Skip Links

Network World

  • Social Web 
  • Email 
  • Close

Potential fallout of wireless acquisitions

The ripple effect of industry consolidation
Wireless Alert By Joanie Wexler , Network World , 06/18/2008
Sign up for this newsletter now!

Joanie Wexler looks at how enterprises can take advantage of wireless LANs and WANs.

Verizon buys Alltel; Belden buys Trapeze. The consolidation game in the wireless industry - WAN and LAN alike - is officially afoot.

There are both glass-half-full and glass-half-empty perspectives to such shifts. For example, when it comes to networking, where all things are increasingly interrelated, sometimes having one throat to choke is appealing from a management perspective. On the other hand, there are fewer suppliers and, thus, fewer options.

It might be appropriate to view the recently announced Trapeze acquisition by cabling and connectivity company Belden for $133 million as a positive one-stop-shop move. But some might consider it a step toward vendor lock-in. And it’s not yet clear how the acquisition will affect Trapeze’s recently renewed OEM arrangement with Nortel and Belden’s with single-channel WLAN startup Extricom. Remember when Airespace was acquired by Cisco? It was a nightmarish move for Nortel and other Airespace OEMs and their customers to find alternative solutions.

For its part, Verizon Wireless gets to become the largest U.S. mobile carrier, with all the glory that entails, by snapping up Alltel’s 13.2 million subscribers who are primarily in the Midwest and South. But what of existing Alltel customers with customized applications, such as field service and dispatch capabilities, running on handsets Verizon Wireless doesn’t support? Verizon might elect to certify, test, and bless those handsets – or simply not support them at all. Could that leave you in the lurch? Or does Verizon Wireless’s forthcoming “open” service bode well for the transition?

And do your contract and its volume discounts translate over to Verizon as your new supplier or do you have to renegotiate? If you’re an existing Alltel shop, it might be worth working with a telecom contract negotiation and expense management expert to examine the impact of industry moves and create a strategy for your company.

Comments (2)
Login
Forgot your account info?

RE: Really???By Fed Up With Telcos on June 19, 2008, 12:52 pmQuote: How are these comparable? The common denominator is that these 'mergers' reduce competition!

Reply | Read entire comment

ReallyBy Anonymous on June 18, 2008, 8:42 amHow are these comparable?

Reply | Read entire comment

View all comments

Add comment
Anonymous comments subject to approval. Register here for member benefits.
Have a NetworkWorld account? Log in here. Register now for a free account.

Videos

rssRss Feed
Get instant email notification when white papers, webcasts, executive guides are added to our library. Stay informed and up-to-date with the latest on IT Technologies with Network World's Resource Alerts.

Whitepapers

File Integrity Monitoring: Secure Your Virtual and Physical IT Environments

Discover the capabilities your file integrity monitoring solution should have to effectively secure...

Toward More Flexible, Next-Generation Collaboration Solutions

A recent study by CIO Magazine and IDG Research Services found that while collaboration tools are...

Boost Productivity While Cutting Costs with Next-generation Collaboration

IDG says that "providing employees with collaboration tools that enable them to work together...

Webcasts

PoE Plus: Impact on the PoE Market

The standard for Power over Ethernet (PoE), IEEE Std. 802.3af(tm)-2003, advanced networking,...

Intelligent Mobility: BlackBerry Technical Seminar 2008

The virtual BlackBerry Technical Seminar keeps growing in popularity every year, and we want to...

Harnessing the power of communications to increase workplace performance

Due to the convergence of IT and telecommunications technologies, the business workplace has been...

Special Reports

Ethernet Services: WAN options mature

WAN Ethernet services are reliable, cost-efficient offerings that are widely available and in a...