The strong give the appearance of becoming stronger, but much of that is due to healthy advertising and PR budgets. Take FiOS, for example. It's a step in the right direction for wireline, but no one knows for sure that it will survive the tests of time, or if, or when, it will even break even. The weak, on the other hand, while they may be increasing in their overall number at the edge (if you include all WiFi nets, in-residence and outside, and alternative last mile deployments, as well), are actually getting stronger, but they give the appearance of losing ground or merely treading water, in comparative terms. And that, conversely, is because they lack the hefty advertising and PR budgets of the incumbents. As for wireline vs. wireless, IMO the situation has become too diffuse and interwoven to be able to separate the two anymore. They blur.
This evening I received a call from London by someone who went there the other day complaining about his CDMA phone not being able to talk GSM. Yet, he phoned me this evening using that same cellphone from a hotel, where his dual-band (CDMA-WiFi) Samsung was able to attach to the hotel's wireless network, which permitted him to reach me via Skype. |
