Competition Among The Telecommunications Industry
There are currently 807 companies in the TIA (Telecommunications Industry Association) database of companies. Of the 807 companies, 251 of them currently offer wireless services. Also 281 offer broadband services, of those offering broadband 160 of them offer cable, 72 offer DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), and 49 offer T-Carriers. There are currently 242 member companies in the MMTA (Multimedia Telecommunications Association) Database of companies. Of those 242, 70 of them offer broadband services. Of those 70 15 offer DSL, 24 offer Cable, and 31 offer T-Carriers. Also among those 242 in the MMTA’s database 60 companies offer Wireless services. In a worldwide Yahoo!® search, 224 companies offered Broadband, 227 offered Satellite services, 295 offered Long distance and 533 offered Wireless.
The U.S. long-distance market is worth an estimated $100 billion to $110 billion per year. The largest long-distance carriers in the U.S. are AT&T, MCI WorldCom, Sprint, Excel (now part of Teleglobe Canada), and Frontier (with a merger pending with Global Crossing). AT&T, MCI WorldCom, and Sprint control the bulk of the U.S. long-distance market, but competition is increasing from the other carriers. The U.S. local telecommunications market is worth somewhere in the range of US$100 billion to US$120 billion and is still over 95% controlled by the RBOCs and incumbent local exchange companies. The competitive local exchange carriers and other competing companies hold about 4% to 5% of the market. There are now only five RBOCs, those being Bell Atlantic (having acquired NYNEX), SBC (having acquired Pacific Telesis), BellSouth, U S WEST, and Ameritech. Soon we may be down to four RBOCs, if the FCC and other regulatory bodies approve the pending merger of SBC and Ameritech.
It has become extremely difficult to segment voice and data traffic services and revenues in the U.S. market. Voice traffic has historically always represented the bulk of the traffic and revenues in the telecommunications market; however, recent estimates are that voice traffic is growing at a very low (single-digit) percentage rate, while data traffic may be growing at a rate as high as 200% to 300% per year.
The cable television/video delivery services part of the telecommunications industry includes the traditional (wired) cable TV providers, wireless cable TV providers, and satellite TV providers.
The traditional (wired) cable TV industry serves about 65 million U.S. households, with the five largest cable multiple system operators (MSOs)--AT&T (via TCI), Time Warner, Comcast/MediaOne (whose merger is pending), Adelphia, and Cox Communications--serving nearly 45 million of those households.
Verizon Wireless cellular service is inelastic because the products and services it offers makes them the dominant leader in the wireless industry; therefore, a 10% change in calling plan prices (monthly access fees) would not affect the quantity demanded. Verizon Wireless can depend on this inelasticity in their pricing model because of the strength of its brand and the wealth of products and services it offers. Verizon Wireless' competitive advantage comes from its ultra-low churn rate (the percentage of customers who disconnect their service is less than one percent of its 60 million customer base). This indicator suggests that customers are satisfied with the service Verizon Wireless offers and a slight price increase probably would not drive its customers to the competition. This data also suggests that customers probably stay with Verizon Wireless because of its continued expansion of new technologies and services such as its all-digital nationwide CDMA network, EVDO' or its advanced data network (used to wireless send and receive email and other data almost anywhere in the US), and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) that they use for their Push to Talk products. Verizon Wireless markets to a nearly all demographics nationwide and most of its services are offered in the smaller rural markets as a direct result of the one billion dollars per quarter it spends on improving its network as well as acquiring smaller wireless networks to make their nationwide network stronger and larger.
During the 1990’s, some of the primary policies that had been put in place by the FCC to promote diversity of ownership of content in broadcasting were either eliminated or cut back. The Financial Interest and Syndication Rules (Fin-Syn) were repealed and the consent decree was also abandoned, allowing networks to own as much programming as the wanted, this opened the floodgates to mergers with studios. Through several other policy changes, such as the 1992 Cable Consumer Protection Act and the Telecommunications Act of 1996, a vertically integrated, tight oligopoly emerged in the commercial television and video entertainment fields (Cooper, 2007)
There are a large number of service providers available for consumers to choose from depending on their wants and needs regarding network coverage and data plans. The cost of switching carriers is now lower than ever before, and many of Verizon’s competitors will cover these costs in return for new business. Additionally, many consumers are becoming more price-sensitive and may decide to switch carriers if they believe the opportunity cost of a lower price outweighs a minute decrease in network
Comcast Cable is one of the top nation's largest video, high-speed Internet and phone contributor to residential
Of particular importance is the deregulation of the telecommunications industry as mentioned in the act (“Implementation of the Telecommunications Act,” NTLA). This reflects a new thinking that service providers should not be limited by artificial and now antique regulatory categories but should be permitted to compete with each other in a robust marketplace that contains many diverse participants. Moreover the Act is evidence of governmental commitment to make sure that all citizens have access to advanced communication services at affordable prices through its “universal service” provisions even as competitive markets for the telecommunications industry expand. Prior to passage of this new Act, U.S. federal and state laws and a judicially established consent decree allowed some competition for certain services, most notably among long distance carriers. Universal service for basic telephony was a national objective, but one developed and shaped through federal and state regulations and case law (“Telecommunications Act of 1996,” Technology Law). The goal of universal service was referred to only in general terms in the Communications Act of 1934, the nation's basic telecommunications statute. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 among other things: (i) opens up competition by local telephone companies, long distance providers, and cable companies ...
