Telecommunications and Mobile

FountainBlue’s September 20 VIP roundtable was on the topic of ‘Telecommunications and Mobile Trends and Predictions’. Thank you also to our gracious hosts at Comcast. Below are notes from the conversation.

Everyone remarked on the technological changes which are creating the infrastructure and enabling the evolution of telecommunications and mobile solutions. There was a lot of discussion on the opportunities and challenges associated with providing 24×7 cable in the home. Everyone remarked on the up-sides:

• The huge volumes of digital content streamed through a wide range of devices across the home provides massive opportunities for both content creators and device manufacturers alike.
• Flexible options for managing devices and content for users within the home provides a similarly large array of opportunities.
• There is a large gamut of software and hardware options available for users to manage day-to-day living, working and thriving at home – from the kitchen with its internet-enabled toasters and refrigerators to the entertainment and security devices distributed across the living spaces.
• Open innovation is allowing companies to jump-start and complement their own development efforts, and also facilitating collaborations between teams, leaders and organizations.

But there are also down-sides to this explosion in telecommunications and mobility, which in turn opens up market opportunities.

• Those who do not gain digital access and literacy will be left farther and farther behind. But there are opportunities for companies and organizations to provide digital access and digital education, to help ensure that fewer people are left behind.
• Weak links within a system may bring down a whole network, so you need to have an ecosystem approach to designing the network. There are consulting and management opportunities as a result.
• Compatibility between devices within a network may make configuration difficult or even impossible. Companies who make it easy for impatient, non-technical consumers to adapt and integrate their solutions will likely get more market share.

Below is advice for navigating this time of hyper-innovation in telecommunications and mobile.

• Embrace Change
  • Be open to the inevitable rapid change, and help your team to also be open to it. It will only get more complex and happen more quickly!
• Be Collaborative
  • Embrace opportunities to innovate collaboratively.
    
  • Connect marketing leaders with product and engineering leaders.
  • Build a culture of trust within your organization, and an organization which customers could trust.
  • We should all assume some responsibility for the policy decisions made, to help ensure the business opportunities are available. Which countries are more business friendly? How would net-neutrality positions impact businesses? What are the GDPR repercussions? 
• Embrace Diversity
  • Welcome people with diverse backgrounds and mindsets. They will help you see the problem better, and brainstorm solutions better as well.
• Put Customers First
  • Focus on the needs of the customer, with an eye on the overall market trends.
  • Take a customers-first mindset. It may not be your fault when something unexpected happens, but try to take responsibility and partner with others to solve a customer’s problem.
• Be Strategic 
  • Embrace the old and the new, explore solutions offered in adjacent industries, be open to integrating old tools and offerings in new ways.
  • Advances in telecommunications and mobile solutions may be adapted across industries, but only if we first understand the needs and the challenges of the end users for these other industries.
  • Proactively plan, but be prepared to react when it doesn’t go as planned.

Below are some ideas for opportunities ahead:

• Elegantly balance privacy, security and access across a wide array of devices and solutions.
• Manage the variability of access. We still have dead spots in geographies (‘Food Deserts’ also means internet access deserts), and hiccups in service when volumes of data traverses our lines.
• Leverage technology and data, ML and AI to help customers systematically and proactively detect and respond to problems within a network.  
• Design solutions for more concentrated populations as people will continue to move from rural areas into the cities.
• Leverage Machine Learning to document known traffic patterns and also to identify anomalies at scale.
• There will continue to be an explosion of low power hear-ables and wearables, in response to high customer demands.
• Find elegant opportunities to upgrade legacy solutions, or at least elegant integrate these technologies, solutions and data into new offerings.
• Embrace integrated hardware and software in upcoming innovations. Software alone will not be enough in this next stage of innovation.
• As we look at having 5G solutions in your pocket in the near future, the possibilities around apps, wearables and IoT solutions are mind-boggling. What could we do with 5G on a stick? or AI on the go?

The bottom line is that there is a lot of chaos and change right now as we evolve into the Connectivity of Everything. Convergence is happening across technologies, leaders, industries, geographies and solutions. The solutions will be seamlessly integrated and woven deeply into the fabrics of our life and work.

Those who are open during this turbulent time are more likely to navigate this cycle of change than those who are electing to remain siloed, independent, complacent with the way-things-are.

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