I'll bet Verizon's million-dollar executives are scratching their heads over their Champagne-and-caviar lunches, wondering why T-Mobile is eating their lunch and stealing their customers. I'll also bet that is why they have had to lease data space to Cox Communications for their new Cox Mobile service at significant savings over their own pricing. This kind of business strategy is thoughtless at best, and suicidal at worst. Cox's entry and use of Verizon's towers will only hasten Verizon's demise as the premier carrier in the United States. In fact, Cox goes so far as to stop "just short" of advertising that it uses Verizon towers. And when you talk with Cox Mobile salespeople, all they speak about is that they're running on Verizon's network. I wonder, and scratch my head, walking into the local corporate Verizon store and see two, maybe three customers milling about, waiting for four, yes, four, Verizon salespeople who are laughing and talking amongst themselves, why Verizon now finds itself in the position it is in.

I waited over ten minutes last night at the Verizon store after leaving the T-Mobile store across the street. T-Mobile had five or six working staffers trying to keep up with twice as many customers. And Verizon continues to wonder — and is only now trying to catch up — with all sorts of incentives for new and existing customers. And by the way, those "incentives" come with all kinds of contractual agreements, including three years of indentured servitude to Verizon.

While T-Mobile has its share of problems — it has oversold its services, has inadequately trained Filipino agents, and hour-plus-long phone and in-store wait times — Cox Mobile also has significant issues, having tried to enter the realm of Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T on two prior occasions and failed abysmally each time. And Cox also has incompetent offshore contracted agents, just as T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T do. And let's not forget AT&T, with ridiculously high prices, poor offshore customer service, and faltering service. Does anyone wonder whether Verizon will be the ultimate loser in this scenario, just as Sears, Pan Am, Kmart, and TWA, and a host of others, who thought they were too large and important to fail?

If I were Verizon, I'd start brown-bagging it instead of caviar and Champagne, and look within, instead of what they've been doing for years. The market is changing, and Verizon needs to adapt. It's time to compete with intelligence, not just size and reputation.