David Isenberg’s current Smart Letter quotes extensively from a 1998 article by David Reed about why outmoded accounting techniques are leading to a telcom meltdown. David says:

The local telephone companies could well have to replace their old switching technology to keep up with newer competitors that have a more efficient approach. Such replacements, while cheap to buy, would entail huge write-offs, given that existing switches are almost worthless and yet are carried on the books at fantastic sums. The central office switches and line cards of the phone companies could become the nuclear power plants (the “stranded assets”) of the telecommunications industry. We could wind up with a debacle on the order of the S&L problem …

David follows this up with an intelligent update and discussion, and then lots of reader mail from a gaggle o’ gurus.

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