I’m optimistic about telco

I love the telco industry. Does it move a little slowly, especially to the public cloud? Sure, but that doesn’t keep my head from buzzing about all the possibilities for the future. So why do we keep playing a funeral dirge for the telcos of yore? I’m so excited about the industry’s future that I came straight home from MWC and bought a CPaaS company called Kandy.?Read my latest blog to find out why I’m so pumped.

Running your network on the public cloud with Juniper Networks

I talk with Ben Baker from Juniper Networks about telco's network workload journey to the public cloud. Ignoring the STRATEGIC question about moving your network, my question is—can you TECHNICALLY do it??Listen NOW on?Apple Podcasts,?Spotify, and the?TelcoDR website.

The other day I was thumbing through a Morgan Stanley research report from analysts Sanjit Singh and Keith Weiss, and I stopped to read about what they think is coming next. Their answer: Public Cloud 2.0.

From their vantage point, they see the pendulum swinging back to “build” vs “buy” as declining input costs plus a huge expansion of software capabilities enable a whole new generation of applications. They believe the focus will shift toward automating operational expenditures (OpEx), transforming entire business functions, and enabling real-time operations and intelligence. Three market forces will enable this shift:

1. Ubiquity of data;
2. Declining cost of infrastructure; and
3. New software paradigms that use AI models

Singh and Weiss say the shift will expand the public cloud market from the $500+ billion market it is today to a $2.5 trillion (!) opportunity by 2032.

O. M. G.?

The pair sees five key investment themes that will come to define the Public Cloud 2.0 era by 2026 (three years from now!):

1. AI-based business transformation—a $328 billion opportunity growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25%;
2. The modern data stack—a $173 billion opportunity growing at a CAGR of 26%;
3. Using the cloud operating model—a $142 billion opportunity growing at a 5-year CAGR of 18%;
4. Enterprise-wide automation—a $32 billion opportunity growing at a CAGR of 33%;?and
5. The edge as a new compute platform—a $7 billion opportunity growing at a CAGR of 79%.

With plenty of market opportunity ahead, they think new stack, cloud security, and other pure-plays are well-positioned for long-term growth.

This means three things for telco:

1. You need to move your workloads to the public cloud;
2. You need to figure out how to integrate your network with the public cloud so enterprises can use it for application building; and
3. You need to stop worrying about vendor lock-in with the cloud.

The time for debate has passed and it’s now too late. Time to ride the wave!

Speaking of?waves, I made some by?acquiring the assets?of American Virtual Cloud Technologies, Inc., including Kandy Communications, which provides communications platform as a service (CPaaS), unified communications as a service (UCaaS), SIP trunking as a service (STaaS), and a rich portfolio of real-time communications APIs and supporting functions. Through TelcoDR affiliate Skyvera, our plan is to assess the products and then—wait for it—refactor them for the public cloud! Stay tuned.

Need a reminder about the epicness of the public cloud? Charles Fitzgerald of Platformonomics shared the hyperscalers’?collective spend for 2022 in his annual?Follow the CapEx?post. It’s an eye-watering $127 billion. It was such a scintillating read that I invited him onto the podcast. Catch Charles in my next?Telco in 20 episode, available April 4 everywhere you get your podcasts.?

While you’re putting in your ear buds, tune in to?this episode of The Appledore Research Podcast?where the guests discuss the new?GSMA Open Gateway, announced at MWC23. The discussion ranges from what’s different this time versus earlier telco API efforts and how this effort fits within the context of API companies like Twilio and Vonage. Give it a listen—I loved it!

eSIMs?could be trouble for operators. They’re the only SIM option in the new iPhone 14 in the US, a situation that may extend to Europe and Asia before long. They make it easier for subscribers to change networks, following bargains and offers to smaller players, like mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs). How can you compete with this new tech coming online? CSPs will need to focus on CUSTOMER LOVE, lift those net promoter scores (NPS), and make those subs loyal for LIFE. eSIM adoption won’t happen overnight, and neither will a better NPS score. Get going now.

Luckily, I know how! It’s all about using your DATA to get valuable insights to personalize subscribers’ experience. Snowflake knows, too.?Its new Telecom Data Cloud?can help telcos make the most of their data, optimize?the network, reduce?churn, identify?opportunities for new services, and deliver?better customer experiences. Bringing together data from a diverse group of telcos to get better insights: it’s just like what we’re doing with?Totogi!

Data enables so many great things, but in order to use it you’ll need to clean your data!?Here’s a great explainer about basic data hygiene, the difference between cleaning and scrubbing, and how to use both to improve data consistency, accuracy, and reliability. Another thing that will take a while to get to a great state. Want inspiration? Check out Vodafone: it started cleaning its data in 2019—four?years ago. Imagine the head start those guys have on the industry…

Here’s a fun bit: Did you see?my Twitter thread?on my grandmother’s hand-cranked, wall-mounted telephone? My family thinks?it comes from the early 1900s. I even included?a little video of me pretend-talking to an operator. Look how far we have come. From each phone call going through a human operator to connect to putting “operators” in the clouds. Amazing!

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