Sinking telecom industry issues SOS at TM Forum bash

In the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, the little mermaid painfully transforms into a human before she is depressingly rejected by the man she loves. If the Danish author had been writing it as a telecom allegory, she would have spent years flapping around on the beach, all scales and no legs, in some “code red” transformational failure, as Nik Willetts, the CEO of the TM Forum, might describe it. The prince of the story – a stand-in for analysts or investors or even customers – would be watching from a safe distance in horror.

Telecom types attending the TM Forum’s latest shindig were in little-mermaid land. That’s partly because the event was hosted – appropriately enough but seemingly for the last time – in Copenhagen, where a famous statue of the little mermaid acknowledges the cultural impact of the Danish author.

More importantly, what started out years ago as a nerdy gathering of IT people involved with telecom’s business and operational support systems (B/OSS) has mutated into a monstrous trade show with several thousand attendees and transformation as its overarching theme. The TM Forum even calls it Digital Transformation World, slapping an “Ignite” slogan over event banners for added impact.

But nobody is very optimistic about industry transformation. The data connectivity market matured years ago. After an adolescent growth spurt when people were first signing up for mobile and broadband contracts, telcos are in that late-middle-age period of health niggles and shrinkage while younger specimens overtake them. Networks are as important now as ever, operators insist. The same could be said about a water utility with creaky pipes.

Old telcos, new tricks

On the plus side, there is less denial of the industry’s crisis. “Nine months ago, I stood on this very stage, and we called code red for this industry,” said Willetts during a keynote presentation at DTW. “We all know the facts. The digital economy grows three times faster than the non-digital. By 2030, 30% of global GDP will be digital. And meanwhile this industry – an industry that is the very backbone of that economy – struggles to keep pace with inflation.”

Unfortunately, no one has come up with an answer. Senior executives on the technology side talk in abstract terms about “platforms” rather than new services or business models that would spur sales growth. Some equity analysts are baffled by chatter about network application programming interfaces (APIs) as a commercial opportunity for telcos. Figuring out how it could boost sales means examining a complicated flow chart of the steps that need to happen.

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