The average grunt--switch tech, installer, CSR, telecom trade journalist--can only laugh at Time Warner Telecom's consternation over picking a new $4 million corporate brand. Sure, the right name is important. No one wants to spend that kind of money and come up with the telecom equivalent of a boy named Sue. After all, people do the same thing with their children. The only difference is, once that baby is born a decision has to be made within a day or two. Time Warner Telecom has put its decision off for over a year.

People fret over names as if they mean something. But unless you are naming your baby after someone specific to honor them, names don't mean squat. And except for the copyright search, paying good money for the psychobabble that goes into picking a corporate name is rather silly.

Especially these days, unless you are one of the top-tier providers, your name isn't likely to last long before it is hyphenated by your new owner for a short spell and then discarded. The Internet and telecom bubble-and-bust landscape is full of them. And now that the industry appears to be back in a growth mode, new-age techie names are being chewed up and spit out like pumpkin seeds.

And speaking of growth mode, given the earnings announcements lately by Citizens, Embarq, Windstream et al, could you imagine the growth if these companies weren't losing tens of thousands of access lines per day? Then again, if they were not losing those lines, perhaps they would not have the incentive to work as hard as they're working.

E-mail me at tmcelligott@telephonyonline.com.