NEW YORK-Wireless links may play a crucial role for long-distance, regional Bell operating companies and cable TV firms seeking competitive advantage in the newly deregulated landscape.
Deregulation is occurring in an environment of technological convergence of voice, data and video communications, said speakers at “The Impact of Cybercommunications on Telecommunications” conference. The meeting was held March 8 at Columbia University’s Institute for Tele-Information.
With Internet services viewed as a vital growth area of communications in the next decade, long-distance companies, RBOCs and cable companies need to form strategic alliances with each other to tap the expanding market sector. At the same time, telephone companies already have invested heavily in wireline infrastructure-investments on which they may not ever get a fair rate of return, said Michael Einhorn, an economist for the U.S. Department of Justice. Some of that wireline infrastructure already is obsolete for meeting the new demands for speed, clarity and volume that will be required.
Furthermore, cable TV companies have deployed technology most suited in the near term to meet the demands of the next generation of communications. However, their transmission systems, as now configured, are not compatible with those of telephone companies, said David J. Waks, a founder of Prodigy Services Co. and now president of System Dynamics Inc., Morris Plains, N.J. Waks said he is a member of the Cross-Industry Working Team, which “is trying to solve the problem of how systems talk to each other.”
Enter wireless as a comparatively cost-effective solution to systems compatibility.
“No one can afford to run fiber to the curb, (so) there is an opportunity for wireless to penetrate the in-home environment because it represents available bandwidth,” said Warren Meyers, program manager for Bell Atlantic Network Integration, Edison, N.J. “Wireless has a real advantage, especially in cellular video conferencing, as a technologically liberating factor.”
Wireless communications represents both a threat and an opportunity for wireline companies, said J. Gregory Sweeney, technology and infrastructure director for AT&T Corp. of Basking Ridge, N.J.
“Wireless is critical to the future of these access technologies, and offers an opportunity for wireline carriers to expand cheaply into these new areas,” Sweeney said.
At the same time, wireless communications companies also may pose a threat to wireline carriers because they already possess the cheaper transmission and linkage infrastructure, he said.
