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Zuckerberg Dines with European Telco Execs

posted by Dopefish on Friday February 28 2014, @08:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the nickle-and-dime dept.

strattitarius writes "Mark Zuckerberg met with top mobile and telco executives to address concerns that Internet providers are becoming "simple pipes" as apps like WhatsApp eat into high-margin over-the-top services such as text messaging and even voice communications. Orange SA CEO Stephane Richard stated "The risk for us is being excluded from the world of services".

It would seem that the telcos are realizing that they have been behind the curve as Richard stated "A service like WhatsApp, to be honest, that's something we could've and should've come up with before". Ironically in doing so, they basically make the case that they had every chance and advantage to create these apps and monetize them just as WhatsApp and Skype have done."

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bd on Friday February 28 2014, @08:32AM

    by bd (2773) on Friday February 28 2014, @08:32AM (#8443)

    Well, to them it certainly must look bad. While 10 years ago they were able to get money for every message sent, today, at least in Germany, a mobile contract that includes SMS, voice and mobile-internet flat-rates goes for something like 20 EUR per month.

    I think they are just angry that _they_ didn't think it is possible advertisers would give them such an amount of money for the personal information of their customers back when social networks took off.

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by monster on Friday February 28 2014, @11:34AM

    by monster (1260) on Friday February 28 2014, @11:34AM (#8551) Journal

    As I have already said in this comment [dev.soylentnews.org]: They didn't want to innovate or to risk new things (and maybe fail) if that meant the risk of substracting revenue from their inflated prices. So, they stalled, were left behind, and now are crying foul. And we are expected to feel remorse. Yeah, sure.

    • (Score: 0) by Bill, Shooter Of Bul on Friday February 28 2014, @01:44PM

      by Bill, Shooter Of Bul (3170) on Friday February 28 2014, @01:44PM (#8636)

      Yup, this, in spades.
      They tried their way of running their own j2me app stores that sucked and charged more for a ring tone than itunes charged for the actual full song. They screwed it up, and there is no putting the genie back in the bottle or rewinding time.

      Also, this fear of being turned into a dumb pipe was why every other carrier turned down the iphone. They understood exactly what giving up control over the os on a powerful device would do to them.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Friday February 28 2014, @04:23PM

        by edIII (791) on Friday February 28 2014, @04:23PM (#8744)

        I for one have no sympathy for them.

        If your revenue came from captive audiences and overpriced services, and not true innovation and delivering what the customer actually wants, you deserve to die. That's the *WHOLE* raison d'etre for capitalism and free markets right? Survival of the fittest?

        We cherish those ideals over in the US, but we clearly do not apply them. Anytime we can take down a monopoly and destroy a piece of the old guard is a time for celebration.

        What they don't understand is their complaint of being a dumb pipe falls on deaf ears. We are not better off with their monopolies and 'added services'. They will become, and absolutely should be, dump pipes.

        Data is just going to become something as banal as water or electricity, but hopefully with more options for connectivity.

        Common carriers and dump pipes is the only logical solution for an efficient infrastructure devoid of all the bullshit that lead to million % profit margins on SMS.

  • (Score: 1) by citizenr on Friday February 28 2014, @12:47PM

    by citizenr (2737) on Friday February 28 2014, @12:47PM (#8585)

    >I think they are just angry that _they_ didn't think it is possible advertisers would give them such an amount of money for the
    >personal information of their customers back when social networks took off.

    Telefónica (fifth largest provider in the world) has been collecting (and trading) this information since forever.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzS83BGdWco [youtube.com]