Customers in charge

July 20, 2006
Mike UrlockerMike Urlocker is one of the few people who writes a blog that this site links to. I think Mike is a pretty clever guy.

These days, he is a consultant looking at disruptive effects on business. Recently, he wrote:

A committee structure designed to boost efficiency and effectiveness of the current operations is focussed on the wrong thing. Its like moving the deck chairs on the Titanic. Or worse, arguing about who is in charge of the deck chairs.

The iceberg was in charge of the Titanic. The customers are in charge of the news business. And the customers by and large have spoken: Newspapers are less relevant today than ever. The most important group that newspapers should pay attention to are not their customers. It is the non-customers.

These are good lessons for more than just the newspaper business.

Scott Feschuk recently wrote in Macleans magazine about various discussions at the Banff Television Festival. Fred Fuchs, newly hired as a senior programming executive at the CBC, says that TV shows are subsets of a bigger content experience.

Fuchs told a panel on the future of Canadian television that the public broadcaster will no longer develop TV series without simultaneously working to produce “content experiences” related to the shows that can be deployed on the Internet and on digital platforms. While certainly deeply trendy in its future-savvy parlance, Fuchs’ remarks prompted a minor outbreak of Head Shakes of Disbelief among producers and writers in the audience. Indeed, a wisenheimer might be tempted to suggest that before CBC gets too obsessed with exploiting new media opportunities, it might first want to focus on producing a new show or two that Canadians might actually want to, you know, watch.

Simply adapting material to be ‘experienced’ on a new platform won’t make the content any better.

Question form?

July 19, 2006
JeopardyThere has been a somewhat entertaining exchange of regulatory correspondence between Bell and the CRTC in respect of the Bell Digital Voice Lite product.

Back in December, among other things, the CRTC ordered Bell to provide local number portability (LNP) for (a) out-of-territory telephone numbers used as primary numbers, and (b) in-territory and out-of-territory telephone numbers used as secondary numbers. Bell was given 6 months to implement such solutions.

On June 2, Bell sent a letter to the CRTC asking for the December decision to be suspended, pending the outcome of the CRTC’s overall VoIP reconsideration proceeding.

But, the CRTC didn’t like the format of the June 2 Bell letter, and on June 22 the Commission asked Bell to resubmit the request in the form of an application for a Stay.

On July 4, Bell complied and submitted a formal Part VII application. But upon further reflection that weekend, Bell withdrew the application.

Hmmm.

Coping in difficult times

January 25, 2017

The folks at Intel in Haifa have leveraged their own technology to keep working through the current wave of incoming missile attacks. The people who brought you the Centrino chip have been keeping productive thanks to in-house wireless networking. This is not something you see in most of the promotional brochures.

Don’t you think everyone should have WiFi equipped bomb shelters?

Intel Israel, is considered to be the largest private employer in Israel today – with 6,600 employees in its development and production facilities.

As we have written before, Israel’s biennial Telecom show takes place this year, November 6-9. We are still planning to attend. Let me know if you want to join us!

Faster than…

July 17, 2006
SupermanOn July 5, Bell announced its Optimax internet service, offering download speeds of 10-16 Mbps (see Jon Arnold’s comments). Now Videotron has raised the stakes even higher, giving subscribers to its Extreme Plus High-Speed Internet 20 Mbps service. As the Quebecor press release says: “Videotron still the fastest. Period.”

Through the weekend, Mark Evans wrote about HDTV: Hot or Not? I suspect that increased HDTV penetration is one of the strategic objectives of the cable industry.

Telco IP TV has limitations on the number of HD channels that can be carried over its broadband connections. The sooner that people buy multiple HD screens for their homes, the more difficult it will be for the phone companies to control a household bundle that includes traditional broadcast distribution.

There is a disruptive approach needed – we think the phone companies need to change the rules of the game. We’ll have some more thoughts on this over time. And later this week, we’ll look at a colleague who specializes in disruption.

Stay tuned!

Operating on the fringe

January 25, 2017
TelehopWe have written before about how some companies are able to profitably identify niche opportunities in telecom and offer service to their customers.

Telehop, the company behind the $1 per call 10-10-620 service and the discount dial-around by-the-minute service 10-10-100, has announced advertiser-supported, free directory assistance.

Toronto HondaInitial advertising partners include Toronto Honda and Omni TV.

According to Telehop President Ruth Bartholomeusz,

The service works very much like normal directory assistance. Callers dial 10-10-620-0 or 10-10-100-0 and go through an automated system that will play an advertising message before they are asked for the location, type of listing and listing name.

Telehop (TSX-Venture: HOP) seems to be successful at identifying niche opportunities and offering value to customers, operating with no debt and growing steadily.

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