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Gartner telecommunications research vice president Geoff Johnson was recently quoted as saying that Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and even IBM were so disrupting the landscape with their emerging voice and multi-media capabilities that they would soon become the new service providers. He predicted this power shift could leave the telcos as commodity-based infrastructure providers.
So, when we look at the future of our industry in Australia, shouldn’t we expand our focus beyond the traditional view of telecommunications and who it involves? Shouldn’t we include Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and IBM, not to mention Apple?
Shouldn’t we include local media players like the free-to-air and pay TV networks that are branching out into the communications space?
Isn’t it time that our regulatory structures, our legislation and – more generally – our thinking about communications, accepted the reality that the future is about convergence.
As we discuss the future of our industry we can no longer think within the confines of the traditional silos. We need “convergent thinking”.
In that context I would like to offer some thoughts that I have grouped under the fairly crude acronym RECIPE.
It is a proposed framework for considering how we should plan our industry’s future.
R is for Re-name and Re-frame.
The name “telecommunications” is now too limiting a descriptor for our industry and I doubt that just dropping the “tele” prefix does it justice either.
I suspect that we need to start thinking more in terms of being an “Information Industry” or something else that denotes the multimedia, multi-purpose nature of the services that we can now offer our customers.
As for re-framing, let’s take a fresh look at the framework, structures, institutions and tools we use to govern our operations. The tools developed for the pre-digital age are no match for the complex and constantly evolving environment of convergence.
E is for End-point.
The end-point is the application and that needs to be the focal point. The infrastructure is merely the enabler.
When considering our broadband future we need to see it in the context of our social policy and economic objectives.
The key considerations should be the applications – the end-points – and how they can contribute to achieving those social policy and economic objectives.
C is for customer.
We must put customer service and customer focus at the centre of our thinking and planning. Customer focus is the most potent mechanism for invigorating competition and strengthening good governance.
Our industry needs to be allowed to be more responsible for its own customer service in the knowledge that companies who don’t perform will lose business.
If the competition and innovation settings are right, there is less need for bureaucratic consumer protection measures because companies will be encouraged to provide the highest levels of customer service.
I is for Industry collaboration and leadership.
The key to achieving a successful transition to the new era of converged technologies and services is industry collaboration.
By working together on resolving the difficult issues and building the framework for next generation services, the industry can lead the transition rather than follow an externally imposed agenda.
Another term for this concept is “creative competition” and it is the driving force behind the way Communications Alliance operates. By marshalling the inside knowledge and resources of our membership we are better equipped than any bureaucracy to understand the challenges of the NGN transition.
P is for Planning.
It is critical that we don’t allow the broadband migration to proceed without thorough and coordinated planning.
Already we have made significant progress in drafting the blueprint for the transition through extensive industry consultation via forums, workshops and briefings.
There is also the opportunity to focus on climate change issues such as lower emissions from equipment and facilities.
We are hoping that the incoming government is willing to take full advantage of the input we can provide as it comes to grips with the magnitude of broadband migration and issues such as climate change.
E is for Education
End-user literacy about the full potential of broadband applications is essential.
Therefore we must ensure there are adequate programs in place to educate users so they can extract the maximum benefits from the new generation tools at their disposal.
Married with this strategy must be ongoing training on using the technology as well as an increased focus on training the professionals we need to address the skills shortage within the industry.
So that is my RECIPE for how we should plan our industry’s future in the context of “convergent thinking”.
I hope that our incoming government adopts this type of holistic vision as it considers the essential steps towards making Australia a leader in broadband-enabled social and economic growth.
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