The state of limited competition, in which a market is shared by a small number of producers, is known as an oligopoly. Many Canadians can relate to the power trio of Rogers, Bell and TELUS as a perfect example of oligopoly as they own an accumulated 92% of the entire wireless market. There are fewer companies in this market; every decision made by each company has a strong impact on Canadian consumers. Judging from many consumer complaints, they feel forced to choose from these three companies because they are the only companies with consistent, wide ranged service. Many complaints include lack of service and overly expensive bills. Therefore, the oligopoly of the Big 3 Telecoms are a definite disadvantage for consumers because their influence
In United States cable television industry, the traditional cable companies compete with different types of competitors. Like Netflix which is in home entertainment occupied the part of market share in the industry. The unique organizational architecture support Netflix has a sit in the entertainment industry. Furthermore, the traditional cable companies change their original structural to cope with the fierce competition.
As new technology developments are made, consumers are given more choices when it comes to video, internet and phone services than ever before. This can cause a decline for cable providers such as Comcast if the company doesn’t adapt to these changes and loses its competitive advantage.
Telcos have a lot of data in hand. As a telecom provider, the company has access to a wide array of data including subscriber demographic, location, call patterns, websites visited and media watched, network usage, application usage etc. All these data collected provide insights about customer activities. Telco operators collect several terabytes of data on a daily basis. All this data creates a fantastic opportunity for telcos. Latest analytical techniques can be leveraged on these data to analyse and to assist companies to unlock user insights and market intelligence to increase revenue and customer service. In addition to that telcos can also consider selling their customer data to third party companies which will benefit from that data. Monetization of this telecom data generates a new stream of revenue along with its already existing traditional revenue stream.
In the 1990s, the telecommunications market was rapidly changing with the addition of new entrants from a competition standpoint that were forcing WorldCom to decrease prices. Long term leases for
Acquired in 2011, NBCUniversal is comprised of cable networks, broadcast television, filmed entertainment, and theme parks. The cable networks segment is made up of 16 national cable networks, 15 regional sports and news networks, and over 60 international channels. The most popular cable networks are Bravo Media, Sprout, and the USA Network. NBCUniversal’s broadcast television is the nation’s first national broadcast network, founded in 1926. Broadcast television network provides viewers with a NBC’s national programming as well as local programming from more than 200 affiliate stations. Through NBCUniversal’s Spanish language broadcast network, Telemundo, reaches United States Hispanic viewers in 210 markets through 17 owned stations. Telemundo is the second largest worldwide Spanish content provider operating in over 100 countries in over 35 languages. In 2011, Comcast began an effort to launch 10 new independent television networks over the next eight years. Comcast’s efforts to expand this segment has paid dividends through the ____. Next, Comcast’s broadcast television is the third largest reportable business segment for Comcast. The broadcast television segment operates the NBC and Telemundo broadcast networks. The broadcast television distributes entertainment, news and sports programming that reaches virtually all United States households. As of December 2016, Comcast’s broadcast television segment owned rights to over 100,000 episodes of content. More importantly, Comcast reached broadcasting deals with the Olympic Games, NASCAR, National Football League, National Hockey League, as well as other sports leagues. Next, Comcast’s filmed entertainment segment produces, acquires, markets and distributes filmed entertainment across the world, and it also develops, produces and licenses live stage plays (Reuter__). Comcast’s films are produced under the Universal Pictures, Illumination and Focus Features
areas in only the southeast and western parts of the United States. Its recent merge with AT&T
Telecommunications gained mainstream attention in the early 90’s; however the initial key market was business men and women, who used their phones whilst being on the move and so allowing them to communicate with their companies with ease. Though in the modern era, telecommunication went through segmentation in the market trends, and now in this day and age it would be difficult to find someone who does not own some form of mobile technology. Many phone providers battle to provide the best service for their customers (Figure 1).
Cable television is on the verge of extinction because of online television. Reason being is everything is at the tip of the finger on the internet, and it is less costly compared to leading cable companies where the costs are high and people cannot fit their televisions in their pockets. One leading online streaming company is Netflix. This company has revolutionized the internet for movies and television shows. Now there are online streaming devices for home televisions such as Apple TV, Roku, and the Google Chrome Cast. Even many actual channel companies have online accounts such as HBO-GO because even these companies know that soon cable will be either non existent or hardly existent. Technology is evolving to digital and online base
AT&T Wireless is the leading wireless telecommunications provider in the US market. The US wireless market constitutes over 243M wireless subscribers. This represents a market penetration of 81%. The wireless market sells mobility of voice and data (video-media, download content and internet access).