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Telecom users have benefitted tremendously in the last decade. The network providers, however, barely broke even on their broadband buildouts during this period. Craig Moffett is a Bernstein analyst who has reached to this conclusion after recent research. Published in a book called “Capital Punishment,” the data compiled by Craig Moffett shows that it is hard to build networks. The data also suggests that it is even harder to get returns.

The last 10 years have seen changes which have been beneficial to the consumers. Moffett notes that the big phones have been transformed into small computers. The number of television choices has increased. Access to Internet is faster than ever.

According to Moffett, the iPhone (News - Alert) was already four years old, as the decade of the 2000s drew to a close. The “next big thing,” a wireless phone, and smartphones were already available with nine out of 10 Americans which included the infants and the infirm.

In a press release, Craig Moffett said, “Cable had captured one-quarter of the nation’s residential phone business, broadband had soared to more than 60 percent household penetration, and the TelCos were delivering video to more than five million households.”

Moffett added that during the past decade, the returns on invested capital or ROIC have however been anemic. This is despite all the technological strides taken by the industry. The past decade of telecommunications has been marked with atrocious deals. Building networks needs lots of capital. The groups covered in the research have however hardly aggregated positive economic value creation, added Moffett.

The weakest returns on invested capital are for the wireline networks. Over the last ten years, wireline networks have reported only 1.5 percent gain. While a meager return of 0.3 percent has been reported by wireless networks, cable has garnered only a 2.5 percent return. The best return on invested capital has been however reported by satellite networks at 5.5 percent.

In terms of eight-year returns, the shares of DirecTV have trounced other companies. Negative returns have been reported by stocks of companies like AT&T (News - Alert), Comcast, Dish, Sprint and Verizon. The returns look much worse when the costs of various telecom deals like MCI, AT&T, and BellSouth etc. are added.