Frankly the whole &quot;don&#x27;t want to be dumb pipe&quot; thing is a telco variant of &quot;perpetual growth&quot;.<p>Frankly at one point or other every large company in every mature market has to contend with having reached their growth limit. There are only so many customers in this world for the products and services offered.<p>The only place that could grow forever is Wall Street, by piling derivatives upon derivatives and passing them round like hot potatoes. Everywhere else has to contend with us being on a physically finite planet.