At SuperComm last week, the big announcement was SBC Communications' plan to spend up to $6 billion stringing fiber-optic lines in its customers' neighborhoods. SBC is second in size only to Verizon, which recently announced its own service offering of fiber-to-the-premises, or FTTP.

For investors, however, these big FTTP announcements should really be no big deal. That's because FTTP has proven no big deal for telecom suppliers, who are seeing ... well, no big deals.

Phone companies are reeling from the plummeting price of their cash-cow franchise -- voice.