They should concentrate on protecting or establishing a niche in the access business. It's natural for for an industry to evolve into one favoring the low-cost provider. But there's always room for more nimble enterprises that cater to niche markets. The small ISPs can provide more personal service, adopt newer technologies more quickly, often know local markets better, and do just about everything faster.
Nobody survives head-on collision with freight trains.
Sure there will be a shakeout. This is a fake email address. So many old members of this list were getting spam generated from siphons trolling the archives that I replaced all email addresses with randomly generated spam traps that forward mail to spam fighters. If you need to reach individuals mentioned in these archives, use a search engine to find their current location, as these addresses and archives date from 1994 to 1996.