PORTFOLIO OF EXECUTIVE INTERVIEWS
THE 5 ASIAN TIGERS
Volume 1
By Isabelle Paradis
President, HOT TELECOM
September 2015
Interviews - Magazine format Interviews - PDF format
We are at a point in the history of the international carrier world where we need to ask ourselves the serious questions: Is there still a need for thousands or even hundreds of carriers in a world where high quality, fast paced innovation and continued pressure on price and margin is becoming the name of the game? Are we reaching a point in our industry where carriers will need to be put on the endangered species list?
The evolution towards IP and LTE, and the high quality, high bandwidth services it enables, is changing the laws of the jungle. Lowest price, average quality voice termination is not good enough anymore, and these requirements were what the carrier world was built to deliver. Multiple hops and complex traffic routing models was what the service providers needed in a world where quality was a good-to-have and not necessarily a must-have.
But now that quality is back on the agenda to support high definition voice, high bandwidth applications, content and video, global mobile groups are gearing up to exchange traffic directly or at least use a high quality/secure IPX provider as an alternative. So the era of the carrier middleman is most probably at an end.
But all is not lost for those who are ready to take the leap into a world where carriers operate above and beyond connectivity and where value is created from the ability to constantly adapt to new technologies, new requirements, new partners, new competitors and new opportunities almost in real time.
Well first of all, with the current morphing of voice into data, and with end-users’ growing hunger for content from everywhere, most definitely, the carrier of the future will be data orientated, with an underlying global, high capacity, rapidly expandable backbone. It will also be a carrier that is able to move up the value chain from the basic support of connectivity, to playing a key role in the interworking and interoperability of different technologies, networks and players. Ultimately, it will want to position itself at the top of the food chain and support data analytics and the information and control functions of the Internet of Things era.
But only a handful of carriers will be able to succeed on this evolutionary path. Others, who do not have what it takes to reinvent themselves in that way, should focus on developing capabilities in a specific technology, a specific market or a specific segment. As, like never before in the history of our industry, the big boys will need to partner with nimble, leading edge companies, to keep up with the quickening pace of innovation. Working with the right partners will be key.
I had the opportunity to discuss the future of the carrier world with five of the industry’s leaders and this portfolio of articles gives a compendium of their key messages. Let’s see what they have to say…
Isabelle Paradis
President
HOT TELECOM
About the Author:
Isabelle Paradis, President of HOT TELECOM is an international telecoms expert, with over 20 years working experience in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa.
HOT TELECOM has been serving global operators, governments, equipment vendors and telecom investors for over 10 years, providing leading edge market research and consulting services to industry leaders around the globe.
For more information on our HOT INTERVIEWS program, please contact Isabelle Paradis at: paradis@hottelecom.com or at +1 514 270 1636