Are Access Providers "Doomed?"

One never hears a sales executive predict the death of the firms that constitute the market. That simply would not make sense, any more than it would for a supplier to repeatedly insult such potential customers. 

That does not mean markets do not evolve, and that some markets functionally cease to exist. But one simply will not hear vendors say so in public. Nor can a public company executive afford to say anything that does not accentuate the positive. 

Matters arguably are different for industry equity analysts or researchers. There, repeatedly incorrect and overly-robust assessments will damage the credibility of the assessor. 

So consider the nuance of an assessment of the industry's future by a supplier to that industry. 

“There are these notions of the death of the CSP and I think it’s silly,” says Stephen Rose, IBM’s global General Manager for Telco, Media, Entertainment and Distribution Vertical and Distribution.

The essential meaning of that statement is that the connectivity function always will exist, just as the computation and storage function will always exist. 

What is not said: how well will such connectivity providers fare in the future? Which entities will provide the function, and what will their business models look like? What market structures will evolve? What firms might wind up as the market leaders?

All of those questions are reasonable, even if one argues “connectivity providers always will exist.” Of course they will. The function is essential and foundational. But all other related questions might well be quite a bit more open and variable than can be admitted. 

People and businesses need internet access as they need computation and storage. But how they source it could change. Over time, some former “revenue drivers” become “features” of a business model. 

Over time, the leading suppliers of functionality change. And that could dramatically change the fortunes of firms and whole industries.