2/26/2023 0 Comments Power utility telecomDominion Telecom and DukeNet have extended the reach of their wholesale networks through network buildouts, and FPL FiberNet has created shareholder value through a strategy of highly directed growth and strategic positioning for a burgeoning Latin American market. Recently, Progress, Consolidated Edison and Edison Carrier Solutions formed an alliance to market one another’s services, creating a large nationwide footprint. While UTelco operators are focusing on metro spaces, many are at the same time expanding the scope of their services through partnerships or even through network buildout-a true rarity in today’s climate. Of these, the wholesale model prevails as the most commonly-used strategy with UTelcos actively operating in metro and long-haul spaces. The UTelco business model is most prolifically deployed in the United States, where there exist more than 200 UTelcos. As a result, they have established experience and the relationships that together create an attractive profile for investors who seek measured growth with a potentially huge upside. In addition to the hard assets that utilities bring to the telecom market, there is a more understated advantage that may prove as important: utilities have a long history of running efficient, well-disciplined businesses. From low-risk, low-return businesses that lease rights-of-way and tower access through the wholesale provision of fiber-based network services (usually as a “carriers’ carrier”) through the provision of retail telecom services to end-users, UTelcos move down the value chain and approach such cutting-edge innovations as providing bundled services as a multiple-offering “super-utility” that effectively leverages infrastructure as well as established customer bases. Utilities and CI enterprises are entering telecom in a variety of modes. An efficiently and prudently-managed UTelco business unit can add value to the parent’s bottom line and provide a powerful source of differentiation through reinforcing customer relationships-no small matter in markets that are once again embracing reforms like the state-driven U.S. By directing core competencies toward a telecom offering, utilities can pursue an integrated commercial strategy that presents greater opportunities to capitalize on sectors that display potential for growth that surpass the generally “slow and steady” growth rates in the utility sector. Being the second-largest market for telecommunications equipment and services, utilities have for decades developed internal communications networks for mission-critical functions, and utilities are highly skilled at deploying and maintaining these systems. So how are these firms geared toward diversification into commercial telecom? Quite simply, the “pipes and wires” nature of the businesses are rife with synergy. Policymakers worldwide have begun to promote the deployment of networked communications infrastructure using utilities’ financial strength and networking experience to pull it along. While the advent of a global commitment to free market economics has coincided with the rise in importance of efficient, well-deployed and maintained communication networks, there has been a worldwide trend toward loosening regulatory restrictions that once hindered utilities’ entry into the telecommunications market space. Recent years have seen a global trend of UTelcos entering the commercial telecom space in order to take advantage of market liberalization and to capitalize on a worldwide demand for telecommunications services that, despite the gloomy news in boardrooms and on trading floors, remains strong and sustained. By Forrest Wilhoit, United Telecom CouncilĪs the wreckage of the telecom industry continues to wash up on anxious shores, there is an effective telecom strategy that has emerged with the potential to push and pull the next generation of large-scale industry players in a rebounding sector, utilities and other critical infrastructure (CI) companies, through their commercial telecom units known as UTelcos.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |