Cord-Cutting Continues Unabated

Product managers of landline telecom service — both at incumbent telcos and at cable operators — continue to agonize over the ongoing trend of cord-cutting: customers disconnecting or never connecting fixed telephone lines in favor of using their mobile phones full time. Unconnected lines mean not only revenue losses but also declining revenues from high-margin fixed-line services such as caller ID, automated call return, and voicemail. By examining today's cord-cutters by generation, Forrester concludes that these product managers should forgo any hope that Gen Y cord-cutters will come back to a landline in the future. Instead, these product managers should craft new bundled offerings that will win cord-cutters' business for the future — broadband and mobile, with TV as an add-on.