyst Sees Big Industry Changes Coming
The wireless, telecommunications and technology industry is going through a major transformation
. In the next several years it will no longer look like the industry that we have watched and know.
The leaders will change. New ideas that we have not even tried today, and new companies to offer them may not even be on the radar yet.
What will tomorrow look like? Where should you invest, be customers of or work for? The right choice today will make you happy and successful. The wrong choice will leave you miserable, cutting your losses and looking for an exit. We've been there before.
This is not the first time this has happened. One decade ago the telecom industry looked much different. There was a long distance industry with companies like ATT, MCI and Sprint leading the way. The wireless industry was analog meaning you could make a call and that was it. No wireless web. The web was new and email was in its early stages.
Telephone companies offered telephone service and did not compete with cable television companies. Customers had to buy separate services from separate companies in separate sectors. We were customers of different companies for local, long distance, wireless, Internet, cable television and so on.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was the rules going forward for local and long distance companies to compete. That is the world we thought was going to exist today.
Today the industry looks much different. Within the first few years of competition, the local phone companies won. Think about it. There is no more long distance industry. The separate industry sectors have combined. Today you can buy all the services from one company like ATT, Verizon or Qwest. CenturyTel is acquiring Qwest and it will be interesting to see how things change for that company.
Today local telephone companies compete against the cable television industry. Companies like Comcast, Time Warner, Cox and Cablevision offer the same similar bundle of services.
Today you can shop at one company and buy all your services. Telephone companies offer telephone, wireless, Internet and television. Cable television companies offer telephone, Internet and television, but no wireless. They tried wireless by partnering with Sprint a few years ago, but failed.
Clearwire is a new company with a new wireless high speed Internet service for your laptop. Unfortunately they are only in thirty-odd cities and many of them are not the big cities. They may grow in importance.
So what is changing now? Look at the last four years. Apple has transformed the wireless smart phone space with the iPhone. They are not even a wireless company, yet today they are on fire in the wireless space.
Google is not a wireless company, but they are building right behind Apple and offering their Android service, over a number of networks and make by a number of handset makers.
Dell is a computer company, but now also has a smart phone. Lenovo said they will follow. All of a sudden the wireless industry is being led by non-wireless handset makers.
Companies like Nokia which once led are now shrinking because their brand does not cover smart phones. Samsung, LG, HTC are all trying to be successful in the smart phone space. Motorola is actually making headway partnering with Google Android.
Past leaders like RIM and Palm are also at a pivotal place. Apps, those little programs you install on your iPhone have grown from a few hundred just four years ago, to a few hundred thousand. That is amazing growth.
Most employees, investors and customers just don't know what to make of all this change. They find it difficult to keep up with this level and number of industry reshaping events.
Ten years ago we didn't know this is where the industry was headed. Four years ago we never heard of an iPhone.
So where will we be in another five years or ten years? We think we know, but we don't have a clue.
Much of what this industry will look like in the next several years depends on what is happening today in the marketplace, in Washington DC with the FCC and Congress, where the opportunities will be and who will be competing.
The number one question we have to answer is how do we keep the industry innovation in high gear, while protecting the consumer at the same time. We have to walk very carefully through this minefield. We don't want to blow the legs off this fast growing and changing industry with overburdening and restrictive regulations and taxes.
by: Jeff Kagan
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