Verizon-AOL: A War of All Against All [telecom]

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Surprising deal suggests a crumbling empire more than it shows the power of the network

By DENNIS K. BERMAN

When Steve Jobs released the first iPhone in June 2007, Apple Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. were worth almost exactly the same in the public markets: About $115 billion.

What came over the next eight years was one of the greatest transfers of power and wealth in corporate history. Mobile phone operators - who had been brutish, intractable gatekeepers to the customer - were turned into Apple's lackeys.

This morning's shock announcement of a Verizon purchase of AOL makes these big changes ever more clear. Physical communications networks are less of a competitive advantage. They are becoming table stakes. Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. are launching gliders and blimps and laying fiber in the ground; cable TV operators are deploying Wi-Fi workarounds; there are now mobile-phone carriers in which Wi-Fi is the default; and cellular technology is the backup.