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What Is a Telco in a 3.0 World?

Warren Lee, CTO of NeoNova, asked the question, “What is a telco?” Lee’s question, inspired by his daughter, set the tone for an excellent presentation that looked at the characteristics of how the new generation communicates and things a telco can do to evolve to meet the needs of this new customer-type.

Lee suggested if you need to ask how to use Twitter, then you don’t get it. His larger point is that these new technologies need to be an integral part of an operation and need to be developed somewhat organically. In this light, social applications are more about marketing than selling. In order to get someone to follow your Facebook page, you need to give them a reason whether it be a contest or a sponsored party with clues to its location given out on a periodic basis.

From an organic basis, one way to get familiar the tools while improving efficiency is to use the tools in your operation. For instance, NeoNova uses Twitter to alert its customers of a network outage. Using API’s they have figured out how to keep their data in the event Twitter’s model changes.

Being comfortable with using and developing API’s is very important in order for a telco to transition to this new model. Embracing this mindset will require telcos to work together and with others from around the world in ways like never before.

The other two elements that Lee said define telco 3.0 is a robust infrastructure (a big pipe and the associated backend) and marketing. With marketing, he echoed what we have been saying at the Viodi Local Content Workshops that content creation is really about marketing and creating a fan base. The social media tools help a Telco and its customers create unique community content. Used properly, these tools will reach to a new generation and help a Telco avoid the stigma of, as Lee suggested, being the proverbial father’s car.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=sOkXLt7DAWw%3Frel%3D0

[Author’s note; this was written on an android powered, G1 mobile phone, uploaded to an open source version of WordPress, while taking a morning walk – see the video for more details].

Author Ken Pyle, Managing Editor

By Ken Pyle, Managing Editor

Ken Pyle is Marketing Director for the Broadband Forum. The mission of this 25+-year-old non-profit “is to unlock the potential for new markets and profitable revenue growth by leveraging new technologies and standards in the home, intelligent small business, and multi-user infrastructure of the broadband network.”

He is also co-founder of Viodi, LLC and Managing Editor of the Viodi View, a publication focused on the rural broadband ecosystem, autonomous vehicles, and electric aviation. He has edited and produced numerous multimedia projects for NTCA, US Telecom and Viodi. Pyle is the producer of Viodi’s Local Content Workshop, the Video Production Crash Course at NAB, as well as ViodiTV. He has been intimately involved in Viodi’s consulting projects and has created processes for clients to use for their PPV and VOD operations, as well authored reports on the independent telco market.

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3 replies on “What Is a Telco in a 3.0 World?”

I attended Warren’s session also and I was encouraged that the folks in that session seemed eager to find a new direction, one which enables them (as the Incumbent Telecommunications Providers) to continue to thrive in a competitive marketplace.

Warren has always been a visionary and I truly enjoyed his informative presentation as well as the comments of others in this session.

Profit slump coming for US mobile network operators?

According to the Aug 4th FT:

“It is increasingly hard to see a future for the mobile phone operators as anything other than low-margin suppliers of dumb piping.”

“On Friday the FCC requested information from AT&T, Apple and Google over the decision to ban Google Voice from the iPhone App store – a move followed on Monday by Google chief executive Eric Schmidt’s departure from Apple’s board as the two companies increasingly compete. The software would allow iPhone users to make free calls and text messages over the internet, threatening revenues for iPhone carriers. Forcing Apple and its peers to allow such software, or data intensive applications such as remote TV viewing service Slingbox, would swiftly undermine operators’ profitability.”

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