SENEM DENIZ,SENEM DENIZ, SENEM DENIZ : VOIP ALERT ARUS TELECOM CARRIER
- 11 years ago
The carriers also described a variety of concrete steps they are taking to further their involvement with innovators. AT&T, for example, is setting up innovation centers in Palo Alto, Calif.; Plano, Texas; and in Ra’anana, Israel. BT says it talks to 500 potential partners, further investigates about 50 of those, and launches three to five new services out of the bunch every year. Sprint is doing things like setting up a 3G/4G developers' sandbox, expanding its API portfolio, and supporting and managing a developer ecosystem, all with a particular emphasis on M2M applications. Swisscom says it can offer the entire country of Switzerland, where it is pushing IP to the edges of the network with FTTH and LTE, as a test market for potential partners. And SK Telecom of Korea holds out the lure of partnering in a market that has two world-class handset manufacturers as a way to compete with the iPhone.
Slides, lists and invitations are all nice, of course. But being eager to talk to and meet with innovators isn't enough. Staffing up with smart people who "get it" isn't either. Even setting up new facilities doesn't necessarily do the trick. After all, large companies can set up entire organizations that have little or no real influence, simply to appear to be doing something in a high-profile area.
The carriers that presented at the conference are clearly doing, not just talking. But what really counts is how urgently or even desperately they're doing it. To make innovation work, large carriers in particular have to feel as if their survival is at stake. And the bigger they are, the more threatened they need to feel. Otherwise they will find it too easy to coast along on their considerable strengths, such as financial clout, marketing dominance and "ownership" of the customer relationship, until it's too late.
When gauging such feelings, of course, the only possible judgment is subjective. And based on the presentations and general atmosphere at TC3 2010, here's a totally subjective, entirely visceral and utterly non-scientific verdict: The traditional telecom industry as a whole is about one-half to two-thirds as worried as it needs to be.
Slides, lists and invitations are all nice, of course. But being eager to talk to and meet with innovators isn't enough. Staffing up with smart people who "get it" isn't either. Even setting up new facilities doesn't necessarily do the trick. After all, large companies can set up entire organizations that have little or no real influence, simply to appear to be doing something in a high-profile area.
The carriers that presented at the conference are clearly doing, not just talking. But what really counts is how urgently or even desperately they're doing it. To make innovation work, large carriers in particular have to feel as if their survival is at stake. And the bigger they are, the more threatened they need to feel. Otherwise they will find it too easy to coast along on their considerable strengths, such as financial clout, marketing dominance and "ownership" of the customer relationship, until it's too late.
When gauging such feelings, of course, the only possible judgment is subjective. And based on the presentations and general atmosphere at TC3 2010, here's a totally subjective, entirely visceral and utterly non-scientific verdict: The traditional telecom industry as a whole is about one-half to two-thirds as worried as it needs to be.