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The Future of Telecommunications

2011; Springer Nature; Volume: 3; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/s12599-011-0178-0

2363-7005

Udo Bub, Arnold Picot, Helmut Krcmar,

Digital Platforms and Economics

For two decades the telecommunications industry has been facing severe changes caused by the growing dominance of the Internet architecture as general purpose communications infrastructure, mass media, and also by new generations for mobile communications. This development will continue: new network technologies (e.g. Next Generation Networks, Long Term Evolution) will change cost and market structures, innovation cycles for products and technologies will become shorter, value chains will change. This is illustrated by vendors entering online service markets or offering their own network communication through so-called managed services. The change of operations system platforms and the emergence of application market places, especially in the mobile domain with the so-called apps, influence the future development considerably. Established network operators, on the other hand, start to specify individual consumer devices; classic computer manufacturers break into the telecommunications market by way of consumer devices as well as new services. The acquisition of Motorola Mobility by Google is only one further indicator that this ecosystem is subject to fundamental change. As sign of emancipation from services and infrastructure, numerous new enterprises offer carrier agnostic telecommunications and data services without owning the infrastructure, so-called over the top providers. Along with this a gradual shift of shares of the value chain with neighboring industries such as the media industry can be observed. Information technology (IT) and the next generation of telecommunications – based on the Internet protocol IP supporting services as well as the infrastructure – will get more and more similar. This is why many IT paradigms will become transferable to the telecommunications infrastructure. The growing convergence is coined by the term information and communications technology (ICT). Operators are often faced with the decision if they should build their future on pure network operations or seek premiums through new types of network specific services (using so-called enablers) or network agnostic services, respectively. The development of the telecommunications industry and the impulses and innovations caused by it in business and society depend considerably from the institutional guidelines, especially from regulations. The controversially discussed topic of network neutrality, i.e. the equal treatment of all Internet traffic allows for different views on the same thing: network neutrality can be interpreted as productive or counterproductive to innovation. In any case the internal operations of the involved players have to be designed very effectively and efficiently to reach a higher degree of automation. This is where reference models such as the Enhanced Telecom Operations Map (eTOM) help to reach a standardized course of action when needed. The harmonization between business processes and enterprise information systems along with a well tuned enterprise architecture plays a crucial role here. Further new challenges offer opportunities, but require a thorough techno-economical investigation. The current network transformation to an IP-based infrastructure of the Next Generation Networks offers potential for increased efficiency, but also requires high investments of billions of Euros with various decision alternatives. The started rollout of fiber optics connection right into homes (Fiber To The Home) will not only offer bandwidth of well over 100 Mbit/s to end customers, but will also give operators new opportunities to shape the network architecture, as well as to further automate the internal business processes up to a zero touch (i.e. fully automated) provisioning of services. This enormous build-out will not be done by former monopolies (so-called incumbents) alone, but will be shared. The business models of infrastructure suppliers will require a mutual ability for wholesale. This implies that in the future, incumbents might also lease some access capacity from other operators, which was not the case before. In addition to that it turns out that in some geographical regions public spending might be necessary (e.g. by means of Public-Private-Partnerships) in order to achieve full coverage of high speed broadband access. It all sums up to the fact that innovative products and applications have to be found that are convincing to the customer both in functionality and price. As a matter of