The bell tolls for telcos?

[snooper2]

New data from TeleGeography show that international telephone traffic grew 5% in 2012, to 490 billion minutes. However, as call volumes continue to grow, so do the challenges facing the international long-distance industry.

International migration, the rapid uptake of mobile phones in developing countries, and steady reductions in international call prices—especially in the form of flat-rate (and even free) calling plans—have contributed to traffic increases. Nevertheless, recent growth rates are well below the 13% average that carriers could count on to offset price declines over much of the past 20 years.

While international phone traffic growth is slowing, traffic from voice and messaging applications like Skype continues to increase at a stunning pace. TeleGeography estimates that cross-border Skype-to-Skype voice and video traffic grew 44% in 2012, to 167 billion minutes. This increase of nearly 51 billion minutes is more than twice that achieved by all international carriers in the world, combined.

http://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/2013/02/13/the-bell-tolls-for-telcos/

[Warpy]

1. I will miss my clunky land line

but anything with a large infrastructure to maintain will likely disappear in favor of something without it. Cable will succumb to satellite and then to computer wireless; DSL will succumb to wifi.

It's the way the horse and buggy, a standard for thousands of years, finally went. Things are just going faster these days.

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. What was that about Del Taco?

[longship]

3. Can't stand Telco Bell.

There burritos are horrible, too.