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Broadband: We define the broadband sector to cover
As with any of the sectors we cover, as the industry evolves and goes through the restructuring process in response to deregulation, technological developments and competitive forces, we will modify the coverage to keep it current and relevant to our subscribers.
The utility industry is made up of investor-owned, publicly owned, federally owned and cooperative utility companies. Investor-owned electric utilities have historically accounted for over 75% of U.S. electric utility capacity, generation and sales revenues. Each investor-owned utility has been granted until now a service monopoly over a certain geographic region and as a franchised monopoly, it is regulated by the government. This regulated landscape is changing in a major way and competition to provide energy and other related services is becoming reality in many areas around the U.S. Investor-owned utilities currently operate in all states in the U.S. except in Nebraska.
Publicly owned electric utilities are non-profit local government agencies set up to serve their local community and neighboring customers at cost. These utilities include municipals, public power districts, State Authorities, irrigation districts and other State organizations.
Federal electric utilities do not produce power for profit - Federal Government is primarily a power producer and wholesaler. Preference is given to publicly owned, cooperative and other non-profit entities. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is the largest Federal power producer and it markets power in both the wholesale and retail markets.
Cooperative utilities are owned by their members and are established to provide power to their members. The Rural Electrification Administration was established in 1936 with the purpose of extending power to rural communities and farms where it was more expensive to provide power by the traditional utility companies.
The utility industry is entering the early phase of full-scale competition and as a result, the resources of the utility companies are focused on restructuring themselves for the on-going deregulation. Therefore, our coverage is focused on activities of
With the increasing popularity of Internet and the deregulation of the energy and telecom sectors, the home systems sector has evolved to include activities of companies from several sectors. These include
As a result, our coverage in this sector overlaps activities of companies from the above sectors as they pertain to actions in the home systems sector. We define our scope of this sector to include the activities of companies involved in
We define this sector to be products and services targeted at the consumer market and to the companies that provide interactive services to the consumer market. These include
Obviously, some of these activities could also be covered under some of the other sector activities that we cover. We try to limit to this sector where the key component of the development or activity being reported is the interactive element.
Specific areas that we focus our coverage in this sector include
Restructuring and deregulation has become a continuing common theme of the industry sectors we cover, as is the case with the telecom sector. For instance, in the past, it was possible to provide a national map showing clearly the service areas of the seven regional Bell companies or RBOC’s. That’s not possible anymore. Little over 10 years after the original AT&T was split into long distance and local companies, deregulation has given rise to a set of new companies which aim to provide all of the telecommunications services without regard for geographical boundaries.
Therefore, we have structured our coverage here to give our subscribers a clear understanding of the current status and the changes taking place in this important sector. As indicated in the CATV sector, developments in this sector affect other sectors and vice versa. As is our practice, we account for this important fact in our coverage of this sector also. The scope of the changes have accelerated and our coverage includes
We cover developments in three key areas pertaining to the telco industry
We have selected these three areas since the selected developments in these three key areas provide a good overview of the changes taking place in this industry sector and of the strategies being implemented by the companies in this sector. Understanding of these developments and the drivers responsible for these developments will enable our subscribers to formulate their own strategies for working with these companies and to benefit from the opportunities arising in the telco industry sector.
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