‘I’m Not Going to Let It Get Me Down’

My mom passed away two years ago this week after an 18-month battle with bone cancer. I will never forget her and always be grateful for what she taught me. She was a good person, lived a great life, and taught me many things. I will always remember how she approached her final days. Although hurting, she never complained and was upbeat as much as possible. I asked her why she acted this way and she said, with a strained smile, “It hurts, it’s tough, and I’m not going to let it get me down.” When she passed, she did so very peacefully — with a smile on her face — on her terms.

“It hurts. It’s tough. And I’m not going to let it get me down,” is not only a rally cry for individuals facing dire situations, but it is a wise approach for businesses in any challenging situation. It is especially apropos during these difficult economic times. What difficulty does is provide us with new opportunities to become stronger — if we stay focused, resilient and upbeat. History shows that we do prevail over economic turmoil — and we will get through this one.

A new administration in Washington and new leadership at the FCC should provide a fresh perspective, and hopefully create a vision for competitive telecom to drive innovation and infrastructure to support the insatiable demand for bandwidth spawned by a myriad of voice, Internet, data and video applications. Competitive telecom provides the only real opportunity to create greater efficiencies for customers in growing scale, taking market share and competing globally.

What we need is for the new leadership to preserve the dynamics of a competitive marketplace and let market forces, not monopoly positions, drive industry behavior. Now is the time to be creative with networking solutions and to act with financial responsibility so when the economy rebounds, competitive telecom will be at the forefront in leading the comeback.

Competitive service providers and the industry can do many things to drive economic innovation. It is the competitive service providers that can recession-proof businesses, organizations and government entities with modern infrastructure that improves operating efficiencies, increases return on network investment and lowers overall costs of network ownership. It is this industry that can deliver an infrastructure with robust solutions developed with customers that deliver diversity and redundancy to keep businesses “always on” and operating during any disaster or outage.

It will take cooperation among industry players to make this happen. Whether regulatory rules are needed, or can be tweaked, to incent cooperation, or whether industry players can come together for the good of the customer — because it is the right thing to do — is left for another discussion and to the dynamics of the market. The bottom line is that we are all in this together and it is up to industry players to offer new solutions to an administration seeking ways to improve the economy and to create more jobs. It really is about growing the economic pie — and competitive telecom can lead the way if it acts fiscally responsibly and collaboratively to deliver workable solutions to help all customers win.

The year’s economy should be summed up with: “It hurts. It’s tough. And it’s not going to get me down.” 2009 will present some unique opportunities for competitive telecom — if we make it happen together.

In the meantime, here’s to you and yours for a safe and happy holiday season.

(And in the spirit of the season, tw telecom is offering exciting incentives for existing customers to increase their bandwidth. New tw telecom customers can take advantage of a free month’s service for a limited time. See www.twtelecom.com or click here for a flyer.)

Agree or disagree, feel free to drop me a line at +1 303 566 1354 or bob.meldrum@twtelecom.com.

Bob Meldrum is vice president of corporate communications at tw telecom (TWTC), formerly Time Warner Telecom. Headquartered in Littleton, Colo., tw telecom is a leading provider of voice, Internet and data networking solutions for businesses across the United States. Meldrum has been in the telecommunications industry for 25 years in a variety of marketing and communications assignments. He has worked as a press aide for a U.S. congressman in Washington, D.C., and as a sportscaster.

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