Wired has two articles about Amazon becoming an ISP; and Google FB Amazon taking over for the telcos.
"Put it all together and you can see a day when you're watching content that Google produced disseminated via infrastructure that Google owns on a phone that Google made using wireless service Google brokered." Amazon tried it and failed. Google's phones are nice, but the Fi service has done about as well as Google Fiber.
The opposition - the cellcos, the RBOCs, the ILECs - don't want to be just dumb pipes. That's why Comcast owns NBCU; AT&T is buying TimeWarner; and Verizon owns AOL and is buying Yahoo. They want to own the whole OSI stack - Layer 1 to 7 - the walled garden that was AOL.
Facebook wants the same thing. Amazon, Microsoft and Google, too. Live in their ecosystem, where they collect as much data as possible to target you better to sell you more.
Amazon is selling ISP service, as a retail channel for Comcast and Frontier, not as a virtual network operator.
Meanwhile, a bunch of articles over the last two weeks talked about the ILECs lack of investment in broadband. Cable Will Keep Ruling US Broadband.
LightReading states, "All seven of the top MSOs registered broadband subs gains in the summer quarter. Over the past year, the cable companies have added more than 3.5 million data customers. Once again in contrast, five of the seven leading telcos lost broadband subscribers overall in the third quarter as they focused mainly on upgrading their DSL customers to fiber lines, not bringing on new customers." Once again telcos are late to the game - in TV and in competing against DOCSIS. Telcos were even late to get in the DSL game, afraid of losing T1 business. They have always had short term thinking.
"More than 80 service providers have opted out of participation in the Lifeline broadband program for at least part of their territories," writes Telecompetitor. Verizon, AT&T, Cox, Windstream, Charter, CenturyLink, FairPoint and Frontier have all opted out to the FCC. Part of it is "rural carrier stand-alone broadband pricing"; and part is the 10MB x 1MB requirement which DSL can't meet.
Meanwhile, telcos have to re-think their TV strategy in the wake of OTT video. A consortium of them should buy DISH Network and its Sling TV.
After Google Fiber's debacle in 2016, all providers will re-evaluate fixed wireless instead of a wired strategy.
Maybe g.fast makes its way past some trials in 2017.
Will Comcast, Charter or Google become the number 4 cellular provider in 2017 after AT&T, VZW and a combo of T-Mobile+Sprint.
FiberLight, LUMOS, Sprint wireline, Fatbeam, Wilcon, Towerstream, and some others will likely be part of some M&A this year. No one saw Fairpoint getting picked off by Consolidated - or the pending Level3+CenturyLink disaster.
Another year of turmoil coming at you! With a new FCC.
One thing all this says: we don't know what will disrupt in 2017.
