Duopoly Tidbits

Fun facts from the blogs.

Verizon also had 299,000 net adds for its FiOS TV service, which now is at 23 percent penetration of homes that can buy the service, and added 298,000 net FiOS Internet access customers, bringing penetration up to 27 percent.

What people don;t see is how much it costs them to acquire that FiOS TV customer. Billboards, print ads, TV, direct mail, call centers - all at promotional rates. With a $400 ONT, a day's worth of tech time for install, the giftcard, the free DVD player, and the two set-top boxes (at $400 each).

Worth noting: AT&T CFO Rick Lindner says "our stand-alone DSL product which about 50 percent of the time is bundled with wireless has been very strong for us."

Bundles work. What are you bundling?

Cablevision Systems Optimum Lightpath is offering a voice and data bundled service that includes the cost of CPE, such as phones and routers, into the monthly cost, looking for customers willing to spend between $30 to $40 per month per employee on voice and data.

This is for Business customers. Excel, SUTUS, Allworx, and other SIP trunking companies are offering a "Stimulus Plan" to buy customers with free hardware.

From Gary Kim, "Quarterly SME adoption rates of IP telephony have been falling since the third quarter of 2006, Savatar notes."

"Switching service providers and hardware is described as a "monumental hassle" for businesses of all sizes, says Multichannel News, with one softswitch vendor commenting that the competitor for new services isn't "'the other guy' - it's the status quo." [fiercevoip] SMB isn't buying do to Inertia. And how many people selling VoIP are truly excited about it? Very few.