At the beginning of 2005, Adventis published their annual Prescriptions. This is the look back / look forward forecasts that all analysts publish every year. One of the scarier statements they made, if you happen to be an incumbent was this:
Service providers need clear lifecycle strategies and must decide not just what to offer but what not to offer. Don’t let competitors cannibalize your business for you. For example, VoIP’s lower cost structure is not only changing the economics of the game, but also lowering the barriers for entry, enabling new players as well as established MSOs and CLECs to challenge core businesses. In the U.S. consumer market alone, the RBOCs have $30 to $47 billion of EBITDA at risk over the next five years.
To put that in perspective, the US Communications Market today is about a $115 billion per year industry. $30 billion at risk is huge.
Cable Digital News published the Q2 2005 Cable Telephone Results today. Over 1 million subscribers added. That’s a half billion dollars in annual revenue that has shifted from the ILECs to cable. Pretty scary stuff if you’re an ILEC. Adventis is looking very prescient.
Q2 2005 North American IP Telephone Subscribers by MSO
Source: Kinetic Strategies Estimates, Company Reports
| MSO | Subscribers | Q2 Net Adds |
| Time Warner | 614,000 | 242,000 |
| Cablevision | 478,357 | 113,877 |
| Cox | 90,000 | 30,000 |
| Charter | 67,800 | 12,500 |
| Videotron | 41,800 | 26,900 |
| Comcast | 37,000 | 15,000 |
| Shaw | 22,450 | 18,938 |
| Other | 30,000 | 11,000 |
| TOTAL | 1,381,407 | 470,215 |
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
