Blockchain is believed by many to have application in the connectivity business, such as creating mechanisms to verify buyer identities, seller assets and liquify the process of settlements, perhaps especially across national borders.
Some believe blockchain can ease the chores of number portability as well, since verifying identities is made easier. Others believe blockchain can reduce fraud and waste, for such reasons. Blockchain is viewed as a way to prevent vaccine fraud, for example, another similar use case in the health industry.
Verifying actual performance might be quite valuable for eliminating or limiting disputes over service level agreement performance. “One version of the truth” should reduce instances of uncertainty about actual performance.
Blockchain could help reduce phone theft, by making stolen devices unusable because the lawful ownership history is clear.
Possible uses of blockchain in other industries might eventually suggest additional connectivity business uses.
Blockchain now is seen by some as a way to disrupt and decentralize movie financing, for example.
And while blockchain might not have much incremental value for tier-one connectivity providers, who have means to acquire capital, blockchain could well be important for smaller, upstart providers as a means of raising capital.
Strategically, blockchain also is seen as a new form of disintermediation beyond the use of internet mechanisms to displace distributors.
If you think back, the creation of huge e-marketplaces displaced distributors of all sorts in virtually all value chains. Blockchain could take that process a step further.
Think of a potential global ability to buy and sell assets--connectivity (access or transport), compute cycles, interconnection, application use, storage or radio use--by means of an online portal that is blockchain-enabled.
That would be a sort of ultimate fulfillment of the 50-year drive for on-demand provisioning that the connectivity industry has sought.
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