"Internet as Platform" Still Challenges Telcos

It has been some time since there was any serious industry debate about the "next generation network." That is a bit odd, if you trace the amount of time the industry has spent trying to define and create that next generation network. 

True, some of the quiet has to do with industry coalescence around "IP Multimedia Subsystem" and "Rich Communications Suite" as the practical answers to the question of what the industry will do about next generation networks.

The notion of "platform" comes into play in that regard. You might argue that traditional telecom networks were, albeit limited at times, "platforms" in the current sense for applications. The analogy is imperfect, but industry suppliers of switches, routers, other operating software, billing, operations support systems and so forth were the equivalent of today's third party developers. 

The fundamental issue is that the public Internet has usurped much, perhaps most of the role of next generation platform. Some might go further and argue that some devices, especially smart phones, now have become application platforms as well. 

In a nutshell, that is the strategic problem for telecom, cable or other access networks. The Internet, and devices that use the Internet, actually have become the next generation network platforms of choice for most apps. 

That doesn't mean cable, telco, satellite, fixed wireless or other networks cannot operate as platforms. But it does mean they now have limited utility in that regard. 

The difference between the public Internet and use of IP on private networks remains important, not to mention the continuing interest national regulators everywhere have in their communications infrastructure. 

But it is hard not to argue that the Internet now is the next generation network platform of choice, even if what we now call the public switched telephone network continues to operate, in parallel, as a platform as well. 

That might seem obvious, but it was more contentious a decade  or so ago, when debates about next generation networks tended to revolve around use of protocols such as asynchronous transfer mode or Internet Protocol. 

There are business implications. Platforms have tended to standardize around a single dominant provider, such as Windows in PCs, Facebook in social, Google in search. 

The more dominant the platform becomes, the more valuable it becomes and the harder it becomes to dislodge, as a network effect kicks in. Developers want to create for the platform "everybody uses."

And that illustrates the problem telcos and other access providers still have. The platform of choice increasingly has become the Internet. Developers who specialize in apps for the public network are far fewer in number than those who build Internet-compatible apps. 

It is still true that the public Internet is distinct from the public switched telephone network. That will remain true even after the legacy PSTN is replaced by the next-generation IP network. 

The Internet has not actually become the "next generation telco network." But it is the bigger platform. And in those areas, such as mobility, where the network actually retains more relevance, the mediating role of the device now is usurping more of the actual value of the mobile platform.