@lifeguard22 and other Syntonic skeptics,
I've had a quick read of yesterday's discussion, and I'm not surprised that you are skeptical. If I thought of SYT as you do, I'd also be sitting in a barrel.
(For those unfamiliar with the meeting between the god-father of skepticism, Diogenes, and Alexander the Great, here is a quick take from Wiki. It still gives me a great laugh each time I recall it).
'Thereupon many statesmen and philosophers came to Alexander with their congratulations, and he expected that Diogenes of Sinope also, who was tarrying in Corinth, would do likewise. But since that philosopher took not the slightest notice of Alexander, and continued to enjoy his leisure in the suburb Craneion, Alexander went in person to see him; and he found him lying in the sun. Diogenes raised himself up a little when he saw so many people coming towards him, and fixed his eyes upon Alexander. And when that monarch addressed him with greetings, and asked if he wanted anything, "Yes," said Diogenes, "stand a little out of my sun."[7] It is said that Alexander was so struck by this, and admired so much the haughtiness and grandeur of the man who had nothing but scorn for him, that he said to his followers, who were laughing and jesting about the philosopher as they went away, "But truly, if I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes."
[8]
LG22, as an astute investor and tech specialist that I know you are, your views come across as a little flippant when I read your commentary. This is only because we can all become victims of our own knowledge when we apply it universally without being more attune to the particulars of any case. Furthermore, there has been ample opportunity in the past year to discuss this stock in proper time, but we only get reactionary views on critical announcements. Seems a little disnegenuous at worse, and lazy at best. Only
Sector from here has given any time to enquire openly, and admitted his inadequacy in tech knowledge, and moved on. Yes, stocks can suffer from what you suggest, but not necessarily. We wouldn't want the least preferred STT stock make our thread a laughing stock, afterall, there hasn't been much said in its favour this last year, apart from yours truly. Anyway, enough of the pep talk.
As I've written about in other places, the first thing to consider about SYT is its position within the overall 'data' industry, and not the more complicated monetization process that they have developed
(HC post SYT). By the way, their monetization process is very good as it is not relying on any one single revenue stream, like Netflix for example, who have already mastered the OTT industry (for now: Disney have pulled their movies.... a sign of how the OTT wars will play out in content and technology delivery).
To make this as brief as I can, data plans are being replaced with content plans, just as content has displaced the talk of the old telephone. Content is the new talk, made possible by the advancement and ubiqeness of the smartphone and tablets. Telcos are now in an intermediate period of winning back falling ARPU from when they initially sold 'talk time' to delivering a modern content experience. OTT has developed as the natural evolution of massive content and mobile device technology. But this new combination cannot be monetized through traditional data plans, which I'm sure you can appreciate, especially if you consider Latam, or the bulk of the worlds smartphone users who are in fact not as wealthy as us
(Latam Article).
So, in summing up the content component of the industry, we see that the major telcos are turning to building-up their content supply, such as in their purchasing of studios like Time Warner, and building-up their demand equation in purchasing user bases like Yahoo. On this later (Yahoo) development, Verison's new OATH platform will become a very welcome third player to the FB and Google advertsing duopoly, according to the marekting industry
(Wall Street - OATH to Challenge FB & Google). Naturally you can see where this marketing spiel is going when you consider mass online audiences and the advertsing industry. (Verizon are building OATH, and all Verizon sponored data has a critical dependency on SYT technology).
Yes, sponsored data fits in here perfectly. But to try to bring this truncated discussion to a quick end, lets look at Syntonic's technology. The Connected Service Platform is the first cross-carrier cloud based platform that can manage sponsored data in a complete manner for telcos, users, and third parties, such as advertsiers. This is why Tata, who know something about data technology, quickly licenced it perpetually, and Verizon has built their entire sponsored data suite on it. Data delivery is no longer a linear one way street from A to Z, but now a three dimensional superhighway with many cross-overs. This is new to data technology. Now, a content provider has to account for the myriad of segmenting data across devices to account for all parties requirements. Telcos are no longer providing a sinlge stream of data for our consumption, but have to deal with your data being divided by those who want to access it, like advertisers, but also not having it count against your total. This subtle difference makes all the diffference and industry in chosing the CSP to manage it.
To sum up, we should mention that data in itself is not the means from which telcos earn their bread and butter, but access to mass audience through subscription and the marketing opportunity that mass audiences brings. As such we have to stop thinking about SYT as some middleman in supplying data in a world where data itself will soon be forgetten as the essentail ingredient in our online lives. Rather, as content replaces data as the new currency, we have to consider the way the content expereince is managed, and this is why the CSP is being adopted, as apparetnly it is the best in its field.
Anyway, it's a big topic and the above raises more questions than it answers.
Best regards
Syz.
