Posted: 15th Oct, 2004 By: MarkJ
Consolidation in the ISP market is nothing new, yet the past two months have seen a clear upsurge in activity. Both
ISPA's secretary general and Ovums Head of Telecoms Research have given their opinions:
Tony Lavender, Head of Telecoms Research at Ovum, says consolidation among ISPs has to happen - or "companies will go to the wall". He believes it's always been going on in some shape or form, but that it's particularly busy now because the "value of businesses is low".
This assessment is echoed by Nick Lansman, secretary general of the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA), but he doesn't believe that consolidation will mean that the number of ISPs will dwindle significantly. "Consolidation has always happened," he says. "Will there be only 50 ISPs in two years' time? No."
The reason is that as ISPs are swallowed up or go bust, others are created. They might not all be in the internet access market, but that doesn't really matter. These days, ISPs can be defined as any business that deals in IP (Internet Protocol) as its main currency. As new technologies - such as VoIP - are developed, so too are new businesses born to exploit these breakthroughs. While some may prove successful and stand on their own two feet, others may well be bought up and bolted on to existing ISPs giving them even more services to offer customers.Typically nobody seems to factor in the vISP/reseller angle, but then that has always been difficult to quantify. More @
The Register.