I have just spent three days in Washington DC discussing with the World Bank the completion of the major study project which we have been undertaking for infoDev on open public local access networks and their relevance and potential impact in the developing world.  I am pleased to say that  this Study in an interactive, searchable form will soon be available on this OPLAN website – so keep an eye open.

But sitting on that red eye back to London this morning, a number of snippets from the newspapers I had with me, from emails and from recollections of various conversations over these past few days struck me as worth sharing.

First the Vonage IPO.   I frequently jest in presentations that VoIP is, “..the biggest money making telecoms opportunity since Alexandra Graham Bell invented the telephone – we ALL make shed loads of cash by keeping it in our own pockets rather than into the pockets  of the telcos”.    Well, not quite ‘everyone’ it appears – because Vonage isn’t making a penny.  Indeed, every penny they earn is spent on marketing – with all other expenditure totting up to a whopping loss last year of $260m.   That’s acquisition costs of $200 per customer!  And in Washington last week, I could find plenty of individuals who had given up on Vonage, so churn must be high.  And within hours of the IPO anouncement, our good friend SKYPE announces a special 'free' promotion for their Skype-out service!

So what do all these fund managers, stock-pickers and analysts feed on apart from each other?   Makes me think of what that long-gone US socialist author Upton Sinclair once said:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand a thing when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

And of course, the same goes for those business development execs in the telcos who, before long, will be racing each other to try and buy Vonage as a means of acquiring a ‘valuable VoIP customer base’.   

One of the agencies I had meetings with in the US was the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association (NTCA).  This organisation with a remarkable history, is a national association representing more than 500 small and rural independent local exchange carriers providing telecommunications services throughout rural America.  If ever there was an organisation facing a massive dilemma moving forward – the NTCA is surely one.  Community centric to the extreme – makes it an ideal voice for riding and promoting the OPLAN revolution. But its membership is probably hoping that the future being heralded by the disruptive digital technologies will just ‘go away’ and leave them in peace.

It is always encouraging when, talking and listening to such an organisation challenged by change, to find someone who comes to a fresh understanding by realising that there is more to life than his salary.  I met just such a man at the NTCA who, soon after my meeting with him, sent an email as follows:

“Now you've really tickled my brain :-).
In glancing through the South African ICT news - part of my morning routine -  I caught the following vignette:
It demonstrates the stark challenges of grassroots, bottom-up ICT development in the SA context - given the recalcitrance of well-captured regulatory bodies and the lack of an enabling environment.  Empowering people like this resourceful farmer is the pathway to a revolutionary new paradigm and I look forward to finding new ways to help do so - in South Africa and elsewhere!

Well, there you go!

And finally, what about M. Pierre Danon, the former head of BT retail and the  Australian-owned investment firm Babcock & Brownand making a bid for Eircom, the Irish telecoms group with the plan to break it up – de-segregating the infrastructure from the services that run over it.  I am far from certain that it will be structured as a full-blooded OPLAN, thereby increasing shareholder value and reducing risk, but none the less, it is a bold step in the right direction.

Maybe I should lay claim to the memorable quote:

"It is easy to get a man to understand a thing when his new salary depends on his understanding it."