" I'm sure this will make the FCC pretty happy.<G>"
Mike, even noting your grin symbol, the US has an fact had in issue with the PTTs around the globe, and Commerce has been attempting to get other players on the international scene to comply with some tariff and settlement rate reform. Last year the FCC even went as far to threaten (very diplomatically) the rest of the world by implying that if they didn't conform to lowered rates soon, the US wouldn't block the many VoIP and other Internet voice initiatives that are already afoot, effectively, and that this would be used to offset their intransigence. In other words, they held VoIP over the heads of the PTTs as a threat.
GBLX is still too young to have fully developed an international long distance posture, much less a position on many of these matters, but I can see them in a disruptive role here which could be used to force the hands of many PTTS... if Global should elect to take on a packetized mode of voice delivery. GBLX can't do this alone right now, at least not in a timely manner. A larger player would be very useful here, however, and USW's perception of such an oppotunity would be higher than many would give them credit for, I believe. Profit margin opportunities in international voice are far more attractive than domestics, and international offers immesasurably more growth visibility, as well.
Yes, my latent predisposition to the bleeding edge is showing here again, I'm sure, but it does make for good, albeit, a stretched sense, of speculation. Any thoughts?
Regards, Frank Coluccio |
