Random telecoms musings

The UK telecoms industry isn't in a good state, There's intense competition and severe margin erosion. This means the telecoms companies are having to make cut-backs, which generally means getting rid of staff.

It also means consolidation and what seemed healthy players are going to be consumed by various bigger (or healthier) players.

So here's some predictions: -

i) Energis - they must be suffering. Wanadoo are moving all their infrastructure and services away from them, that must hurt. Energis have already been through administration and losing a huge chunk of revenue potentially puts them in a very week position with the banks. Only time will tell.

ii) 3 - the 1st 3G entrant in the UK, now winning customers on cheap price plans. How many are buying premium content/services? I doubt many. Once the GSM operators really start launching their 3G networks in ernest the GSM networks will be used to offer cheap & dirty services i.e. there'll be price cuts galore and all those price sensitive 3 customers will migrate wawy in droves. How long will Hutchison support a sinking ship?

iii) THUS - People will probably think this is biased, but it's not based on ANY factual information, it's just guesswork. They're ripe for a take-over. Market value is probably less than assets or turnover. Who will it be? Well either a foreign network wanting to get a ready built advanced UK network, or maybe C&W. I suspect C&W as they'll use the Demon brand to bolster the Bulldog service (who's heard of Bulldog). Bulldog have somewhere in the region of 4,000 DSL customers, Demon have 100,000+. Also I'd suspect THUS is chipping away at the high-end business of C&W too and what's say £300M to get a thorn out of their side and get a brand?

NOTE: these are personal opinions only and have no bearing to any knowledge gained in any employment or anything related to the real world.