Dev.SN ♥ developers
Sections
Dev.SN
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."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Zuckerberg Dines with European Telco Execs
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 1000 moderator points
| 65 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
I'm not a robot like you. I don't like having disks crammed into me... unless they're Oreos, and then only in the mouth.
-- Fry
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday February 28 2014, @09:06AM
I don;t get it. To my mind, they are and should be simple pipes: the era of AOL is long gone. The sooner they realize that and start concentrating on doing those pipes and "storage tanks" better (CDNs), the better for everyone.
Services? Wouldn't this be like the water company trying to add another tap to distribute... I don't know... lemonade maybe? Thanks but no thanks: if I have water, I can make a lemonade by myself.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 28 2014, @09:31AM
A pipe is a service. And the most important one at that. Maybe they should concentrate at making that service as good as possible.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday February 28 2014, @09:45AM
<gratuitously-pedantic mode="on">To me, a pipe is an utility. Delivering whatever that pipe is meant to support is indeed a service</gratuitously-pedantic>
Other than that, I agree.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 28 2014, @11:23AM
What on EARTH do you mean by "as good as possible"? Surely, the masses aren't demanding more than a mere trickle of data, are they? Isn't it enough that email loads in less than a minute? Streaming? Whatever for? They should be happy with a connection fast enough to download a movie each week.
Forget "as good as possible", we just want more money for the less than adequate service we already offer!!
(Score: 1) by Dunbal on Friday February 28 2014, @01:40PM
Hah! That would take actual work. It's much better when we all agree to be lazy and sub-let someone else's pipe. When service degrades enough we can always blame it on pirates, porn and pedophiles until someone else's technology saves us again. Then we can put our rental prices up again and let big fiber take care of the actual physical network.
(Score: 1) by glyph on Saturday March 01 2014, @01:24AM
FTFY
(Score: 1) by allsorts46 on Friday February 28 2014, @11:19AM
Indeed, I'm not at all 'concerned' about ISPs becoming 'simple pipes'.
There's nothing wrong with them from building their own competing apps and services that run on their pipes (so long as their don't artificially cripple the competition). If they can offer a range of useful services, they may still get customers who like the convenience.
(Score: 1) by davester666 on Friday February 28 2014, @02:53PM
Except this immediately becomes grounds for being anticompetitive. If you are the ISP, and you want to get your subscribers to use your new video service, you really wouldn't mind if NetFlix had more buffering problems, and if iTunes can't download quite so fast.
And it's making for fun times in the cable industry, where some of the pipes own some of the content, and then want crazy rates for other pipes to get that content. They actually use the "well, we pay this amount for the channel, so you should to" argument [ie, we transfer this much money from our left pocket to our right pocket].
(Score: 1) by drussell on Friday February 28 2014, @02:12PM
They're worried about becoming simple pipes?
I thought these kind of folks knew it was a series of tubes! :)
(Score: 1) by pbnjoe on Friday February 28 2014, @06:54PM
+1 (in spirit) This is exactly what I came to post. What I seem to be reading is that Internet Providers are upset that they seem to be providing internet. Huh. It's like lumberjacks being upset that they appear to be only cutting down trees.
*grump*