Selling to the ever-bigger Bells

Where once there were eight, now there are four.

If you count GTE as a Bell-like institution - extensive local territories, near-universal service, big bureaucracy, slow innovation - then we had eight big local exchange carriers as recently as 1997. But over the recent July Fourth holiday, GTE completed its merger with Bell Atlantic to form Verizon and Qwest closed its deal to buy US West.

That means only four major local carriers are left: Verizon, BellSouth, SBC and Qwest. That line-up is going to take some getting used to. Another reality that people are going to have to face is that many switching and transport providers are going to have little chance to penetrate this preciously concentrated group of carrier buyers.

Are the chances half as good as they were in 1997, since there are half as many incumbent carriers? Not quite. There's always been a funny duality in the way Bell mergers affect the Bells' selections of network and back-office platforms.

For example, some Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer vendors have grumbled about the way SBC seems to have thrown the bulk of its DSL business - including the multiple regions under its wing - to Alcatel. However, the newer a merger, the less likely the acquired carrier is to be integrated into the parent company, no matter what the company's line is. Indeed, when SBC earlier this year announced a deal with Cisco for some DSL gear, it turned out to be principally for the Ameritech region, which SBC gobbled up last year.

It's no wonder that some equipment vendors for the edge of the carrier network have essentially two sales forces - one for incumbent local carriers, and one for newer carriers of all stripes. There's no sense sticking a sales rep on an incumbent carrier's account without fair warning that there's hassle and heartache ahead - unless that's what the rep specializes in.

Selling to one of the remaining big four is not necessarily helping these carriers maximize their technological prowess. To sell to one of these behemoths, vendors have to understand the political environment the carrier is operating in. The pressure is usually to achieve an incremental step up to the next level of network communications (ISDN took about 10 years, and DSL may take just as long) while meeting regulators' demands not to leave any particular segment of society out. For account reps, time spent studying the carrier's dealings with their states' public utilities commissions may be as valuable as understanding the technologies involved (and, of course, entertaining the client in all permissible ways).

Also this week on The Edge, read how Nortel Networks has turned to Juniper Networks for joint development of core routing products in the face of some product delays on Nortel's part.

And take a look at Novell's content-distribution plans for ISPs and hosting companies, winning a contract for the bulk of GlobalCenter's hosting centers.

Details of SBC's DSL plan spark concerns
Network World, 03/27/00.

No long-distance for SBC until at least July
Network World, 04/03/00.

SBC calls on Cisco to help build $6 billion network
Network World, 04/19/00.

Bell Atlantic offers to sacrifice GTE's Internet unit
Network World, 02/07/00.

Antislamming law muddies RBOC mergers
Network World, 06/05/00.