It looks like we might be entering a new round of consolidation of telecom vendors. Within the last year there have been the following announced consolidation among vendors:

• Cisco is paying $5.5 billion for Broadsoft, a market leader in cloud services and software for applications like call centers.
• ADTRAN purchased CommScope, a maker of EPON fiber equipment that is also DOCSIS compliant to work with cable networks.
• Broadcom is paying $5.9 billion to buy Brocade Communications, a market leader in data storage devices as well as a range of telecom equipment.
• Arris is buying Ruckus Wireless as part of a spinoff from the Brocade acquisition. Arris has a goal to be the provider of wireless equipment for the large cable TV companies.

While none of these acquisitions will cause any immediate impact on small ISPs, I’ve been seeing analysts predict that there is a lot of consolidation coming in the telecom vendor space. I think most of my clients were impacted to some degree by the last wave of vendor consolidation back around 2000. And that wave of consolidation impacted a lot of ISPs.

There are a number of reasons why the industry might be ripe for a round of mergers and acquisitions:

• One important technology trend is the move by a lot of the largest ISPs, cable companies and wireless carriers to software defined networking. This means putting the brains to technology into centralized data centers which allows cheaper and simpler electronics at the edge. The advantages of SDN are huge for these big companies. For example, a wireless company could update the software in thousands of cell sites simultaneously instead having to make upgrades at each site. But SDN means less costly and complicated gear.
• The biggest buyers of electronics are starting to make their own gear. For example, the operators of large data centers like Facebook are working together under the Open Compute Project to create cheap routers and switches for their data centers, which is tanking Cisco’s switch business. In another example, Comcast has designed its own settop box.
• The big telcos have made it clear that they are going to be backing out of the copper business. In doing so they are going to drastically cut back on the purchase of gear used in the last mile network. This hurts the vendors that supply much of the electronics for the smaller telcos and ISPs.
• I think we will be seeing an overall shift over the next few decades of more customers being served by cable TV and wireless networks. Spending on electronics in those markets will benefit few small ISPs.
• There are not a lot of vendors left in the industry today, and so every merger means a little less competition. Just consider FTTH equipment. Fifteen years ago there was more than a dozen vendors working in this space, but over time that has cut in half.

There are a number of reasons why these trends could foretell future trouble for smaller ISPs, possibly within the next decade:

• Smaller ISPs have always relied on bigger telcos to pave the way in developing new technology and electronics. But if the trend is towards SDN and towards large vendors designing their own gear then this will no longer be the case. Consider FTTP technology. If companies like Verizon and AT&T shift towards software defined networking and electronics developed through collaboration there will be less development done with non-SDN technology. One might hope that the smaller companies could ride the coattails of the big telcos in an SDN environment – but as each large telco develops their own proprietary software to control SDN networks that is likely to not be practical.
• Small ISPS also rely on larger vendors to buy enough volume of electronics to hold down prices. But as the big companies buy fewer standard electronics the rest of us use you can expect either big price increases or, worse yet, no vendors willing to serve the smaller carrier market. It’s not hard to envision smaller ISPs reduced to competing in the grey market for used and reconditioned gear – something some of my clients already do who are operating ten-year old FTTP networks.

I don’t want to sound like to voice of gloom and I expect that somebody will step into voids created by these trends. But that’s liable to mean smaller ISPs will end up relying on foreign vendors that will not come with the same kinds of prices, reliability or service the industry is used to today.