Another reason why FNet needs to get on the corporate /residential bandwagon to stay afloat.
Question? Are more and more Business ISP users finding it easier to tap into that particular ISP from home?
What's the percentage of business users selecting the same ISP for home use?
If in the future, we are to have a "personal IP address" for everything from a telephone, messaging center, pager, cellular phone, social security address, you name it.....,. Who's to say that this will not signal a ubiquitous presence not known today as either a corporate or residential account.
What will happen when everyone is assigned a SocialSecurity / Address combined. As of this year, the Internet has reached 50% of the US Market. What will happen when prices for combined services, that take you through your daily tasks, are all within the same address?
will my address be .303647609.address? My social security address? <fake SSN <gg>
ISP's take heed, the universe will shrink to the individual account, be it business-or-personal. Unless your ISP see's itself there, the number of possible long term subscribers left, will be nil to none.
I remember reading 3 years ago where the number of ISP's at that time, about 4600 will shrink to less than 1500 by Y2K. I personally think that was a true statement, but just a few years off. Given the last mile product / service symposium unfolding today, those numbers could ring truth in the next 5 years. Its all-together exciting, but at the same time chilling, when considering your companies footpath.
Value, value, value...... is the key !!
Competition is encouraging diversification, will FNet succeed ?
Markets are set to consolidate over next few years. Dial-up ISPs will need to grow rapidly to survive a rough ride over the next few years as competition intensifies in the rapidly expanding worldwide market for Internet services.
Independent ISPs occupy a precarious position in the Internet supply chain, acting as intermediaries between the owners of the transmission networks over which Internet traffic is passed and the owners of the content that is available on the World Wide Web. Maintaining this position requires them to compete both in the infrastructure business and in the service supply business.
Over the next five years, independent ISPs will find themselves increasingly required to juggle the requirements of these two different businesses. In the residential markets, this means that they will face heavy competition from different directions.
On the network side, incumbent telecoms operators that were initially slow to wake up to the Internet are now competing hard by using their economies of scale to achieve low operational cost and leveraging their brand-names to offer access alongside the telecoms services they already supply.
On the services side, companies such as AOL and Yahoo! are redefining themselves as portals and shifting the main source of revenue generation in the residential sector away from basic access towards content-related services. In addition, brand-driven ISPs such as the UK's Dixons are aggressively entering the market, leveraging their marketing, brand-name recognition and customer management skills to win subscribers. As a result, the independent ISPs may find their position in the value chain rapidly dissolving."
The economics of the ISP business are also changing fast. Dial-up access margins have been squeezed and price competition is still intensifying with the recent entrance of free access providers such as Dixons in the UK and NetZero in the USA.
Dial-up access providers that fail to achieve ***subscriber numbers of at least 300,000*** are unlikely to remain competitive in the long term ? What would be a solid number? Much larger subscriber bases may be required by ISPs that want to rely on advertising as a major source of revenue, as do many providers of free access. What about a combination of both?
In response to these threats, ISPs are bolstering their revenues by offering other services, including dedicated access, Web hosting and design, systems integration, *****ecommerce and advertising space***** on their main access sites. Many of them are also seeking to increase their presence in the business market, where margins and opportunities for diversification and specialization are higher.
Over the next couple of years the Internet services market is likely to grow, with the entrance into the market of large players from the communications sector and other industries helping to legitimize the Internet and broaden its appeal to the mass market. However, this will be followed by a period of decline in the overall number of ISPs, as economic and commercial forces begin to tighten their grip, streamlining the supply side of the Internet access market.
The "Key" to the survival of independent ISPs in this environment will be their ability to continue innovating in technology and services and to move quickly in identifying and exploiting new market opportunities before their larger rivals.
a few notes from hi-temp@fnet.net |
