Contributed by Richard Mishra, Telecom Strategy and Standards, Amdocs OSS.

There is a place where the road network is built by a private business, who charge a fixed monthly fee for anyone to use the roads, as well as operating a hire car service on a pay for-as-you-go basis. It is a reliable system and was originally designed so that people could visit each other. However, the company noticed that people were more and more going to large shopping malls and spending a lot more money there than they did with themselves. Even worse, the mall operators started providing a courtesy bus service, so the shoppers didn’t even have to pay the car hire charge. Everyone was still paying the road usage fees, but that was relatively small money. They came to the conclusion that they would get out of the road business and instead build shopping malls with media complexes.

This story may not be true, but it's no fantasy either. This is what people in our industry mean when they talk about getting into the content and media business and offloading their networks. Is this Telco2.0? Here is an observation as obvious as it is ignored. Nothing works without a network. Nothing works well without a good network. Google does not get customers unless the operators deliver them, even if it means turning into an operator itself. The one given in our industry is the networked IT resource. If the traditional Service Providers can't operate it, then someone else will have to; and whoever does will need to do it profitably, or as a nationally owned utility. But everything else is up for grabs.

This is the real Telco2.0 challenge. Service Providers who now have tens of millions of customers, may choose to have only a few thousand, who are themselves Service Providers. The basic service will not go away, but it will be overtaken by communication services that need only low quality data networks. Broadcast entertainment and particularly video services will require high quality, well managed network resources. And every adult consumer needs privacy and security. There is differentiation in the network; there will be the need to pay for quality. Most consumers will be dependent on a network of Service Providers  to deliver their communications and content to wherever they are, on whatever device they have and at a justifiable price. This will include resellers, mobile and fixed operators, internet and content providers and device manufacturers. This is the new business model and every aspect of management in this model, from resource to Customer Experience, becomes even more sophisticated and demanding than it ever has been. In short, the term 'best efforts' will be a deliberate and targeted service quality option, not a way to run the business.

• Author: JonahPransky
• Date: 2/25/2010

Contributed by Stephen Krajewsi, Product Marketing Director at Amdocs

Spent a little bit of time at the App Planet pavilion at MWC , which had the major players (like Blackberry, Google, Vodafone and Motorola) and many tiny companies trying to impress service providers with their offerings.  My colleague Bruno and I strolled through the aisles and had conversations here and there with some of the vendors.  He’s more familiar with this world and has been looking at the One API and Rich Communication Suite initiatives for a while now.  The best part was seeing some of these apps in action. We watched a cool demo of presence and location on the One API showcase by Rogers Wireless’ Larry Baziw  – three different devices accessing one service, all acting in the exact same way – so that’s why they call it One API!  And then there are efforts like Vodafone 360 which look at apps through the prism of a person’s contact book and social networks, which I found to be really appealing because it’s about my environment and circumstances.

As Bruno and I loaded up on literature and goodies where we could find them (note, goodies were pretty thin on the ground this year), we wondered these efforts would mean in the future and concluded that app development will be driven by what’s hottest in the hands of consumers.  In any case, our stroll through the App Planet revealed just how much and enthusiasm and focus there is on creating apps that will fuel revenue for service providers and excite the customer. 

• Author: JonahPransky
• Date: 2/18/2010

Contributed by Stephen Krajewski, Product Marketing Director at Amdocs

Big news of the day is Google CEO Eric Schmidt addressing MWC.  Besides some very impressive demonstrations of Google Voice Search and Google Earth (you could hear the oohs and aahs), he declared “that the new rule is mobile first in everything” saying that application developers in Google are wanting to develop mobile apps because “mobile apps are better apps”.  Mesmerizing stuff for the audience.

But at the same time Mr. Schmidt was laying out his vision of mobile before anything, other people in Google was doing a pretty big mea culpa for some very significant privacy issues and problems with the new Goolgle Buzz social networking service, which in turn comes hot on the heels of very bad user experience with Nexus One, their Android phone launched to much fanfare but little customer service.

Taken altogether, you could probably make a pretty good argument that Google is biting off way more than it can chew and its execution has been shown to be poor at best.  Mobile first might be better but it won’t matter if they company continues to stumble when it’s trying to change the game.

But I guess that’s the point – Google are changing the game and the audience at MWC probably listened with a mixture of awe and trepidation.  Trepidation among the traditional service providers because Google the mobile market squarely in their sights and awe due to how quickly they turn strategy into market moving activities. 

• Author: JonahPransky
• Date: 2/17/2010

Contributed by Stephen Krajewski, Product Marketing Director, Amdocs.

I have not been to MWC in two years, after having gone for 5 years in a row prior to that.  A lot has stayed the same and a lot has changed.  For instance it seems that the booth positions in Hall 8 are in exactly the same as they were in previous years –booth positions in Hall 8 are like salmon fishing rights on the best Scottish rivers or season ticket rights for the Green Bay Packers.  There are still lots of “consultants” (complete with ambiguous and ever shifting back-stories as to why they come to your booth) making the rounds.  To me, this is okay since it’s a good way to keep the information flowing in an industry that can sometimes forget about the human side of communication. 

So what’s changed – pretty much everything I saw today (and I have only been in two of the halls so far) has been about putting everything you can possibly think of on a mobile device.  Serious apps, silly apps, and those apps “you would never think you would need but are actually quite useful when you think about it”.  The mobile device is truly now the home for everything you could ever want to do – even the mundane world of document scanning cannot be left stationary.  No longer do you need 5 kg hunk of plastic, glass and metal that takes up space and glows eerily on your desktop from time to time (note, I have not bought a scanner in a while), just download the scanner app uses phone camera and file conversion into PDF to create a very handy pocket sized equivalent. 

But this also is accompanied by a shift in mindset.  Take World Film Collective, a charity that uses “sustainable equipment” (read: video capable mobile phones) to teach filmmaking to young people living in very challenging circumstances around the world.  I have had video capability on my device for a while and although I dabble in editing of video content, I have honestly never thought of using my phone to make a short film.  World Film Collective, and other people roaming the halls of Fira di Barcelona, see and are ever more dedicated to taking advantage of the possibilities of the mobile device. That’s new, it’s on display at MWC and it’s quite exciting to witness. 

• Author: JonahPransky
• Date: 2/16/2010