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Carrier Services
Telecom industry hunkers down
Dire economic climate drives operators and vendors towards increased efficiency
by Sean Buckley
Click here to listen to the Audiocast
Telecom Engine Editor in Chief Sean Buckley talks with Frank Bernhard, research director and technology economist for Omni Research, about how telecom vendors and service providers are realigning the way they conduct business.
Bernhard addresses the following questions in this Audiocast:
• Everywhere you look lately there's been no shortage of bad news in the telecom industry with AT&T announcing a big layoff and then a number of telecom vendors making similar cuts. To start, what is your take on the state of the market right now, and is it as bad as everyone is saying it is?
• A number of Wall Street research firms are issuing fairly dire forecasts on service provider network spending in 2009, but others say that there's no real evidence that carriers are slowing down their spending. Instead it seems like they are maybe taking preventative measures. What's your take?
• Let's take AT&T's recent announcement. Do you believe that has a large effect on the overall state of the telecom industry?
• Outside of the doom and gloom, there does seem to be some bright spots, including metro Ethernet, wireless and even wireless backhaul. Would you agree?
• Let’s discuss possible merger and acquisition activity for 2009. There's been speculation that Qwest could be a target for a potential deal, but it seems like the carriers are at this point hunkering down. Will we see more M&A activity next year?
Click here to listen to the Audiocast
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