Skip to main content

How will Telco's need to adapt in the Web 2.0 world

The internet is adapting faster than ever before. Web 2.0 is seeing innovation at an increasing rate and social networking platforms, mashups, online collaboration and Software as a Service (SaaS) is showing what can be achieved and still have customer service as a core value.

Telco's are renowned for over engineering seeking the elusive 5 9's (99.999%) when in reality less is more. Skype can suffer lower voice quality but generally the quality is more than adequate for the average user. Compare this to mobile call quality from a network centric operator and where the results can be shocking.

The Web 2.0 is driving customers into new levels of collaboration and the Generation Me subscriber expects more from their services. Increasingly the need to immediate response and low cost means that the Telco's have a real challenge, despite the impact [or not] of Skype, Jajah, Gizmo and Vonage, the reality is that the Telco style of service is not good enough for the average Joe Punter.

The wish of IMS and it's any content any screen with it's foundation of SIP based connectivity may not be fast enough for tomorrows consumers. Maybe the cold hard truth is that Telco's need to get out of service creation and marketing and concentrate on their core competency, operating networks.

In an insight for Techdirt I concluded that Telco's need to facilitate the network operation and open up for more MVNO's and companies that know how to bundle content. This is likely to come from cable and media companies who are used to dealing with a fickle customer base and therefore have to interact more closely with them.

In another insight for Techdirt on the disruption that is now seen in TV and Video new business models, more aligned to Web 2.0 and consumer driven content production, was my conclusion for that industry.

Today's Telco's need to understand what mass collaboration can do and how brands are now being created, and broken, on the internet. To succeed the Telco will need to collaborate closely with the end user and content providers to create more depth and width of services that supply the needs of Generation Me subscribers. This means learning how to be more open and use Web 2.0 platforms to change the dynamics of the transaction.

Download the insight "Adapt a Telco to Survive"
Download the insight "Video 2.0"
Read the article on Light Reading "Why Telco's need Web 2.0"

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

PC over IP - The Teradici Effect

Teradici are hoping to blur the lines between PC and Data Centre. Their solution allows a use to view multiple screens and control the blade PC over IP. This is kind of like the dumb terminals with a new edgy deployment. The intention is that all of the computing power is performed offsite in a centralized area, the Data Centre, and this will save on power and maintenance costs as the engineers are co-located with the hardware and therefore don't have to go out to the client site for basic maintenance. The Teradici Company Article found in the Wall Street Journal

In the overlap of technology, marketing and social media the QR Code is critical

Outside of consulting on telecommunications, CIO advisory, and the business adoption of technology I also completed an MBA.  One of the projects was on the potential use cases of two dimensional barcodes. Today the QR Code , one of many types of 2D codes, is seen as being a critical component of any good marketing plan.  As a natural integration between social media and devices I would extend VMob Bob's question " What can a mobile operator learn from Facebook ?" and also ask how can they step and start to make innovations with the extensions to social media that already exist today?

Access as infrastructure, what does this mean for Telco 2.0?

Having recently attended a seminar by Catherine Middleton from Ryerson on Australia's NBN initiative it got me thinking about "access as infrastructure". The Australian Government is investing $B's of public and private capital in a national broadband network that is a fibre to the premise platform, although for distant and remote sites it will most likely be a fixed wireless solution.  The proposition from Dr. Middleton is that ubiquitous access will create a platform for services that separates competition from access, sounds like Telco 2.0. The question I posed was if the idea is a common platform but close to 10% of that access will be at 12Mbps rather than 100Mbps (fixed wireless versus fibre) then surely the lowest common denominator will prevail and services will be designed for 12Mbps.  You would then question the rationale of FTTP or FTTH when you could go fixed wireless.  Over time LTE and similar technologies will see an increase in speed that will of...