Reinventing Telcos - a preview of my ITU World panel session

Reposted from an article I wrote for the ITU's blog (link)

On the 27^th of September, I’m moderating a panel discussion at the ITU World 2017 conference in Busan, South Korea, on the theme of “The transformation of telecom operators: reinventing telcos.”

This is a topic we’ve heard discussed for at least the last 10 years in various forms, yet we still seem to be at or near the starting point. The panel will look at what can we do differently, to change the dynamics. In particular, it will focus on the internal organisation and processes of the telecom industry, both within and between telcos. Other conference sessions will consider new services, industry verticals, and the customer perspective.

Across the globe, traditional CSPs are trying to adapt their cultures and operational models, in the face of ever-increasing competition and substitution from new players. As well as other rival service providers such as cable operators, telcos now face challenges from Internet-based peers, niche specialist SPs (for example in IoT), and even enterprises and governments building their own networks. On the horizon, new technologies such as AI threaten to change the landscape even more. The nature of what it means to be a “service provider” is changing.

This goes beyond just implementing next-generation networks, whether fixed or wireless. While these are necessary, they are not sufficient for true reinvention – and they also require enormous new investment. The real question is what options exist for operators to best-allocate scarce resources (money, skills and time) to maximize the value from such investments in infrastructure. There is also a risk that emphasis on the “hard challenges” of raising finance, acquiring spectrum or sites, and building networks, means less focus on the “softer” problems of culture change, service design, organisation, customer-centricity and partnership.

This in turn poses problems for regulators, especially at national levels. Usually driven by domestic politics and local economic situations, they somehow need to ensure a strategically-important sector remains healthy, while also recognising the huge global-scale advances from many technologies and services that transcend national or regional boundaries.

It is not realistic for every country to have three or four competing local providers of social networks, IoT management tools or future AI platforms. Citizens and businesses expect similar functions to work internationally and immediately, with rapid incremental improvements. Unlike networks, innovation in services and applications often favours fast-evolving proprietary platforms, rather than committee-led interoperable services like the PSTN.

Telcos – and their regulators – have until recently been poorly-suited to this new world, although some are making interesting attempts to “turn the super-tanker”.

The session will touch on four or five key areas:

• Innovation: What is the best way for telcos to innovate, given regulatory & cultural constraints? Arms-length subsidiaries? Huge retraining programmes? Business units targeted on verticals / technologies? How much freedom should product units have, for example should they be forced to use the company-wide core network & NFV platforms, or should they be able to go “off piste” and act independently? Are “platforms plays” viable in telecoms, or just unrealistic wishful-thinking?
• Regulation: What should regulators be doing, to simultaneously encourage new entrants/innovators, but also allow telcos to make enough returns to take long-term investment views? And how can regulators deal with the overlaps, competition and tensions between very distinct groups, such as traditional infrastructure-oriented telcos and Internet-based “web-scale” platforms? One group has huge capex and strict regulatory constraints, the other huge R&D and greater risk of failure: how can one set of rules span both, where they intersect?
• Industry coordination: How do the current pan-industry structures (eg bodies like ITU & GSMA & 3GPP) need to change? Can they be made faster, more willing to take risks, faster to acknowledge errors, bring in non-traditional stakeholders?
• Technology catalysts: Are 5G & NFV really “transformational” enablers of re-invention? Or will prolonged hybrid/transition phases from older tech mean there can’t be fast shifts? How should telcos deploy technologies such as AI, blockchain or IoT internally, as part of their reinvention?

