2006: A EuroTelco Odyssey

Happy New Year, mega-uber value readers! I think this is going to be one of the most interesting and difficult years ever for EuroTelcoland, so stay tuned. Though barely three days old, the new year is off to an interesting start, and readers who find themselves unable to resist looking at car crashes should have another look at the Dutch market, a reliable source of EuroTelco pain. The Nuenen FTTH trial, an early barometer of demand for fat pipe non-telco triple play services, had a deadline of 31 December for subscriptions for paying customers. The final result? Fully 80% of residents opted for staying on as paying customers, despite a lot of targeted marketing from both KPN and UPC, the latter of which also cut triple play pricing in the local market to respond to the fiber threat. Seems the message is "better the devil you don't know." So much for consumer inertia.