Broadband service providers are becoming utilities. Is that really a bad thing?

You’ve heard the grand declarations from telecommunications companies over the past few years. "We’re not telcos anymore," they’ve said, "we’re techcos." But what’s so bad about being a telco?Techco, of course, is short for "technology company." The idea is that telcos are evolving beyond their roots as simple connectivity providers and turning into services companies. The underlying implication here is that connectivity is becoming a utility, just like water or electric service. And telcos really don’t want to be classified as utilities. But there’s nothing necessarily wrong with just being a telco, argued Andrew De La Torre,  Oracle’s Group VP of Technology, “I think there is a place for telcos being telcos, and I think for some companies that will give them a really honest future,” he said. “This industry has been so afraid of the word 'commodity' for decades. But the interesting thing about commoditized products is they’re absolutely fundamental to life and they always have a future.”