WINTER OF DISCONTENT

Given the potential for catastrophe far beyond the loss of stock value — or even jobs — that exists in the world today, does anybody really still believe this is telecom's nuclear winter? I have been pitched ideas recently on how certain companies have just the thing to thaw it, de-ice it, contain it and even help telcos emerge from their fallout shelters. That's not only twisted thinking compounded by inappropriate analogies — it's an example of the sort of thinking that got telecom in trouble in the first place. It's exaggeration and hype of the worst kind. A nuclear winter ends it all — for you and me, our families and our unborn children. And it certainly ends it for telephone companies and the cottage industries that nurse from it. The only way telecom could come close to suffering the ramifications of a nuclear winter is if there really was one. And if that happened, who would care? There'd be no one left to whine. If civilization as a whole can avoid such a fate, so will telecom. Despite the extreme highs and lows of the last two years, telecom is still just another business. It has business cycles, business booms and business busts. This is just one of them. Losing one's BMW and settling for an Accord does not a nuclear winter make. The worst that can happen to us as individuals is that we may have to move on. We may have to change. But communications will be with us as long as there is an us.