Phone, Cable Companies to Battle in 2007

PHONE, CABLE COMPANIES TO BATTLE IN 2007
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Bruce Meyerson]
Vonage tanked after its IPO. It's not entirely clear anymore why eBay paid $2.6 billion for Skype. And the long-awaited rollout of advanced TV services based on Internet technologies has resembled the drip of a faucet. It wasn't a banner year for some of the biggest names in Internet Protocol, the technical standard that makes the Web hum. But the technology itself continued to blossom, with newer innovations picking away at every corner of the telecommunications business, from voice to video to wireless. No doubt the main event for 2007 will be the impending smack-down between the traditional phone and cable TV industries. The regional Bell companies, after losing millions of customers to rival phone services from cable providers in 2006, are just starting to ramp up their risky push into TV. As the giants of phone and cable do battle, however, both sides will find themselves flicking away at technological termites that threaten to hollow their victories by offering new ways to communicate and deliver content, always for less and sometimes for free.
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