Telecom: The Good, the Bad, the High-Speed

Everybody complains about telecom but is anyone doing anything about it? It turns out that enough things may already be in the pipeline for telecom to shed the effects of its broken business models and crippling debt sooner than many think, according to IEEE Spectrum senior associate editor Steven M. Cherry. In "What's Right with Telecom," Cherry examines what's out there that's to the good: Wi-Fi wireless local-area networks, new cellphone services such as text messaging and the sending of photos, broadband connections to the home, combination cellphone/PDAs and laptop and tablet computers seeking connections to the Internet, and still higher-speed 3G networks. It could all remap lives and lifestyles, indicates Cherry.

And if you're looking for a complete picture of how telecom got to be the Telebomb, industry consultant Peter A. Bernstein spells it out in an accompanying article, "What's Wrong with Telecom." It was all due to five key ingredients: greed, corporate crime, misguided regulation, too much debt, and those broken business models.