Innovate Or Get Out Of The Way
While Lee Dryburgh, the heart and soul behind the upcoming eComm conference in Mountain View, CA, thinks that the telecom industry needs to wake up, I would be just as happy if today’s telecoms became nothing more than a dumb, stupid pipe.
As far as I’m concerned, the telecoms have had their chance to innovate and you know what? They’ve failed. If it were possible to give them a grade lower than an F, I would, trust me.
What innovation has the telecom companies given us since I’ve been alive? You can use your own handset on our closed network, mostly thanks to the Carterfone rules. A bunch of useless services that cost way too much and do too little. No interest in interoperating with the likes of anything that might threaten their business to point of actually impeding innovation.
All I want from the telcos is a fat, dumb, and stupid pipe. Don’t try and “help” me by shaping packets or giving me quality of service. Focus on delivering 100% of the traffic and keeping that line active. Don’t try and provide me anything more than IP dialtone either, be it in IPv4 or IPv6 flavors.
Unless, of course, the telcos want to prove me wrong and actually innovate. Otherwise, get the hell out of the way and let the rest of us innovate.
