Telcos of the 20th century measured time in year, months and less often, weeks. A good 21st Century telco must measure it in minutes, days and--well, just forget about taking weeks to do anything, because you may lose the customer entirely. That may not be the reality of the business just yet, but telcos are getting the message that where bandwidth availability, accessibility and flexibility are concerned, they need to sharpen their edge.
Verizon is doing so, having launched a wholesale bandwidth-on-demand service following a trial with a carrier customer. Such a service breathes new life to the old SONET infrastructure (Yesterday, we talked about an AT&T storage offering doing the same). It does so by allow easier access to, and more dynamic usage of SONET bandwidth.
These services sure do make a couple long-standing telcos look like innovators, though the real innovation may be competition.
For more:
- Read coverage of Verizon's new service in Xchange.