Explosive growth abounds the telecommunications industry

Black Collegian, Apr 2001 by Huddleston, Monica M

INDUSTRY REPORT: TELECOMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY

The telecommunications industry is not just hot. It's sizzling! Explosive growth abounds. The dominant technology is all about high-speed data delivery and oversized capacity of the transport media. Data products and services dominate what most telecommunications companies offer their customers because that is what they demand. Career and entrepreneurial opportunities for the college graduate sharp enough to match his/her talents with the companies seeking them are plentiful.

First, it is important to understand the scope of telecommunications. It includes any medium used to transmit or receive voice, data, or video signals and information. That means telephones, wireless/mobile phones, pagers, and broadcast or cable television. Its modem-equipped computers, digital subscriber lines (DSL) and cable modems to carry that traffic to the worldwide network of communications paths we call the Internet. We can't leave out satellites and all the signals they bounce between earth and space. Fast invading the marketplace is wireless internet access from a mobile phone, a PC, or even your Palm Pilot, from and to anywhere. Each of these components of the telecommunications arena are useless without software application programming to enable, manage, and improve them.

So, what are the trends driving the use of all of this technology? The predominant theme song of the industry is broadband. To push through all the voice, data, and video signals today's and tomorrow's customers present to the various telecommunications networks, the pipes or paths over which it all travels must be big - very big. As Jason Myers, editorial director of Telephony magazine (August 28, 2000 issue) puts it, "Broadband defines the infrastructure that feeds, supports, runs, maintains, steers, tests, and powers your networks." To illustrate the difference between broadband and narrow-band technology, one need only attempt to download a large data file over a regular dial-up modem phone line (narrow-band) and time it. Then, download that same file from a PC that is connected to a DSL or cable modem line. Customers prefer the 1.5 megabit-per-second and higher download speed to the 56 kilobit-per-second slower speed. Fiber optic backbone networks and related electronics controlling them are the key enablers of high-speed data delivery. So much so there is a worldwide shortage of fiber, which is hampering timely broadband deployment.

An Organizational Economics forecast illustrated in the August 28, 2000 issue of Telephony magazine predicts that there will be 4.4 million cable modem lines and 1.6 million DSL lines in service by the start of 2002. The latter is a conservative estimate. By all accounts, cable modem and DSL penetration in the marketplace will double or triple by 2004.

Broadband service providers plan to give their customers everything from video-on-demand to voice over Internet protocol (IP) in the next few years. The video-on-demand service allows a customer to download a movie any time, with the ability to stop, rewind, or fast forward it as if it were a tape in the VCR. Eventually, holding a conversation over the Internet will be commonplace. It is done somewhat today, but the clarity of transmission leaves a lot to be desired in most cases.

Another tremendously attractive service facilitated by broadband networks is E-commerce (electronic commerce), also known as 13213 (business-to-business). E-commerce is the business of inter-company transactions - electronic ordering, billing, and bill payment over the Internet. Online shopping is another growing form of this broadband innovation.

Telecommunications is an incredibly lucrative and fast-growing industry indeed. The financial scope of the telecommunications industry is huge. The local exchange market alone generates $187 billion in revenue annually (Commissioner Brett Pearlman, Texas Public Utility Commission data). That's the segment carrying the local calls. Other segments make up the balance of over half-a-trillion dollars in annual revenue.

Who are the major players in the telecommunications industry who battle it out for market share? Who are these companies paying entrylevel management salaries from the high $40,000 to $70,000 range, not counting hiring bonuses and benefits? Consider just a few of the major local exchange and long distance players' numbers highlighted in the table below. All of these companies have Web sites you can access for more information about their products and services, mission, strategic goals, and employment opportunities. Most are accessible by typing online, www.companyname.com. Just insert the name of the company in the 'companyname' space and you're most likely there. Besides the $40,000 to $70,000 entry-level management salary, it is worth noting that the average annual salary for a tenured manager in telecommunications is $62,500, per a July 2000 Cornell-Rutgers study of over 600 such companies. The September 4, 2000 St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper reported in an article about a study that employees at Internet companies or online divisions averaged $82,000 in earnings in 2000, an 8.596 increase over 1999. The study was done by Buck Consultants, a unit of Mellon Financial Corp., and was based on a survey of 233 companies. That same study confirms that more companies are paying healthy hiring and retention bonuses than ever before. Most are actively seeking, make that courting AfricanAmerican college graduates.