What is wrong in triple play offerings?

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People have asked me what is wrong in triple play offerings. Let me try to summarize. I will hopefully later this spring explain why also the business models are wrong, but that theory that I work on is something I am not ready with. I might even be wrong there!

The problem with triple play solutions is that the end user can choose between different packages of services. Of course, the good thing is at the same time that the user can choose between different packages of services. The problem is not the choice, but the packaging. There are three main problems with it:

  • It is the organisation that make the packaging that do the selection of what services one can choose from. This is similar to the cable tv packaging of tv channels, where one can choose between the channels, but only between the channels that are part of the offering.

  • There are dependencies between the choices in the package. If one chooses one package with some TV, Internet and Telephony offering, but want a different Telephony provider/service. Then one have to change the whole package and because of that also change TV and Internet provider. Too many offerings of for example telephony say …in combination with….

  • If the service is tied to the access, then one can not access the service when travelling, being at the office, with friends, being on the road, at some wireless hotspot etc.

What one want is to have the ability to have good Internet connectivity, from one of the providers that can provide Internet access to the geographical location where one want it to. Then given this access, one can choose services (email, TV, telephony) from any provider. As soon as the list of providers of services (part from Internet access) is limited, one should suspect there is something weird going on and investigate further. What dependencies are there? Can I access the service from anywhere?

The good bundling that could exist is in reality not a bundling, but yet another service. The service to be a payment / invoice broker for some providers of services. But this should not have any technical implications.