What Google broadband should mean to your telco business

[Commentary] After several trips to the Capitol over the past year, I'm convinced by comments heard and overheard that lots of people in D.C. need to get out more. Out to the small towns, the 'hood, the barrios, the sticks. With a mandate to pay close attention and listen to what's being said.

Telecom folks react loudly to what they hear, but the industry's not listening, absorbing the details, nuances and hints embedded in what consumers and businesses are saying. You're focused on shaping outcomes, come hell or high water. But you need to do a way better job of meeting consumers' and businesses' needs. It's more profitable. As a marketing professional, industry analyst and generally astute observer, I believe the big telco and carrier executives suffer from market myopia due to a lack-of-listening disease that afflicts the rest of their organizations. You can spend a fortune telling people what you want them to buy, or go into the communities to actually listen and respond to what they need. You can abandon markets by dumping copper, or capture markets by dumping technology that you believe only can be profitable by capping and metering its use. Small telcos can do yourselves a big favor by embracing the fact voice and data are irreversibly intertwined as digital communications and require newer business models than from the days when telecom was "mature" and datacom was new. You can continue to fight local governments that want to build what their market-constituents--want, or do like Google and let them take the lead as business partners. You can continue to tinker with making train technology and train business models work, but people want to fly.