"That industry is too low tech -- it would be better to start from zero," he said, adding, "Telecoms, on the basis of cash flow, they're not so profitable, but they have big potential".
Yet amid all of last year's economic carnage, six of the 19 telecoms on the Super 500 list actually managed to increase their sales.
How aggressively will telecom companies work on this?
SoftBank's core business remains telecom, on which Claure will presumably spend significant time.
Its holdings include Spectrasite, which went into Chapter 11, and CityNet, a telecom on which the fund took a 50% writeoff.
Several other companies, including major telecoms, are trying variants on this pay-as-you-go approach.
"If we get the regulators, the government and the telecoms companies working together on this we think we could start seeing a rapid decline in calls but that's going to take a while".
He is one of three Republican members of the five-person Federal Communications Commission, and because he recently broke ranks with his chairman, Michael Powell Colinn's son), on a telecom controversy, this engaging North Carolinian has become the swing vote on the power play that has media moguls salivating.
A third person has been arrested by police investigating the cyber-attack on telecoms firm TalkTalk on 21 October.
Despite it, policymaking in such areas as competition, energy, the single market and telecoms carries on.
