Sprint/MSO = faster FMC? I don't think so....

I don't know what to think about the Sprint + MSOs announcement earlier this week. Part of me believes that this is a logical step towards a MSO-marketed FMC play. Another part of me believes that this is will serve more of a stumbling block for FMC adoption. When large companies band together to leverage each other's assets for a co-marketed solution, sometimes there are political and internal squabbles that hinder the offering.

Here's what might happen that would not be good for FMC development and adoption....Sprint/Nextel provides MSO customers with MSO-branded cellular service. So now on one bill, a subscriber would get wireless, data, cableTV and VoIP. But this starts as "paper-convergence". Should that "paper-convergence" strategy be successful, then the urgency for a true "convergence" model which includes FMC, wouldn't be there. Why break something that's not broken.

Should a 3rd party, like a Vonage, come to the market with an FMC offering that is agnostic to the broadband carrier, than adoption rates would increase faster. Time will tell, but I would be willing to bet all the money in my front right pocket that this SPRINT/MSO partnership will only slow things down.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

Tags: FMC MSO Sprint VoIP