Thursday, August 29, 2013

Vodafone should sell Verizon and buy T-Mobile

The speculation over what will happen with the 45% Vodafone ownership stake in Verizon Wireless has heated up over the past few days with reports of ongoing negotiations between the two companies. Pundits valule the stake at around $130Bn.

While it is unlikely that Vodafone would be paid in full with cash and very likely that analysts would prefer that Vodafone use whatever gains they get to lower their debt burden, I have a different proposal.

Vodafone should sell the stake in Verizon Wireless and then use some of the proceeds to immediately buy T-Mobile.

Friday, August 16, 2013

Carriers lost. OTT won. Now what?

I think the "war" on OTT from the carriers perspective is more or less lost. It is now more about running down the clock and eking out as much revenue as possible.

A more pressing problem going forward is not the death of SMS or other services exposed to OTT, it is the failure to be open to innovation as well as often times missing out on strategic openings that are much more closely aligned with the carriers strengths than fighting OTT.