Competitive brainfood

With this week's Telephony, we launch Upstart, a supplement devoted to covering the nascent, competitive culture of the carrier industry.

Our tag line is "competitive brainfood" and the portions are ample, so fill your plate. This supplement is for everyone who understands the industry's new credo: Someone wants to take your customers away (incredibly enough, even though you may not have them yet). CLECs, ISPs, PCLECs, wireless providers, cable companies, IP-based IXCs-regardless of your acronym denomination, this supplement is for you.

Competition is a familiar weekly topic in Telephony, too, but Upstart is unique in its comprehensive focus on the organizations, people and technology that are inventing a competitive telecom industry. More important, Upstart explores the expansive and rapidly changing boundaries of your professional world.

The din and clamor surrounding today's mergers and acquisitions frenzy only serves to mask the competitive tunnels being burrowed right now under the industry's ramparts. Whether you're doing the burrowing or manning the ramparts, Upstart's mission is simple: to deliver insightful, graphically powerful and comprehensive information via nine unique editorial departments. Here's a quick tour of the new enterprise.

Digits explores the money and funding connections (no special prosecutors need apply) that all new ventures feed on, as well as the behind-the-scenes IPO and acquisition dreams that are fueling many new carrier enterprises. "Follow the money" is the compass that determines which new carriers are the next sure things.

Avant Guard profiles these carriers' new approaches and strategies for doing business. It looks at the people and personalities that are creating unparalleled ways to build, deliver and market communications services.

Scouting the competitive front lines, Arsenal looks at the crucial role marketing and services play in the battle for customers. The struggle for customers is fierce today and will be even fiercer tomorrow. The ability to market and target services to the right customer segments is essential in generating the revenues that quickly separate winners from wannabes.

Web Sight covers the ISP waterfront from IP-based networks, services and strategies to ISPs' full-fledged entry as competitive voice and data carriers.

Wireless carriers are ready to sit at the banquet table, and Unwired explores their push to enter the mainstream. From PCS carriers' service packages that urge customers to abandon wireline service altogether to broadband wireless carriers whose big pipes move voice, data and video, wireless is not settling for a niche position.

Monopolies don't like Local Heroes, but Upstart thrives on them. This department delves into the carriers, strategies and tactics driving competition in the local exchange. From voice to data, new carriers are redefining local competition, customer service and technology deployment.

Long Shots is our snapshot of a newly energized long-distance transport and service category. High-speed, high-capacity fiber networks with IP-based services are the norm for these new combatants, and it's clear they are itching to bloody some legacy noses. Joe Nacchio at Qwest makes no bones about his desire to gut the incumbent IXC group and then move on to the next victim.

Primer covers the technology issues that confront these new ventures. New carrier organizations face complex technology tasks: deploying cutting-edge technologies, building operations support systems and, for now, the discouraging process of interconnecting with legacy networks.

At the finish line is Double Take. Don't look here for conventional wisdom. The distinct purpose of this forum is to frame the combat of fixed vs. agile that is powerfully resonating in the telecom industry and your professional lives.

There you have it. Upstart hopes to earn a place on your must-read list by capturing the attitude, enthusiasm and the intellectual energy that is the ground floor of new carrier organizations and the competitive cultures they are creating. It focuses on new carriers, but we hope it's fascinating material for all of Telephony's readers.

The next issue of Upstart will arrive on your desk Nov. 9. For now let us know what you think-positive, negative or somewhere in between. My e-mail address is mark_hickey@intertec.com.