Comrade-in-arms

It's 1997. The new Far Side desk calendar is up and in place. It's time to take stock of our opportunities and challenges. It's time to count our blessings.

You are blessed to be a telecommunications professional right now. You are blessed to live during the telecom industry's most exciting period, a period in which a global industry changes the nature of everything it touches-a transformation of education, entertainment, work, government and lifestyles.

We at Telephony are blessed, too, because we bring you information and insights that help you make the most of your opportunities today. We are your partners in the trenches.

We are all blessed to live in interesting times. This week I want to use this space to explain what Telephony has planned for 1997.

Everything starts with the weekly magazine. Our mission has not changed, but the way in which we meet that mission has changed dramatically. We invested for you in 1996-in an expanded editorial and graphics staff, in circulation growth, and in our web site (www.internettelephony.com). More improvements are coming.

The mission is to understand and master the network technology and related business issues that are shaping your world and your company's world. Our world, too.

Telephony's focus remains sharply on the public network operators. Not too long ago that meant only telephone companies. Not any more. Now it's a brawling mix of local exchange carriers, interexchange carriers, competitive access providers, cable companies, Internet service providers, cellular operators and PCS operators.

Have you noticed that everybody wants to be in your business? Everybody wants your customers. It's a digital land rush, a shattering spectrum scrum, a broadband blitzkrieg. Not only have new types of companies moved into the network operator business, but many companies also are involved in multiple types of operations.

LECs dominate cellular and PCS as do IXCs. Everyone wants to get into the ISP business and its soon-to-arrive bigger brother, electronic commerce.

Yours is a complex, competitive world of networks and network operators. The common thread is technology and the application of technology in competitive markets.

That is where Telephony enters the scene. We cover network technology. It's our mission and life's work. Our concerns span the universe of technology that affects your careers and businesses-including development, operations, economics, service creation, service deployment, customer care, billing, marketing and sales issues.

In 1997, we are again expanding our editorial staff so we can keep you on top of the tremendous array of issues your work requires you to master.

Last September, we reorganized Telephony into technology departments to better organize the content and to match the information needs that you clearly expressed in our reader surveys and in interviews we conducted earlier.

We will also continue to publish premium, sharply focused supplements and inserts devoted exclusively to a specific topic.

Powering the Network is our quarterly magazine-in-a-magazine devoted to the newly energized search for network power to serve broadband and wireless networks.

Last year, we launched PCS Edge, a quarterly supplement devoted entirely to the world of PCS technology and business.

This year, we are launching, Internet Edge, a biannual supplement focused on the way the Internet adds value to carrier technology, business and services.

We are pouring information onto internettelephony. It carries editorial material, news and features that have appeared in Telephony as well as editorial material that appears only on-line.

There are many other great features at internettelephony, including: an archives section with a search engine that allows you to search past issues by company name or technology topic.

an industry connections section that serves as an industry gateway with hot links to virtually every telco, cable company, PTT, wireless company and industry forum group.

And much more. Go explore. It's addictive (and free).

Our goal at Telephony is simple but powerful: to bring you more and better professional information about network technology and network operators than anyone else in the world. We devote all our energy and resources to that single goal.

Competition is reshaping your world. Telephony is your comrade-in-arms.