Pondering lessons not learned

Kenny Van Zant lived through one period of telephone company history that he hopes he isn't doomed to repeat.

Van Zant, originally part of the NetSpeed team that developed the DSL modems Cisco Systems then acquired, was a key figure at BroadJump, the company that spent several years convincing telephone companies that they needed a simpler way to deploy and troubleshoot DSL if the service was ever going to be cost-effective. BroadJump, acquired in 2003 by Motive, ultimately succeeded in its mission, but only after the telcos had almost become broadband roadkill.

Now executive vice president of marketing at Motive, Van Zant is hoping to convince telcos that their new services--IPTV, voice over IP, security, etc.--also need simple tools for deployment, troubleshooting and customer service.

"We were able to succeed in DSL because we could go into the operations organization and say, basically, 'Your arm is broken, and I can fix your arm now,'" Van Zant said. The software BroadJump provided was easily paid for by the opex savings within the first year of deployment by reducing the trunk rolls required and the calls to the contact center.

There isn't yet any opex associated with IPTV because it is only in very limited deployment, so Motive must try to remind telcos of their DSL experience--and hope the corporate memory isn't a short one.

"Some remember the DSL experience, and some don't," Van Zant commented. "Some of them have created a vertical product group around IPTV that isn't connected to the rest of the company, and the result is a kind of corporate amnesia."

In other cases, telcos are relegating the decisions to IPTV software or set-top vendors, he said--and that could be its own formula for disaster.

One thing is certain not to work, and that is deploying an over-hyped service to an eager populace that quickly discovers it isn't as available as promised or doesn't work as planned. By aggressively marketing DSL and cutting their prices, the telcos are working their way back into broadband now, but if the cable companies can sell their bundle--voice included--there may be no bouncing back a second time around.

E-mail me at cwilson3@primediabusiness.com.