Tag Archives: Amazon

Broadband World Forum Summary Day 1: FTTH is now Global, but we’ve got to Stop Wishing Business Models and Start Building Viable Business Models on Top

The Broadband World Forum continues to grow with attendees from 120 countries, 280 speakers (most were operators), 150 sponsors and exhibitors, 400 service providers and over 7500 attendees.  Gavin Whitechurch and his team deserve much respect for transforming BBWF into the Broadband event of the year.  At the session I chaired on next generation broadband […]

The Imperative to Open the Network

At a recent Alcatel-Lucent customer event, Transforming the Customer Experience, I gave a presentation and ran a panel session on The Imperative to Open the Network, the pitch for the session was: “The world has changed drastically over the past 3 years for operators. No longer are they the preferred service provider of their customers. […]

The Litany of Excuses Stifling Communication Innovation Part 4

A previous article set out the litany of excuses given as to why communication innovation has stopped in operators; and we’re working through how those excuses can be solved, avoided, or ignored.  This article expands a little more on the excuse: “We can only focus on 4 service launches per year (because we only back […]

Startups to Watch: Apigee, API Management

At the start of this year I created a white-paper around API management for Apigee (previously called Sonoa Systems).  Apigee is a 65-employee company with 55 engineers (10 working on the Facebook team), run on $40 million in funding from Bay Partners, Third Point Management Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Juniper Networks and SAP Ventures. Its […]

T-Mobile’s Latest Customer Service Failure

My experiences with being a customer of a mobile operator have not been as good as most of my other service provider experiences.  There is a significant gap between what we say and do as an industry.  I covered T-Mobile’s extortionate billing and their poor customer service experience compared to Amazon.  The last straw came […]

Operators need for Baby Steps in Business Intelligence, More TMO Customer Service Woes, and the ITization of Telecoms

Amazon provides amazing customer service, I’ve never had to call them through the hundreds of transactions, everything is just there online.  Its respectful of my time and lack of patience.  Comparing this to my latest TMO (T-Mobile) experience has me wishing Amazon would take over TMO’s customer service.  The week before last my wife had […]

Summary of Telco Business Model Evolution Questionnaire Results

Firstly, thanks to the over 150 survey responses to the Telco Business Model Evolution Questionnaire.  Responses came from all around the world with a even split between Americas, EMEA, and APAC; from mobile, converged and cable operators; their suppliers, application developers and a few web-based service providers.  The responses to the multi-choice questions are available […]

Why operators need an integrated Security Strategy to remain relevant as a service provider, not just a pipe provider

I presented at a recent sales conference for a large security / IT solution provider on the evolution of the telco industry and the role security and protection plays in that evolution.  I show below a cut down version of the slides I presented, removing the discussion on specific market opportunities and actions. In the […]

Case Study on why Ripping out the old IN to put in an open source NG SDP makes business sense

Even though M1 is a small mobile operator, roughly 1M customers, it remains one of the most innovative mobile operators.  M1’s business strategy is simple: to constantly deliver value to its customers by rolling out new and innovative applications and services.  In mid-2008, M1 began its search for a next generation service delivery platform (NG […]

Unmuddling APIs, Developer Communities, Developers, Third Parties, App Stores, App Warehouses, and Widgets…..

Network APIs do not require a developer community.  Its just an API: publish, provide code examples, define the process on how a third party can access the API, and you’re done. Network APIs are not necessary for an operator’s App Store.  For example operators have been selling content and apps on their portals for years, […]