REVENUE STRATEGY - TELECOM

1. Over the past year the telecom industry has roared back to life from the doldrums because of a steady rise in appetite for broadband Internet connections, which enable easy consumption of watch-my-cat video clips, iPod music files, and such Web-inspired services as free Internet phoning.
2. About half of the Internet's transmission capacity was going unused in 2002. Today that pipeline has almost doubled in size, and yet the unused portion is down to about 30%.
3. Telecom investment plays a vital role in stimulating economic growth and productivity - more so than money spent on roads, electricity, or even education.
4. Communication assets generate massive benefits by slashing the cost of doing business across the economy.
5. A high-speed data network suddenly makes it easier and cheaper for all kinds of workers to place orders, service customers, and drum up new business.

So:
1. Capital spending is on the rise as companies invest to build high-speed networks.
2. Qwest Communications International Inc is planning expansions of its backbone in order to support growth in Internet applications and video
3. The Bell phone companies, meanwhile, have consolidated and are furiously developing services they hope will let them capitalize on the billions they're investing to build speedy new networks.
4. Web companies such as Google are making a push to introduce more competition into the wireless industry and loosen the Bells' control over the Internet's distribution.
5. Apple Inc.'s iPhone may herald a new round of disruption for the big telcos because it surfs the Web, takes pictures, plays music and makes phone calls. Customers could start demanding a full range of Internet service on their phones and new freedom in their service plans. That could create ever more demand for servers and routers, video services, and upgraded wireless networks.
6. Level 3 Communications refinanced its massive debt at lower rates and pulled off 10 acquisitions worth more than $4 billion. More than half of its network traffic today is from Web video.
7. Verizon will soon offer services that allow consumers to personalize and share photos, videos, and other media among their cell phones, PCs, and TVs. In July the company will launch an interactive media guide for Verizon's FiOSTV service; by clicking on it, couch potatoes can access all of the photos, music, and videos they have stored on a PC. Later it will allow TV customers to create their own personalized video channels.
8. In 2004 critics laughed when Cisco rolled out an audacious new router, the CRS-1, capable of transmitting the entire contents of the Library of Congress in a few seconds. This year, thanks to the video bandwidth hogs, sales of the CRS-1 are expected to hit $1 billion, more than double the figure for 2006.
9. Mergers and acquisitions reflect the promise of revenues in telecom:
(a) In February 2004, Cingular Wireless agreed to buy AT&T Wireless Services for about $41 billion.
(b) In December, Sprint announced a deal to buy Nextel Communications for $35 billion.
(c) A month later, SBC Communications said it would buy AT&T for $16 billion.
(d) A month after that, Verizon struck a deal to acquire MCI, the former WorldCom, for $8.4 billion.
(e) On June 5 2007 Silver Lake Partners and the Texas Pacific Group agreed to pay $8.2 billion for networking gear-maker Avaya.

Luck, fate, destiny – they all can impact revenue after hard work has played its part

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