PCs often have more power than users need. The same cannot be said of telecoms. Telecoms users, whether at home or in the office, often struggle with connections that are painfully slow.
That was not true when telecoms was mainly about voice. But interactive media such as digital TV and the internet are changing everything by shifting the emphasis from voice to data.
There are threats and opportunities for incumbent operators.
Providers of cable TV and telephony are seen by many as the number one challengers to incumbent operators in the digital era. This is especially true in the UK where the soon-to-be-enlarged cable operator NTL offers digital TV as well as cable TV and telephony.
Cable companies have several advantages. They already have high-speed cable connections into millions of homes and many businesses. So they can offer reasonably priced interactive services, such as internet connection, text information to go with TV programmes, online shopping and so on.
They also have experience of selling value-added services such as television which have the potential to provide better profit margins than plain old telephone services. And because they have a range of services they can package in different ways, they can offer better value for money.
For example, NTL's phone and cable TV package provides six channels (in addition to the standard terrestrial four) and telephony for the same cost as the monthly rental on a BT phone.
Another benefit for cable companies is that because they own a range of services they can in theory integrate them tightly to offer real benefit to consumers and business.
Jonathan Thompson, a director of NTL's interactive services division, says the company is developing simpler interfaces for connecting to the internet and digital TV and working on a common interface for connecting to its services whether from a TV set, a personal organiser or a mobile phone.
The cable proposition has its supporters, not least Microsoft which has taken small stakes in a range of cable TV companies around Europe.
To date, however, cable TV companies have failed to shake established operators' cosy position. That is partly because their services are not available everywhere - not every house has cable running up to it and cable is still a regional business in most countries.
So even if you liked the full range of services offered by a cable company, you might not be able to get it.
The current wave of consolidation in the cable TV industry, with a number of operators looking to become not just national but pan-European, will increase the threat to incumbents.
Also playing into the hands of cable operators is the fact that European telcos have been so slow to offer high-speed services into the home, with Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) representing the ceiling in most cases.
At a glance, a consolidated cable TV industry looks like the biggest threat facing incumbent telcos. But Virat Patel of UK-based PA Consulting says: 'Incumbent operators face a much bigger threat from new entrants offering access to interactive services over the local loop using Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) technology.'
Could this happen? Incumbent telcos still rule the local loop, the last stretch of cable into the customer's home. But according to Mr Patel: 'As businesses and consumers demand better access to the internet and other services, policymakers are starting to allow competitors to deliver their services using the incumbent's local loop.'
He points out: 'In the US, companies such as Covad and Northpoint have successfully started exploiting local loop unbundling opportunities (ULL) to target small and medium-sized enterprises (with ADSL services).' ADSL is also allowed over the local loop in Hong Kong.
Recent research by PA Consulting suggests that incumbent telcos are not fully aware of the threat posed by ADSL and new entrants are not aware of the scale of the opportunity. The research shows that the ADSL option is likely to be a third of the cost of the best business telecoms alternative - a fibre-optic network - and less than a quarter of the cost of bypassing the local loop with a high-capacity wireless broadband network.
For reaching residential customers, PA says ADSL costs less than a fifth of fibre and nearly a third of the cost of wireless broadband. 'It is also a less risky option for new entrants,' says Mr Patel, 'because the capital outlay is incremental and more closely linked to subscriber acquisition, in contrast to fibre-optic networks which offer higher transmission speeds but require a relatively large up-front capital spend.'
Mr Patel believes that ADSL with related technologies (collectively called xDSL) is a good compromise between today's relatively low-speed ISDN and expensive leased lines. ADSL can download data at 1.5 to 9 Mbps and upload it at up to 640 Kbps on local loop lengths of two to four kilometres.
'Perhaps this is why most incumbent telcos have been slow in rolling it out seeking to maximise revenues from existing ISDN and leased-line investments,' he says. He expects ADSL to become a key local access technology for local entrants and incumbents in deploying high-speed internet and multimedia services.
Deutsche Telecom in Germany and Tele Danmark in Denmark both have extensive
ADSL roll-out plans. BT is planning to introduce ADSL, although partly out of fear that the regulator will bring forward the UK date for ULL if it does not.
Mr Patel says new entrants will have to lobby regulators if they want to offer ADSL over the local loop soon. 'Incumbents use a variety of conscious and subconscious tactics to impede competitive entry,' he adds.
'However, in the US, the Federal Communications Commission has adopted measures to stop many of the co-location delays experienced by new entrants. And Hong Kong is working on a code of practice.'
But the ADSL route to providing broadband capacity for interactive services has its doubters. Telecoms analyst Jim Ross of stockbrokers ABN Amro says: 'You wouldn't start off providing broadband services using narrowband networks if you were starting from scratch.
'ADSL is the cheapest way to do it quickly. But it's like comparing a sports car to an old banger. It's cheaper in the short term to soup up your old banger, but the sports car offers a better ride.'
The sports car alternative - fibre-optic networks - represents a threat and an opportunity to established telcos. The threat is that new entrants will build better fibre networks sooner and start to poach business customers. This is already happening.
The opportunity is that most incumbents are also investing in fibre and should soon be in a good position to compete. However, fibre is still too expensive for the home market, where one option might be using wireless broadband to bypass the local loop.
Whatever the technology used, the growth of interactive services changes everything because as long as incumbents delay offering affordable broadband services, customers have an excellent reason for going elsewhere.
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