Though up to this point firms such as Verizon Communications and AT&T, Comcast and Cox Communications have been able to maintain aggregate fixed line revenues by selling more services to a smaller number of accounts, one would be on safe ground in arguing that continued declines will, at some point, undermine that strategy.
The other observation is the important role now played by cable TV operators in the Internet access and voice businesses. Once upon a time it might have been thought new "telco" providers would be the big winners from the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which legalized local access competition.
In the early going, in fact, it was AT&T and MCI, then the dominant long distance companies, that represented most of the competitive local exchange carrier industry's leaders. Since then, both AT&T as an independent long distance company, and MCI, have disappeared, absorbed into other firms (AT&T was bought by SBC, which rebranded itself), while Verizon acquired the MCI assets.
In voice or Internet access segments of the local access market, cable TV operators are the single most important category of "new" providers.
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