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Oscar's outlook
In the September issue of Global Telecom News I wrote to you about trends for operators to outsource. In this issue I'm taking up trends again, but this time it's the ones driving carriers toward interoperability.
To grasp what is happening in wholesale, we look to the trends driving our business - and those are on the corporate and retail side. We need to understand what communication providers must offer to satisfy their customers.
The trends in customer requirements are around globalisation, cloud computing, business process efficiency, virtualisation, and social networks at home and work. And customers want communications providers to combine mobility with security. These trends drive the wholesale market to deliver the infrastructures and platforms needed for new services in the corporate and retail sectors.
The telecommunications world is getting more complex. We are trying to simplify the transport layers and make them more flexible to react faster to emerging demands. We are transforming into next-generation communication providers to stay competitive, innovate faster, reduce complexity and improve cost efficiency. Wholesale businesses such as GTM can help in this transformation.
We see a shift away from traditional isolated networks with complex interconnection and service management infrastructures. Networks are transforming into seamless IP-based NGNs with interoperability and evolving platforms. These new networks can host the applications and value-added services backing the IT trends of 2010 and beyond.
On the customer side we see convergence between fixed and mobile networks and between telecommunications and IT. Voice, for instance, is taking on more of the characteristics of an application and becoming more integrated into IT-driven processes. This requires new platform solutions and new interoperability between networks and applications in a cross-provider environment.
GTM - with our colleagues in BT Wholesale in the UK - embraces the new paradigms in the NGN world calling for true interoperability across provider networks. Our products and services include new-wave bandwidth solutions, VoIP, value-added services, managed services and ICT-based solutions. We support IP interoperability as first movers in providing IP Exchange to help operators create successful business models in the IP world.
A number of operators are considering how they can expand into related markets such as media and IT services. They want to offset declining connectivity revenues and create sustainable business models based on the flexibility of the new IP networks. But a lot of the migration towards VoIP is stalled by missing elements for proper interconnect between networks - elements needed for security, cascading payment and charging.
Interoperability from BT closes the gaps by managing these functions. BT's approach will also include value-added services combining voice, data, applications, video, etc. Interoperability is a key offer from GTM to help our wholesale customers thrive with new-wave services.
Over the next five years, we will see more new services emerging, especially in the premium segment. New mobile operators are entering the stage, especially in Africa. VoIP uptake is driving new routing models, such as ENUM. All this brings increasing complexity and higher risk from more arbitrage, which leave smaller wholesalers vulnerable.
This much complexity means that only the wholesalers completely focused on the market will be able to operate without unacceptable risk. But new operating models, sharing and partner approaches provide ways for all operators to minimize risk and maximise opportunity. The future carrier landscape will leverage interoperability to connect applications across boundaries and networks. It will look more global and more consolidated. Especially for wholesale this will be an exciting time.*
To find out how BT can help you build successful business models for IP-based services through interoperability, see the article "Interoperability supports successful business models for IP" in this issue of Global Telecom News.
You may be interested in the articles about our new SMS Hubbing and Revenue Maximisation solutions. This issue also features the Business Process & Organisational Design practice of our BT Telconsult consulting arm.
I look forward to meeting more of you over the months to come and to writing to you again in the next issue. Meanwhile, don't hesitate to contact me.
With best regards,
Oscar
Oscar Ruiz
President
BT Global Telecom Markets
*I discussed this trend and others in wholesale in an interview that appears in the Capacity 2010 Yearbook. You can subscribe to Capacity Magazine here.
I wrote about interoperability from BT in the November-December 2009 issue of Global Telecoms Business.
Biography
Oscar Ruiz became President of Global Telecom Markets in the second half of 2008. He joined BT as Director of 21CN Products and after a year was appointed Director of Group Portfolio Evolution and Strategy.
Prior to BT, Oscar was a Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he acquired considerable international experience and an in-depth knowledge of the telecommunications and banking industries.
Oscar is fluent in English, Spanish and French. He holds a degree in telecommunications engineering and earned his master of business administration (MBA) from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management in the US.
Oscar's favourite way to spend his rare free time is skiing, especially at Kitzbühel in Austria.
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