Disintermediation has been an issue for all retailers and distributors since the internet emerged. Irt also affects the connectivity business. Disintermediation happens when a “middle man” or distributor or retailer is cut out of a supply chain.
Consider what Facebook has explored about operating as an internet service provider, and what Amazon is doing as a supplier of unified communications.
Ignore for the moment the fact that app suppliers no longer require a business relationship with an access provider (telco, cable company, satellite or wireless internet access provider or Wi-Fi network) to supply value to end users and customers.
Look only at the disintermediation of the whole third party internet access provider role.
Facebook--as do other hyperscale app and computing giants--operates its own wide area networks. But it also has been working on ways to reduce the cost of building access networks, through Telecom Infra Project, for example, which has produced the Terragraph wireless access system, the Bombyx optical fiber construction robot,
Facebook also has experimented with internet access from unmanned aerial vehicles and satellite delivery, as well as seeking to overcome the other gaps--cultural, social, linguistic--that have prevented people from using the internet.
That Facebook has determined that neither UAVs or satellite access makes sense for Facebook as a way of supplying internet access directly to customers or end users is not the point. It was exploring disintermediation.
Also, consider the new offering of Amazon Connect, which provides contact center capabilities that displace or compete with other contact center services or owned infrastructure.
Amazon Connect, available from Amazon Web Services, “offers high-volume outbound communications for calls, texts, and emails,” says AWS. “Amazon Connect now offers organizations a simple, embedded, cost-effective way to contact millions of customers daily for communications like marketing promotions, appointment reminders, and upcoming delivery notifications without having to integrate third-party tools.”
Contact center managers can more easily schedule and launch high-volume outbound communications by simply specifying the communications channel, contact list, and content that will be sent to customers.
Those are examples of disintermediation at work in the connectivity business. The most challenging example has been the change of telecom architecture from closed models to open internet protocol.
Connectivity providers no longer have gatekeeper power over applications that flow over their networks. Any lawful application can reach any customer on any public network, anywhere. That separation of app from access is profound.
But connectivity providers also sometimes face other, more direct, forms of disintermediation, as when a third party completely displaces one or more of the values (services and apps) once provided directly by a telco.
Messaging, voice, unified communications, video entertainment and rival facilities-based networks provide examples. WhatsApp--owned by Facebook--displaces text messaging. Facebook Messenger--owned by Facebook--likewise displaces text messaging. Skype early on displaced international voice calls.
Cloud-based unified communications providers displace enterprise phone systems. Streaming video services disintermediate linear video subscription services. Google Fiber displaces carrier internet access. Google Fi displaces carrier mobility service. Now Amazon displaces some unified communications services.
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