When a service isn't a service

Service providers constantly obsess over their churn rates, and with good reason. High churn means you may be selling a service well but you aren't delivering on that promise -- it's also a signal to Wall Street of bigger problems.

Unfortunately, some of the traditional ways to keep churn down are now coming under heavy fire, and for good reason. Some of the things that make it hard for customers to leave a service -- contracts, early cancellation penalties, service-specific devices -- are in fact just onerous anti-consumer measures the industry has gotten away with for some time.

Imagine a supermarket that doesn't allow you to shop its aisles unless you agree never to shop at a competitor's store. Ludicrous, right?

Now imagine a video player that lets you access anyone's content any time you like, without paying a monthly subscription fee or buying a set-top box that is specific to one network. In today's world, that is equally ludicrous, although that's exactly how TV used to be, before cable.

I'm not sure we'll ever get to that last scenario, but I believe the consumer world is going to demand a much more open approach to how it defines services, and the successful players going forward are more likely to be those who aren't afraid to compete on the quality of what they offer without using gimmicks or fine print to corral a customer.

Network neutrality proponents say they are also pushing for an open world, although they choose to do it through government regulations, rather than through the open market. It's much more likely to be clever consumer device makers or inventive service creators that crack the code than anything Congress could dream up.

E-mail me at cwilson3@telephonyonline.com.