The end of the integrated carrier incumbents began the instant voice was digitised and set free from the analogue prison of the proprietary bearer, copper, RF or other.
From that moment on, the service subsidising the network was in decline. When you had to have a wire, or a string between two cans, to carry the cash cow of voice, you could milk it. Once any old infrastructure would do, it was doomed. This is the source of all the hysteria of QoS, IMS and other "complications," its a way to keep out competition.
Telco 2.0 have a series on the subject, so far:
- The communications industry is part of a distribution system for bits — ones and zeros.
- Those bits have value to the users, and sometimes (but not always) there is payment for those bits.
- There are many “bit delivery systems” (e.g. broadcast, Internet, SMS) with varying degrees of vertical integration. The weaker the integration, and the more modular the technology, the more vendors there are and the more control the user has.
- There are also many degrees of commercial integration between the services and the content delivery, with payment varying from fully integrated and automatic (e.g. SMS) to completely separate (e.g. fixed-line Web).
- Strong technical forces are separating bit delivery from the services those bits represent.
- The under-explored territory is where that separation occurs technically, but the commercial side remains integrated.
The Telco 2.0 ‘Business Model Map’