What the telecom industry has not changed in the past ten years, it is changing now – and in a drastic way. The advent of new technologies, such as mobile broadband, voice over IP (VoIP) and messaging, among others, have contributed to the shift. In addition, the rapid growth of emerging machine-to-machine applications will boost the telecom transformation. The challenges are how to monetize bandwidth and guarantee security, according to Martin Creaner, TM Forum’s president and CEO.
“Traditional telecom operators are under pressure,” noted Creaner, during the opening session at TM Forum’s Latin America Summit held on March 27-28 in São Paulo.
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Creaner forecasts that within ten years there will no longer be ten computing and communication infrastructure providers; instead, there will be only a few infrastructure providers, some digital service providers and a lot of digital service and application retail outlets.
The transformation will drive the whole industry based on digital service creators and retailers enabling platform providers to reach end users with infrastructure providers making everything work. “Where do you want to be? There are a lot of telecom operators which aim to play in all places, but where will they invest?” Creaner asked the audience comprised mostly of carrier members.
“The point is: how can we take advantage of this scenario and avoid turning into just dumb pipes,” added Rodrigo Duclos, CTO at Net Serviços, which is owned by América Móvil. Duclos noted that over-the-top (OTT) players have been both a challenge and an opportunity. “We’ve been talking about this for a decade, and now everyone is passing through the situation of being dumb or smart pipe.”
Creaner also pointed out that carriers need to have solid knowledge of cyber security, as well as managing and analyzing big data, customer experiences and product lifecycles.
Be sure not to miss
- All TM Forum’s Latin America Summit pieces
