Are Google, Microsoft, Apple the new telecoms utilities?

Over the last few years the increasing amount of discussion about telecoms reveals that the real competition for telecoms companies is not from other telcos, but companies such as Google and others. What is happening is that another utility function, other than plain telecoms infrastructure, is required for the emerging digital economy get off the ground. This now begs the question what, in our industry, are utility investments and what are value-added investments? It appears that many of the Google, Apple and Microsoft investments will end up in the utilities corner. www.budde.com.au