Telecommunications companies are undergoing a rapid transformation, and if yours isn’t, you’re missing out.
Carriers are now diversifying beyond circuits and voice into a rich suite of services, including cloud features, vertical offerings, and even professional services. Why this rapid diversification?
The modes of communication are now so varied that simply providing circuits isn’t enough. Telecoms need to provide tools for customers to communicate seamlessly and via multiple platforms. Your telecommunications strategy needs also to be a seamless one.
As far back as 2002, noted Princeton University public affairs professor Paul Starr warned about changes coming to telecom, saying: “In the long run — which may not be as long as many imagine — conventional phone service (that is, via a circuit-switched network) may not survive. The alternative is a digital, packet-switched system, essentially a voice version of instant messaging with the quality of a telephone call.”
Starr’s prophecy seems almost quaint today. The landscape has transformed far more than even he envisioned, and communication has gone beyond what he described to a multi-platform, multi-faceted menu of options.
Today’s telecom strategies need to offer low latency, bandwidth choice, scalable options for equipment and installation, the right pricing, and personnel to help.
These needs are global, and you may need to partner with an outside entity that can offer you all of these services in a “one-stop shop.”
Businesses today have demanding data requirements and your telecom must offer an array of options. Let’s look at some of the basics of why your telecom needs to go beyond simply circuits:
The Top Two Reasons For Diversifying
Cost: The reality is that point-to-point communication, long the gold standard, has an aging infrastructure that is increasingly difficult to maintain. Diversifying your offerings to include a suite of seamless, scalable solutions cuts costs while giving your customers options.
Competition: In short, everyone else is doing it — the “it” being going beyond offering circuits and instead offering a menu of communication options that can be tailored to a customer’s needs. If you’re not doing that, you’ll be left behind.
What to Watch
You will need an experienced project manager to help make the migration from a legacy telecom to a top-tier, multi-faceted one.
Configuration: Sometimes the obvious is overlooked, and you need to give this one its due. Make sure designated IPs have been properly matched. Also, check for any special configurations.
Readily Available Technical Assistance: Renodis underscores this as being very important: “There is scheduling, pre-wire, pre-test, pre-configure, verify, validate, and coordinate, to name a few. Be sure that there is a reliable, and reachable contact at the site. If the person at the site is not the technical contact, be sure that the technical contact is engaged and available in addition to the site contact.”
Global Readiness: As you upgrade your suite of services worldwide and go beyond circuits, you’ll also go beyond borders, and you need to be ready for that. Partnering with a company that can navigate each country’s rules and regulations and offer you all-under-one-roof options for doing so is likely the way you want to go.
The future will continue to tilt towards diversity and scalability, and that is where your five-year plan needs to be. Consider TechTarget’s prophecy: “Over the next few years, large service providers will explore and start to implement a range of SDN and NFV technologies on COTS platforms comprising a wide variety of use cases. Within five years, SDN/NFV will be the mainstream option for service providers deploying cloud and network architectures.”
Just like Paul Starr’s 2002 prognostication seems almost quaint, perhaps TechTarget’s will, too, 15 years from now. But for the moment, the future is here, and your firm needs to embrace it.
