Moving beyond being a “dumb pipe” means that telecommunications service providers need to provide “edge devices” to manage the end of the pipe and provide that all important value-add. 

However according to a recent study from John Horrigan and Sydney Jones that those devices are some of the most ‘failure prone’ or perceived to be error prone technologies in people’s lives.

This information has a ‘dark cloud’ in that a majority of these technologies are ones that people associate with telecommunication service providers.  However, the ‘silver lining’ is that this type of study shows two things.

1. The “edge devices” are some of the most important technologies in people’s lives.  If they weren’t, they probably wouldn’t be listed in the study.
2. Telecommunication service providers need to support those “edge devices” in a value-add fashion or they risk giving customers that reason to churn.

Forward looking organizations will embrace this challenge and offer customer service to match the value of the customer.  Those that don’t … well… :)