New realities

Welcome to 2003 for those of you fortunate enough to call yourselves employed members of the telecom community. Since as journalists we are often in the business of telling you what happened and why, it’s time to toss that concept out like the idea of effective local loop competition and give you the next six month’s worth of headlines today.

In late January, New Yorkers will be required to dial 10 digits for local calls, sparking a flood of national news bulletins (because despite evidence to the contrary, nothing is news until it happens in New York) about the evil “phone company” and how this evil practice must be abolished.

In February, the FCC will complete its triennial review, giving Bell executives the first chance to exhale since they told Michael Powell that unless they get what they want they’ll all hold their breath until they pass out.

The FCC will give the Bells a little bit of relief, resulting in celebrating by those executives that haven’t passed, much hand wringing by AT&T and WorldCom, and every telecom lawyer east of the Mississippi tap dancing on his or her Herman Miller chair at the thought of all the billable hours this ruling will create.

In March, wireless executives will converge on New Orleans for the CTIA show and proclaim 2003 as the year of wireless data with the official motto of “No, really, this time we’re totally serious about it.” Meanwhile, most large carrier and vendor executives will flee to the Caribbean as their companies release annual proxy statements, leaving investor relation drones to explain that “retention bonus” and “severance” actually means the same thing, but it would too difficult to explain to you petty shareholders.

In April, AT&T will be thrown a regulatory bone by escaping interconnection charges on voice-over-IP calls, which can now be counted as data. The FCC also will let ILECs classify circuit-switched voice calls as one of the following: video, data, electricity, water or natural gas.

In May, the last remaining venture capitalist not invested in Wi-Fi will finally give into peer pressure by leading a round of funding for a company with no business plan, no technical expertise but a really cool PowerPoint presentation.

In June, Supercomm will descend on Atlanta for the last time, leaving thousands of taxis without air conditioning inexplicably empty in the country’s most sweltering city. Vendor executives will proclaim 2003 is a great year for technology development by repackaging most of the boxes they didn’t sell last year.

E-mail me at: vvittore@primediabusiness.com.