One other thing should frame the debate: language – how we describe the problems, or wider communications environment. Words, analogies and narrative arcs are psychologically important – they shape the way we perceive problems, and can either enhance or misdirect our responses. We should recognise the unhelpfulness of terms like:

• “Digital”: Morse Code was digital in 1843. Telecom networks have used digital technology for decades, as have most businesses. It’s about steady progress and evolution, not a “digitalisation” step change.
• “OTT”: usually said in a negative tone, I believe this prejudiced description of Internet services has hugely harmed the telecoms industry over the last decade. For example, it obscures the fact that larger Internet companies do more deep technology than telcos: they make network equipment and chips, build infrastructure and conduct billions of dollars of R&D.
• “Level playing field”: telco executives, regulators and lobbyists use this phrase with abandon. Yet the analogy is meaningless, when everyone is playing different sports entirely.

The narrative needs to change substantially. My ITU Telecom World 2017 session aims to reset the debate, and catalyse thoughtful (but rapid!) future action by operators, regulators and industry bodies alike.


If you are seeking a moderator or speaker for a telecoms strategy or policy event, please contact information AT disruptive-analysis DOT com

New Year Rant: 10 Awful Tech-Industry Terms to Stop Using in 2016

In the spirit of the holiday season and New Year, this is another list about 2016. 

But it's from me, so it's a rant, rather than clairvoyancy with a crystal-ball.

There's a bunch of words and concepts used in the technology industry that make you look like a fool, or at least lazy and sloppy. They're often meaningless, duplicitously-used to "misframe" an argument, or just generally cringe-worthy. Some of them I've tackled before, and yes, mea culpa, I've been guilty of some of them before too. But I've learned from the errors of the past, and apologise unreservedly for any historical fluffiness and telcowash.

So let's double-check our terminology in 2016, call out offenders, and make a collective New Year resolution to ditch the telco-industry b*llocks....




1. Digital 

Meaningless drivel. The last time the word "digital" was informative or cool was in the 1970s, or maybe, if you absolutely must, relevant for newer telecoms switches in the 1980s. But apart from retro nods to Casio, it's now just a useful short-cut to determining if someone is ignorant, tech-illiterate, or desperate for a marketing hook - think "digital agency" as cringespeak for advertising, or "digital single market" for the EU's half-witted bureaucrats and their fawning legions of lobbyists. 

And don't get me started on the clueless telco and vendor folk talking about "digital" services. Because hey, we don't want to go back to those awful days of the analogue Internet in the 1990s, do we? I suppose I should be happy that at least some of the politicos have switched over from the similarly-execrable "ICT", but frankly "digital" is even worse. So sneer at the digitalistas with both pride and prejudice – and perhaps a raised middle-digit.


2. OTT 

This one I've tackled before, but it bears repetition. "OTT" just means "bits of the Internet we don't like". It's arbitrary, divisive and hypocritical (all telcos have websites & Internet apps). It’s also a form of telecom industry self-harm, as the "O" for "over" conjures images of a vertical hierarchy, with content/apps/comms being at the top (and therefore implicitly better) than everything "beneath". Along with “dumb pipe” the false-dichotomy of ISP vs. OTT is at the base of many of the industry’s current woes, as it re-frames a simple reality in a deliberately antagonistic way. Telecoms industry regulators and lobbyists who use “OTT” are especially unfit-for-purpose, and should be fired for incompetence.

There is an exemption for anyone saying “OTT” if they also refer to networks as “UTF” (Under the Floor) providers, as that’s where the plumbing goes.


3. Transformation 

I have a little bit more tolerance of this word, as it is slightly better than some of the industry’s other gibberish. Elements of the industry are undergoing profound change, yes… but that’s mostly being forced by events, with grudging acceptance, rather than true enthusiasm. Even where networks are genuinely being “transformed”, it is rare that the culture, process and business model is following suit. More generally, it’s important to note that telcos, and their networks and services, have been in a state of constant flux for the last century, often with discontinuities in technology.

Either way, the only meaningful use of the word "transform" I've heard this year was by my Haitian guide when I visited in July - to describe a voodoo curse which he reckoned was turning him into a cow. To listen to some of the snake-oil merchants in the telecoms industry, you'd think we were watching something similarly magical occurring, rather than just mythology.


4. Seamless 

Another one I’ve taken aim at before – seams are important. Seams are borders, where important things happen. Pretending that they don’t exist denies their significance – and can lead to mistakes or complacency, in terms of user perception, technical capabilities, pricing, security and more. A prime example is the combination of WiFi and cellular connectivity for smartphones, where two very different domains exist, and blending them needs to be done with care and humility. Creating frictionless shifts between one and the other is important – much like real-world borders. But the premise of “seamlessness” removes visibility and agency from end-users and other market participants – and often presupposes (wrongly) that network operators are the only/most-important actors involved. Seamless transitions allow inertia and lock-in to be perpetuated, rather than allowing users or app-developers scope to make “wrong” decisions.

5. Carrier-grade 

This is another term which exemplifies the telecom industry’s arrogance and self-absorption. It imbues certain bits of infrastructure – or engineering practices – with a magical aura of uniqueness and competence. And while many examples are indeed praise-worthy, they are far from the only purveyors of excellent network engineering. Corporate-grade networks are often just as secure, resilient and cost-effective – but also often more flexible. Military-grade networks are often more secure. Consumer-grade networks or various ad-hoc networks are often more democratic and market-responsive. Internet-grade networks such as Google/Facebook data-centres or Akamai’s CDNs are often cleverer. 

Telecoms carriers are not “special flowers” nor sit in “ivory towers”. Continually using terms like “carrier-grade” perpetuates the arbitrary distinctions between telecom and Internet worlds, and fosters harmful distinctions that inhibit service-providers from making pragmatic, market-aware decisions.


6. Engagement 

This is not limited to the telecoms industry, but is a general example of horrific marketing-industry and social-networking semantics and practice that needs to be stamped out. “Engagement” usually involves forcing people to “interact” when they’d often rather not, or measuring social-network actions in a cringe-worthy fashion. My recent example of WiFi “monetisation” charlatans bragging of “engaging” users for 45 seconds highlights the misanthropy present in this way of thinking. The whole area of “click-bait” posts, or those stupid list-based websites that force you to find the “next page” button, or click an invisible “x” on an intrusive floating advert are others.

This is not to say that it’s a bad thing to allow people to interact with you. Yes, they should be able to comment or share if they choose. But that’s the point: they are choosing to interact. They have agency, and take action. They should not be encouraged or forced to “engage”. It’s the coercivity that is wrong.


7. Content (& especially content-marketing)

“Content” is just one-directional application data, which flows from a “publisher” to a “consumer”. Despite some commentators’ and legislators’ ignorant comments, it does not constitute the whole Internet. While the likes of Netflix and the BBC are clearly important, so too are Amazon, Twitter, Skype, SAP, email, backups to iCloud, downloaded virus definitions and innumerable enterprise applications and services. The latter are communications, transactions, applications and raw data – not “content”. Yet too many laws and structures are designed with an historical “media” mindset, rather than an IT or Internet-native one. For example, the majority of the Net Neutrality discussion was centred on “content” and “content provdiers” – although to be fair, some regulators have talked about “edge providers”, which is a slightly more generic term.

Hopefully the rise of ever more non-content mobile apps, plus also IoT devices and traffic, will make more people (especially regulators and politicians) aware that networks are used for much more than lumps of video entertainment, media websites and music. 

To be honest, “content” is mostly another sleazy, marketing-inspired word anyway – often used with a hidden meaning of “that stuff we can embed advertising in”. That also gives rise to the most repugnant use of the term – in “content marketing”, which is basically just “long-form spam”, often masquerading as journalism or analysis. The technology industry is widely infested with dodgy “content marketing” – particularly corporate blogs masquerading as independent sources of news or analysis. You know the type: one-sided puff-pieces which laud a particular type of technology or product or brand. “Why WiFi-calling is transformational & will change telecoms for ever and allow operators to fight back against the OTTs with new digital services and improved customer engagement” (posted on WiFiCallingForEver.com, with a tiny note at the bottom that it’s sponsored by VendorX.com). The worst content-marketing of all is that derived from fake, quasi-corrupt, pay-for-play industry “awards”, where marketing companies offer “sponsors” a full package of PR and churnalism “content” in exchange for a “submission fee”.


8. Rich 

Obviously exemplified by the ludicrous RCS of zombie fame, the word “rich” also crops up in various other telecom and Internet contexts as well. It usually means “we didn’t have any proper designers involved, so we just threw in as many random features as we could, hoping that people would muddle through and ignore the incoherent clutter”. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Apple use the word – or even Facebook. I’m scared to look, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Yahoo or LinkedIn have used it, though. Rich services or apps don’t even have the redeeming benefits of rich food – they’re unpalatable as well, as bad for you.

Applications should be right not rich.


9. End-to-end

Whenever you see anyone in the telecom talking about “end-to-end” capabilities – especially QoS – you should laugh and dismiss them and their products/services immediately. In almost every case, the so-called “ends” just refer to arbitrary points over which they have some modicum of visibility and control. They are never the actual ends where a service is generated or consumed, just points on an architecture diagram where somebody else takes over responsibility. So for a streamed video, there are origination servers (perhaps even the production, editing and encoding process) and the end-device, with screen and associated processors and memory. Quality of experience ends at the retina, the eardrum – and maybe even the cortex of the brain. A great example of the end-to-end fallacy is around VoIP, where much of the quality and performance is gated by the device’s silicon and its microphone and speakers, as well as the various processing algorithms used. The network is important – and bits of it may indeed be well-managed. But they’re not “ends”. 

I’m writing this in an airport, where BA takes responsibility for getting me from gate to gate. It conspicuously doesn’t refer to my journey “end-to-end”. The handful of airlines which offer limo-service  to and from your home and hotel would have a better claim – but even they can’t control the traffic on the roads outside Heathrow, just the seat you sit in. 


10. Ecosystem

This is the term beloved of people who used to say “value chain”, especially as it allows a temporary warm & fuzzy feeling from its environmental and natural background. But for that very reason, it’s a lousy analogy. Ecosystems aren’t “built”, they evolve. It means a group of interacting organisms AND their (physical) environment and resources. It implies co-dependency – if one part of an ecosystem gets removed, damaged or destroyed, it has an impact on everything else. It’s not just a convenient term for a software or web company’s developer and partner programme.

While real ecosystems might have some symbiosis, they also typically have an apex predator, plus lots of unfortunate other creatures and plants that get eaten, or just manage to scratch a living, before rotting after their death with the help of microbes and parasites. Hmm, maybe it is a decent analogy after all. I’ll leave it to the reader to identify the parasites in the mobile “ecosystem”.

Summary

So let’s have a collective New Year’s resolution to avoid telecoms-sector “trigger words” and acknowledge what we actually mean in 2016. Let’s get rid of:

• Digital
• OTT
• Transformation
• Seamless
• Carrier-Grade
• Engagement
• Content
• Rich
• End-to-End
• Ecosystem

And, I’m sad to admit, there’s also probably a number 11 that’s past it’s sell-by: “Disruptive”. But yeah, let’s forget about that one, given that I was disruptive before it went mainstream. I reckon I can claim some form of retro-irony exemption…

Rant over. 

Happy New Year!

Retiring the term “Telco-OTT”. "Digital services" is useless too. Long live “Telco-Apps”

I’ve long railed against the telecoms industry term “OTT”, standing for “over-the-top”. It is pointlessly divisive and arbitrary, and often said in a pejorative fashion, by people who don’t understand what it means and implies. On Twitter, I’ve often called for people using the term OTT in a serious way to be summarily fired for gross incompetence by their employers. (Given that many of the worst offenders are themselves CEOs, this is impractical, unfortunately). I generally prefix it with “so-called”, or use quote-marks, to give it the disrespect it deserves.

“OTT” is used to describe a subset of Internet-based services or applications, which are thought to compete with traditional telecoms services like telephony and SMS, or hoped-for future services, such as IM or video-calling. Skype, Whatsapp, LINE and SnapChat are examples of applications which have earned the despised “OTT” tag, usually uttered by people whose PR and legal departments told them not use stronger epithets. 

None of those companies call themselves "OTT players" any more than a washing-machine manufacturer considers themselves as running over-the-top of the electricity supply. They are simply web or Internet companies, offering communication apps or services. Call them CSPs or some other acronym, if you must. In future, as "OTT" communications capabilities get absorbed into most applications and websites as features, with WebRTC or other APIs, it will be a fairly pointless distinction anyway.

There is also a considerably different interpretation in the content space, where “OTT video” is used to describe channels or streaming platforms such as Hulu and NetFlix or BBC iPlayer, which go direct-to-customer and don’t need to work with normal digital TV aggregators such as cable MSOs or IPTV platforms. There seems to be less animosity in that area among telcos, perhaps because most don't have legacy businesses there.

Some other Internet companies often get lumped into the “OTT” category too, even though their main offerings don’t overlap with typical telecoms service domains. Facebook and Google, for example, often get called OTTs simply because they are seen as a strategic threat to the telecoms industry, so it makes sense to demonise and caricature them as “the other”. Web search, social networking and online advertising are not traditional telecom businesses - they are new and purely Internet-based.

Most other Internet services and applications don’t attract the same opprobrium. Nobody calls Salesforce or Wikipedia or Tinder or a Cisco IP-PBXs & WebEx an “OTT service”, even though they also “use our pipes for free”.

I’ve made the point in the past that if Internet services are “over the top”, then surely telecoms networks are better-called “under the floor”, as that’s where the pipes and plumbing goes. Yet oddly enough, I don’t encounter many telcos proudly declaiming their “UTF” status.

In a nutshell, "OTT" is simply a duplicitous, mealy-mouthed term for "bits of the Internet we don't like". "Dumb pipe" is a dumb term too - networks are neither pipes nor stupid. What "dumb pipe" means, translated from telco-ese, is "please tax the clever people for us, or let us do it instead".

I coined the term “Telco-OTT” in 2011, to describe the growing phenomenon of telecom operators launching their own services that use the public Internet as a platform, rather than their own managed network infrastructure. As well as grabbing attention, it was intended to highlight the hypocrisy - and sometimes outright lies - of many industry executive and observers (and sometimes regulators) when it comes to the Internet

Now, following a tweet from Chad Hart, I've decided to take his advice and kill the term.

Almost all Telcos have so-called OTT offerings, whether in the field of voice/messaging, cloud offers, content/video or even home-automation. These span both fixed and mobile networks, and “pure OTT” standalone applications and “extension” models linked to existing on-net services. Some are in-house developed, others created through partnerships. I identified well over 100 such services in 2011, and there are probably 200+ today.

And of course, every single telecoms company on the planet has its own Internet-based website, gladly using other telcos’ networks as sales, marketing and support channels for both their existing customers, and their rivals' subscribers they hope will switch. Vodafone.com, att.com and kddi.com are all “OTTs” in the broad sense of the word. Of course, all the industry associations and regulators happily make use of the public Internet as well, at the same time as some are trying to limit its reach and scope.

Curiously, none of these telco-run Internet and app properties have ever openly suggested paying for QoS on their rivals’ infrastructure, or sponsoring their users’ data consumption. Surely, given Telefonica’s distaste of OTTs (”It's not a level playing field"), it would have proactively sought to recompense its rivals forced to carry traffic from Terra, Tuenti or TuGo, as a good example? One would have also thought that GSMA’s or ETNO’s webmasters would have long ago volunteered to pay for visitors’ traffic, to demonstrate “innovative” broadband business models? Or perhaps Verizon would have sought to accelerate user transactions on Verizon.com, when viewed from an AT&T broadband connection, and pleaded with the FCC to allow it to buy a “fast lane”? 

Oddly, all the CEOs conveniently overlook their own Internet businesses, when it comes to grandstanding in front the FCC or EU or investors, about Net Neutrality and similar issues. 

The bottom-line: ALL telcos are “OTTs”. All of them exploit the Internet, and would complain bitterly if they were prevented from doing so. They’re not as successful in some areas as their rivals, but that’s a separate discussion.

When telecom industry representatives clamour about the lack of “a level playing field”, most are either ignorant, disingenuous, or unwilling to confront the organisational and cultural blockages in their own businesses. Plenty of telcos do launch run “pure OTT” apps and services, in exactly the same fashion as any other firm. That said, other telcos have limitations in areas such as user-data collection and exploitation, and I'd support broader equivalency of laws and rules there, versus Internet players.  It's up for discussion whether data privacy laws should be relaxed on telcos, or tightened on web firms.

Some also have actual – or merely perceived – regulatory hurdles on things like lawful intercept. But they have had 10 years to convince regulators and ministries to be more relaxed on communications areas outside of traditional telephony. Seriously, if an operator launches a karaoke app, are they expected to record hours of terrible singing, and metadata of the music tracks sung for the authorities? Instead, too many operators argue for new rules to be imposed on Internet companies, rather than arguing for relaxing rules on themselves.

The time has now come for me to retire the term "Telco-OTT". It is now in mainstream use, and various vendors and media outlets have come to embrace it more fully. The market has understood that telcos need to have web and mobile apps and services, decoupled from their own networks. WiFi-calling exploits third-party wireless connections. TV-anywhere apps use whatever networks are available. WebRTC services are quite clearly expected to be accessed from any Internet entry point. Many telco SaaS/cloud offers are accessible from anywhere. Numerous operators have VoIP apps intended for expats, travellers and the "diaspora" outside their home market, and away from their controlled and managed home networks.

Continuing with term Telco-OTT now just lends legitimacy to the unvarnished OTT label, and the phony war that is continually perpetuated by vendors and regulators in that regard. I want those that use the term OTT to be accused of blinkered "entitlement", as evidenced by ignorant comments about "OTT stealing revenues". Communications and content provision are open battlegrounds. Nobody is "entitled" to market share, revenues or profits for telecom and Internet services. They are up for competition. And if you offer Internet access to your customers, you should understand and accept the risk that Internet applications will be better/cheaper/cooler than on-net alternatives.

So what to call these services now that "Telco-OTT" is to be consigned to history?

Easy. Let's just call them "Telco Apps" (or Telco-Apps with a hyphen - I'm open to persuasion on the punctuation). Certain things may have to be called Telco Platforms or Telco Enablers, if they are thin delaminated Internet service "slices" rather than full applications.

I'm also calling time on "Digital Services". It's a stupid term as well. Apart from AM/FM radio, I can't think of any analogue communications services. They're all digital, as is the entirety of Internet & telecoms networking. As Alan Quayle often points out, "Digital" hasn't been a useful adjective since it was used to describe Casio watches in the 1970s, or perhaps the replacement of old phone exchanges in the 1980s. Today, "digital" is most often associated with techno-illiterate fools in the marketing and advertising industries, who talk about "digital marketing", or use cringeworthy phrases when you meet them like "Hi, I'm in digital".

So. "Telco-OTT" is dead, "OTT" is for telecom people who don't like the Internet but are too scared & hypocritical to say so as they use it too, and "Digital" is for people who haven't understood the last 50 years of technology. 

Internet companies make apps, websites & Internet services. Telcos exploiting the Internet do the same. Telcos are Internet companies. Call their Internet  activities Telco-Apps, if you need to distinguish them from network-integrated services - although even those will be extended over the Internet anyway. The Internet - and the Web & Apps - has won.

Oh, and make sure you understand the difference between the Internet and the Web, too. Or else, once again, you should be fired for incompetence.