Verizon should emulate pharma

BusinessWeek  "A doctor who spends just one minute with a drug rep ends up prescribing 16% more of the medicine the rep is selling. A four-minute encounter prompts a 52% jump in prescriptions."

Wow, talk about sales productivity!

Compare this to a reader's experience with a Verizon rep pitching their next-gen FiOS service

"Verizon has been selling FiOS in my town for the past year - even sending sales reps door-to-door to sell it. I invited one of the reps in to tell me why I should switch to FiOS.  One answer - and one answer only - "$10/month cheaper than Comcast".   Which is exactly the same thing every flyer that arrives on my doorstep every week says.

I asked about new applications, what I could do with FiOS that I couldn't do with cable, etc... - he was completely befuddled.  He seemed to be under the impression that FiOS is cable.  He was also surprised when I told him I'm not even a Comcast customer - I have RCN (which, in turn, is a good $20-30/month lower than both Comcast and Verizon - and offers higher bandwidth than both as well as (IMHO) vastly superior service).

If I were a Verizon shareholder I'd be more than a little bit pissed that Ivan Seidenberg is spending $23 billion building the first true Fiber-to-the-Home network - and can't figure out anything else to do with it other than screw Comcast with discounted 'cable' service."

In terms of emulating pharma,  R&D also comes to mind. Last year, BusinessWeek reported Verizon's annual report did not contain a single mention of the word "research". As I wrote around my recent experience with AT&T, it would be so nice to see innovative new services developed by telcos themselves versus those by others that they re-package.

Today, if you sign up for the premium version of FiOS  of $ 60 a month Verizon throws in on-line storage. But get this - a whopping 1 GB! Why bother? Even at EMC's pricey new storage as service, Verizon's "free offer" is lame. They can do much better than that.