The numbers don't lie--or do they?

According to the report cards pasted into a scrapbook by my mom, I was a pretty good math student. But judging by my recent inability to make sense of the numbers swirling around telecom, I have to wonder what good that "A" was in trigonometry.

Whether they come from survey results, quarter earnings reports or even Federal Communications Commission studies, numbers seem determined to confuse and confound me these days.

For example, based on the recent results which show cable companies racking up sales of advanced services and service bundles, I would expect their stock prices to be headed upward. Yet Comcast, the largest North American broadband service provider, hasn't kept up with the Nasdaq's recent gains.

Here's another confounding reality--studies now show that voice over IP isn't growing as fast as expected, nor sucking up as much of the traditional voice revenue as once thought. Yet everywhere there are signs of VoIP's increasing acceptance--in the number of new services, in the explosion of VPN sales driven by VoIP and in cable's digital telephone service numbers as well.

Is this a case of unmet expectations or unrestrained hype?

Finally, a group of sharp-eyed folks at the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates is questioning some numbers the FCC put out earlier this year that, if they are what they claim to be, show a significant increase in the number of houses with no telephone access at all--wireless or wireline.

These could prove to be the most confounding numbers of all--those that show our country actually moving backward in the reach of its basic communications network.

High school math didn't give me this kind of headache.

E-mail me at CWilson3@primediabusiness.com.