I wrote in this post 5 years ago
“Quick name some of the hottest technology and business opportunity areas around. Would you say:
- Globalization
- SaaS
- Mobility
- Collaboration
- Telemetry (GPS, RFID etc)Telcos are bang in the middle of each of these. They are going to be selling billions of mobile phones in India and China and roaming minutes and hotspot coverage to all of us as we travel globally. They will be hosting and connecting massive SaaS grids. They will be delivering video and other content across growing broadband markets. They are linking rapidly growing eBay, amazon, Open Source and other communities. They will be carrying messages across billions of sensors.”
All that has transpired and each of those line items continue to offer huge opportunities.
So, it is sad to read in BusinessWeek
“Investors are valuing European telecommunications stocks at the same level as European utilities, according to Bloomberg data. The dividend yield of 5.81 percent is the same for both the Bloomberg European Telecommunications Services Index as well as the European Utilities Index.
"It's a pity, but it's true that telcos aren't seen as growth stocks," said Boris Boehm, who helps manage about 1.1 billion euros at Aramea Asset Management in Hamburg.
Revenue growth also shows why investors have shunned mobile operators. Apple's first-half sales rose 39 percent and Google's 23 percent. Vodafone Group Plc's first-half organic revenue increased 1.8 percent, France Telecom's slipped 1.2 percent.”
and the suggested solution to the anemic growth? :
“Finding a way to extract revenue from content that flows over networks may depend on government regulation. That effort got a boost in December when French industry minister Eric Besson said he would seek to ensure that "services that occupy the largest part of our networks contribute to the deployment and maintenance of those networks."
U.K. culture minister Ed Vaizey has also said he's open to operators charging content providers for access.”
Yeah, that’s the trick…
Reagan once said about Washington’s attitude to business: “If an (industry) moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it” and you can see what Washington has done to reconsolidate our telecom landscape over last few years to the detriment of consumers.
Think Brussels and London have a little more sense?
