The mood at last month's MEF18 event in Los Angeles was surprisingly upbeat when you consider this event caters to the business services segment of the telecom industry and the news from that sector hasn't been all that rosy of late.

Consider the third-quarter results from AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) and Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ): AT&T's business revenues were down 7.9% year over year, or a more positive 3.6% when accounting changes are factored in, while Verizon Enterprise Solutions' revenues were off 4.0%. In each case, the growth of "strategic" services couldn't offset declining revenues on the more traditional business services side. That's a story that has been playing on, on rinse and repeat almost, for the last few years.

Some of that is the continued loss of business to cable operators, as both Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) and Charter Communications Inc.grew their small to midsized business and enterprise revenues in the third quarter. Most of those new customers aren't yet consuming the higher-revenue services being discussed in Los Angeles, however, as even Charter's CFO, Christopher Winfrey, said on that company's third-quarter earnings call that while customer growth was robust, revenue growth had yet to follow.