Telcos: "We don't want to be a utility"... Well, the reality is worse.
Even utilities are out-growing telecoms. What went wrong, and how do we fix it?
For a decade, “Becoming a Utility” was the ultimate slur in the telecom boardroom. If you wanted to offend a Telco C-suite, you just needed to say: “You are nothing more than a Utility”.
But in 2026, the irony is really sad as Telcos should be begging for that utility status. While global operators grind out a stagnant 4% revenue growth, power utilities have positioned themselves as the AI revolution’s feedstock, surging at 8% their revenues in 2025 or double the pace of the so-called “TechCos.”
The industry remains stuck in an echo chamber of Haters dismissing leadership as incompetent, Vendors selling silver-bullet products to fix structural rot, and Denialists claiming tech agility on 2% revenue growth. To find the exit, we must stop the noise and address the five-dimensional trap: Regulatory, Technological, Market, Consumer, and Cultural, that keeps 300 intelligent Telco´s management teams producing identical mediocre results.
Why You Wish You Were a Utility?
