After the FCC accepted the conditions for the acquisition, AT&T immediately swallowed up DirecTV. Then it launched wireless and sat TV bundles. AT&T Introduces First-Ever Nationwide TV and Wireless Combined Offer — All in One Plan Connects Four TVs, Four Smartphones, Includes 10GB of Shareable Data, Priced at $200 a Month for 12 Months/Annual.

Of course, the packages are numerous and confusing to the average consumer. Add this, includes that, excludes this, costs extra for that, contract for all of it. Simplify your bundles. Include stuff they want. The only thing Ma Bell did right here was make a bundle no one else has launched.

Make it easy for people to buy from you. Go sell something.

Some of you may have read Jim Collins’ books, Built to Last and Good to Great, but if you haven’t, this article on Fortune gives you a small sense of what they were about.

In an age where Uber is worth more than GM but with a small fraction of the employees and assets, we are seeing a shift to 1099 contractors and freelancers in place of employees. Due to ACA and other government regulations for companies with 50+ employees, businesses are shying away from hiring when they can. They may not be the best idea.

Employees are more committed than contractors. Sure if the company invests in the employees, the employees will do their best for the company.

Culture is an integral ingredient of corporate success. Culture comes from employees, not contractors.

I’m saying there is anything wrong with contractors/1099/freelancers or consultants. I am saying you can’t grow a company on them.

Summer is in full swing. Now is the time to plan for autumn or winter. Nicholas Bates has 6 questions CEOs should be asking:

How are we planning to make this autumn/fall our best ever?
How are we ensuring price is NEVER the top of the list of decision criteria for our customers?
How will our leadership ensure our people consistently deliver of their best?
What kind of company will we be in 5 years from now?
Where is the slack, the waste and the hidden cost in our business?
What would a secret shopper say after trying to deal with us?

On a similat note, Fred Wilson (the NYC based venture capitalist) wrote a little about Leadership is different than management.

One last cool article about why startups failed. These 12 startups died in Q2. Here’s why and how at VB.

In this article, Roku has some good news. “Roku may well be the most familiar streaming OTT device to consumers, thanks in large part to an aggressive retail strategy. But Roku is also now turning their attention to service provider partnerships to help place Roku devices in consumer homes.”

A few RLECs already offer a Roku bundle, where the Roku device is the set top box rented for $4.95 to $5.95 per month for a device that sells for between $39 and $99. I have watched this device add a huge amount of apps in the last year – some for free content (e.g., Crackle, CNN) and many paid (e.g., Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, HBO). I think Sling TV can be played over Roku. (Sling TV has 3 outages since its launch this year. OUCH!)

Why would this bundle work? “we’ve got Netflix and Hulu and Pandora and CBS All Access, you’ve now got consumers managing multiple bills from multiple content partners,” said Roku vice president for pay TV, Andrew Ferrone. Single Bill!

“How fast will the U.S. market for over-the-top (OTT) video service grow, what’s driving growth and what will the market look like in three years? Forty-five leading providers of entertainment content and services weigh in on these topics in a market research report released today, July 14, by research firm MTM and sponsored by enterprise-grade subscription-billing specialist Vindicia and video and advertising analytics provider Ooyala.” [telecomp] There is a Long Tail for everything. The key is that the Long Tail can be very profitable because it is niche!

HBO, CBS, Starz and now Showtime are all available without a cable subscription. ‘Showtime is owned by CBS Corp.’ – so CBS must be seeing success with OTT.

So how fast is cord-cutting accelerating? “Nearly one-third of domestic Netflix subscribers do not have traditional pay-TV service.” Compare with “In a survey conducted back in June 2013, analysts at Cowen & Company found that almost 75% of domestic Netflix subscribers still had pay-TV.” [source]

Comcast is looking at an OTT product launch. VZW is looking at OTT on cellular to attract more Millenials – and to make buck son ads.

Just to add to the fire: “Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter on Friday accusing big cable companies of using monopoly powers to muscle consumers into paying higher prices.” [source]

If nothing else, get ready for the OTT storm that will be assaulting your networks more and more.

This is copy from a PR firm for IKANOS, the broadband chip maker.

“The promise of consumer broadband at one gigabit per second (1Gbps) has created a new skirmish in the broadband wars. The nation’s telecommunications service providers are gearing up, with Fiber-to-the-Home, or FTTH, providing gigabit broadband in select municipalities today. Meanwhile, a gigabit service called G.fast is slated to roll out starting in 2016, over the copper telephone lines that are installed in over 95% of US residences. And then there’s cable. Comcast recently announced plans for 2Gbps service rollouts, in a challenge to the current or coming rollouts of FTTH by Google, AT&T, and other service providers, and the pending rollout of G.fast.”

“Gigabit broadband has created huge new opportunities for carriers and service providers, who will gain by delivering a host of revenue-generating broadband apps and services to connected homes, and to support bandwidth-hungry devices such as 4K (and the upcoming 8K) TVs.”

It seems that Gigabit will only further power the Internet Economy that we find ourselves in. Despite fighting upgrading broadband pipes, the Duopoly may reap some rewards from going Giga.