Talk about mega-mergers! Vodafone AirTouch secluded in talks with Bell Atlantic. BT and AT&T pushing back the boundaries of their courtship. All quoting figures of thousands of dollars per subscriber leading to potential deals of tens of billions of dollars.
Such high-level financial deals create intrigue and excitement among investors and others hooked on speculation and the making of pots of money. It all helps to boost shareholder value, which is now apparently the prime focus of the players involved.
The logic behind such mega-deals is hardly compelling from the customers’ perspective. Acquiring massive market share creates economies of scale and muscle power, which may bring joy to shareholders. But the benefits rarely seem to filter down to the end user.
The business case for deploying tens of billions of dollars seems to revolve around the provision of seamless roaming between Europe and the United States. Sounds rather like second thoughts. If the business case was really that strong, we wouldn’t have ended up with different sets of standards in the first place. And the Iridium experience hardly adds weight to the argument.
Experiences from the wireline sector are none too supportive either. Global alliances have consistently failed to meet the stated expectations of their participants. The likes of Unisource and Global One have produced more bickering than business.
Globalization is almost an inherently alien concept in telecommunications. Telecom operators have been, are, and almost certainly will continue to be, largely structured along national lines. National governments rightly see telecommunications as a strategic political and economic resource. And for wireless communications, national governments own the radio spectrum, an invisible scarce resource, which modern alchemists are able to transform into pots of hard cash.
It’s all very depressing. Is the mobile communications revolution really degenerating into a commodity market for investors with a handful of monster players battling for supremacy? Has the mobile communications industry matured into a vehicle for boosting the coffers of national treasuries with regular injections of massive license fees?
The most depressing feature is the effect on people within the industry itself. The earlier enthusiasm, pride and pure excitement of helping to create better services and conditions for the whole community has now largely evaporated.
Or has it? The mega-companies busy with their mega-deals no longer bother to promote themselves within the mobile community. That means they no longer promote their vision to their own employees. A bad mistake. Excitement begins at home.
But excitement has found new homes. In the most unlikely places. Ex-PTTs in many countries are emerging as hotbeds of innovation and enthusiasm, exploring the benefits of mobile communications for their customers, communities, companies and countries.
If you want to replenish your enthusiasm for the potential of mobile, talk to people from ex-PTTs in Europe such as Telecom Italia Mobile, Portugal Telecom and Turk Telecom. They are not behaving according to the conventional mythology that is supposed to mold the attitudes of PTTs. And then talk to the South Africans and the Indians.
You will learn new visions for the future of mobile communications. Visions in which mobile becomes a mechanism for bringing benefit to society, not just to the shareholders of the giant players.
I don’t feel quite so depressed anymore.
