All-in wrestling - which telcos will be left standing?

Could it be the telco landscape in 2004 ends up looking very much as it did in 1994?

We're not suggesting for a moment that telecoms hasn't moved on in a decade. The advances in technology have been great and the way the internet has changed the business landscape couldn't have been predicted back in the year Brazil last lifted the World Cup.

But consider the providers. In the mid- to late-1990s dozens of optimistic, leading edge telco start-ups started to swim with the big fishes, the companies that had been around for decades.

They were labelled alternative carriers, newbies, next-generation telcos and more. Most combined an understanding of bandwidth needs, fibre, data hosting and serving a new breed of companies - both new and old - that wanted to embrace all things internet. They were often run by go-getting bosses, often dissatisfied with years at staid monopoly providers.

However, the latest announcement from one such provider, Europe's KPNQwest (http://www.silicon.com/a53686 - now in its death throes), shows just what hard times most of these companies have fallen on.

Many US-based alternative telcos have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, including Global Crossing, McLeodUSA and Williams Communications. NTL, mainly a cable company which chose Europe in which to do much of its business but Nasdaq to list on, can be added to that list.

Then there are the cases of near-bankrupt Energis in the UK and WorldCom, perhaps the king of US alternative telcos and one today professing it is not in danger, despite rumours to the contrary (http://www.silicon.com/a53696 ).

Let's draw a line there. The point is that times aren't just hard but deadly for some of these companies.

Never let it be said that more established telcos - the former national carriers, for example - have been doing well, what with their billions of debt and often shoddy management, but they aren't likely to go belly up.

A KPNQwest or Global Crossing must try to sell what assets it has to a surviving company or be bought lock, stock and barrel, though the former is more likely right now. The end result is a severe depletion in the number of providers.

It could mean the incumbents, some of whom themselves haven't made it as they were - witness Sonera and Telia - again rule the roost. The few remaining mature newbies (if that isn't a contradiction) will have something to say about that but a sure bet is that soon users will be considering those companies they used a decade ago for all types of services - if they ever left them in the first place.