They came to realize they needed scale.

"A lot of people feel they need scale to do the business we are in," Mr. McConnell said.

Trurl disposes of them and decides that he needs more variety in his experiments and smaller scale for safety.

We need urban density and scale in our downtown.

To combat these low-cost providers, satellite companies need the size and scale to drive prices lower.

"You need size and scale to compete aggressively on a global basis."

Street games that needed scale and that sweet, smooth asphalt gradually disappeared from neighborhood life.

But he said the company needed more scale to keep up.

As Mr. Gates put it at a news conference this week, "If you want to deal with billions of people, you need scale."

In other parts of the communications industry, it is an old story: You need scale to thrive, and perhaps even to survive.