This blog contains posts and comments written by students in Dr. Tufte's economics classes at Southern Utah University.
2/14/2005
When Will It Be All Wireless?
In a recent article from MSNBC it wrote of a merger that coupled Verizon Wireless and MCI in an article named "Verizon to buy MCI for 6.7 billion" . With this acquisition of Verizon it brought to mind how rapid the growth of the information age has been. The growth of wireless phones and wireless internet has provoked the question, where is it going from here? With this increasingly growing industry what should we as economic conscience people expect. In economics technology changes markets completely let alone not to mention the shift of the supply curve. With information present all around us what will happen to the competitive aspect of it all? Sure, we know that with more information at hand it makes everything that much more competitive, but will it ever end? When wireless companies such as Verizon are taking the reigns as a major telecommunications giant will we see more cell phones and less land lines? If so, what will the affects be? When more information is more readily available will it complex every industry or make it run much more efficient creating an overall good for society?
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2 comments:
-1 for multiple spelling and grammar mistakes in Tom's post (-2 for this many in the next block).
I am not a futurist, so I have a hard time seeing how business will change in response to cheaper communication.
I will say that the merger is a symptom rather than the cause of this.
I will predict that because the marginal cost is declining, that we will see more lower marginal benefit communication being done by businesses. Further, the quality of that communication will decline too - since it is easier to do it twice there is less of a premium on doing it right the first time. That may even be why the spelling is so lousy on student's posts (and I should talk ;)>
P.S. No slam on Tom intended by that last comment. What I meant was that spelling and punctuation are more important when communication is expensive, and less important when they are cheap. The general inability to spell and write as well as our recent ancestors may reflect that.
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