Wow. Earnesty in a telco guy. France Telecom’s Dr. Norman Lewis said yesterday at the E-Tel conference that, if the big telcos don’t get their acts together–and fast–there are going to be major, major problems ahead. I am so glad somebody on the inside of the phone business is finally realizing what’s at stake for the huge telecoms, including AT&T, BellSouth, Verizon, and others. Lewis condemns the investment in 3G infrastructure (to which i would add, where were these folks when WiFi and WiMax became such hot topics?) while blasting the telcos for not innovating. Lewis promised innovations from France Telecom like social networking and APIs.
Hey, big regulated telcos–are you listening? This guy is a sage in your business. You will save your stockholders a lot of disappointment if you start thinking about the stuff Lewis in thinking about. Here’s the rest of the info from the guy, from the E-Tel Blog.