Bellsouth Should Spice Things Up With Naked DSL

From where I'm sitting, Bellsouth seems dazed and confused by the myriad of voice over the Internet (VOIP) offerings. In an effort to save their waning residential phone line business from the grasp of cell phone and VOIP providers, Bell continues the policy of requiring an active phone line (POTS Line) in order to install high speed DSL. While this policy may seem sound within the rank and file of the Bell organization, customers tend to view it as a strong-arm tactic. Interestingly enough Bell's active phone line policy plays right into the hands of its two biggest rivals: Comcast and Vonage. Customers are beginning to connect the dots realizing that they can drop their POTS line by switching to Comcast and ordering a VOIP line through Vonage.

Fundamentally, most customers don't care how a phone line is delivered, only that it works reliably and is reasonably priced. As such, it would be wise for Bell to allow for Naked DSL and roll out a competitive VOIP offering. Since they own the data network end-to-end, they can offer quality-of-service (QoS) on the VOIP phone line that would be superior to Vonage if they so chose.

Alas, the monopolistic mindset is a crutch in a capitalistic world. It's difficult to say how many customers will be lost before Bell realizes that it's cheaper to lose incremental revenue to their own offering than to lose the customer entirely to their competition.

Bill Butler owns Butler Networks, an Internet Service Provider in the Middle Tennessee area.