The single greatest change of business environment is that “the boundary between mobile telecoms and the Internet has all but disappeared,” says Frederic Astier, Nokia Siemens Networks head of customer operations marketing.
So what does that imply about the relationship between network service providers, application providers and end users?
“This study tells us that telecoms operators increasingly see their value, and competitive differentiation, in increasing customer satisfaction through improving network quality, while acting as a content broker for social networks, mobile app stores, TV and voice over IP services," Astier says.
Where the old business model was tight integration of network capability and applications, the new world features an more-open environment where network services and features are sold to third parties who create and deliver services, applications and features to end users.
While voice calls remain at the core of their business, about 78 percent said they plan to open their network as an intelligent bit pipe for new solutions, by while 69 percent said they intend to bundle voice with other content.
Moving away from the walled garden approach of the traditional telecom model, they are embracing two-sided business models by acting as conduits between third-party applications and content developers and the end users.
In that regard, there seems to have been a bit of a shift in attitudes towards application providers such as Google, which now is seen less as a disruptive threat and more as a partner.
The study involved one-to-one interviews with the business leaders of 70 communications service providers from 42 countries, says Nokia Siemens Networks. Its aim was to provide a comprehensive overview of these telecoms operators’ business needs through 2012.
