By Johna Till Johnson, Network World, 10/17/05

Regular readers will recall that I've been a longtime proponent of making the distinction between bandwidth providers and service providers, with the former specializing in low-cost, highly reliable infrastructure and the latter specializing in a broad range of customer-centric services.

Recent events have thrown this perspective into high relief. First is the growing trend of Web players taking over services that used to be considered the bailiwick of telecom providers. For example, consider eBay, AOL and Google: