Found this in Linkedin (credits below), and think you would like to read:
Telcos have more lives than Cats!
- In 2001, the Telcos not only survived the dot com crash but were a stable force.
- In 2005, Telcos growth was stalling as full mobile penetration was stagnating. Some wondered what’s ahead for Telcos to grow.
- In 2008, with introduction of OTTs, we said Telcos will be out of business. Yet 2008 was a blessing to the Telcos as the introduction of iPhone drove massive growth.
- In 2010, with the launch of Google Fiber, we said what we refer to today as Hyperscalers will drive Telcos out of business. The project failed.
- In 2012, most of the European Telcos had outsourced completely their operations to OEMs and Sprint was the first US Telco to do same. We were told Telcos want to get out of the management of network and focus on marketing / customer acquisition
- In 2016, Facebook launched the Telco Infra Project, and my company was one of the first 7 co founding team members. The aggressive vision laid out made even Telco members worried about their survival.
- In 2018, When Rakuten Mobile was launched, we said the Japanese telcos first and even non Japanese are under massive threat.
- In 2019, the Hyperscalers attention to Connectivity posed the question whether Hyperscalers are competing or collaborating with the Telcos, which was the topic of a Futurenet panel I was on. It is certainly true for Edge.
- In 2020, the Pandemic didn’t drive Telcos out of business but put them at the center of Connectivity and made them earn the respect they always deserved.
- In 2021, many are starting to wonder whether the OEMs, Hyperscalers and even some SIs are now competing with the Telcos on Private Networks. Yet I believe a major number of Private Networks will be in partnership with Telcos.
- In 2022, Telcos will ride the 5G, which is unlike any prior generation and which will enable Industry 4.0
I am not here defending Telcos and brushing off the many threats they faced and still face; what I am saying is that for 20 years some have predicted the death of the Telcos as a business model. Yet, what I do see are Telcos increasingly serious at transforming. Even some large incumbents I am working with are changing at impressive rate. I see Telcos innovating today in partnership with vendors. I see them relying less on the OEMs, opening up their network, going aggressively after large Enterprise clients, some haven’t given up on the Edge opportunity. We are even working with some implementing advanced solutions for Enterprises (Computer vision), and why not, Telcos hold an under rated human power and a fantastic ecosystem of partners.
Ask any major Telco today and Automation is their top priority on the CEO’s agenda.
No, the Telcos are going nowhere and have a great opportunity ahead of them if they can continue to transform at an accelerating pace!
Source/Credits: Ned Taleb on LinkedIn: #5g #iphone #network #computervision #automation #5g #telcos | 12 comments