I don’t know about you, but I can’t believe how much market activity
we’re seeing in communications software these days versus the situation
of a year ago. It’s enough to drive our engineering and product
managers into a synaptic meltdown, given the presales and early project
delivery demands.
It’s about time. I ran an interesting google trends search this
afternoon, which ranks, in simple relative terms, the number of times
“telecommunications” has been used as a search term, starting in 2004
and ending today. Search frequency has dropped by about 75% over that
period. In other words, the average schmo is about a quarter as likely
to satisfy some level of curiosity about telecommunications as he was
five years ago.
Telecom Search Term Trend
Tiger Woods Search Term Trend
By comparison, searches for “Tiger Woods” have grown more popular by about 750%. Particularly in the last two weeks.
Go figure.
So based on our own small sample of interest in things telecom, I’m
compiling a list of the top ten reasons why I believe telecom is at an
inflection point — a very interesting one at that — and why the google
trend curve for 2010-2015 (or whatever replaces it from the google
labs) will look much like a mirror image of the 2004-2009 version. I’ll
post the first five of these today, and follow up in the next few days
with the remainder.
Number 10: Mobile data demand drivers will force a business
paradigm shift. All-you-can-eat data may be becoming unaffordable (see
the interesting article by John Paczkowski in All Things Digital).
It’s going to get worse with video. Someone’s going to have to pay for
all the upgrades and new backhaul. The people with expensive unlimited
data plans (the kind of people who write news articles and blog a lot)
aren’t going to like it.
Number 9: The mainstreaming of VoIP and multimedia will
force a technical and architectural paradigm shift. The IMS platforms
that are rolling out to deliver VoIP and other services work in the
lab, but they aren’t ready for prime time operations. The management
tools aren’t there yet. Demand for new tools and new methods and
procedures is going to fuel innovation and new entrants. Some of the
new kids are going to be newsworthy success stories.
Number 8: One or more major service provider networks will
suffer a catastrophic security breach. It’s going to make big news,
spur bloviating politicians to hold Very Important Hearings, and
refocus attention on securing the net. The vulnerabilities — either in
the internet
or in closed service provider networks — are just too glaring to
ignore. Some bozo hijacking a Tier I network will make good fodder for 60 Minutes.
Number 7: The US industry is ripe for reregulation. The Obama Department of Justice was widely rumored
in July of this year to be investigating antitrust violations in US
telecommunications. The long silence since then may be an indication
that the rumors were greatly exaggerated, but whether in antitrust
enforcement or in new net neutrality regulation, the long arm of the law is about to get longer. Lawyers, rejoice.
Number 6: The intersection of Google, Apple, and global
service providers like AT&T, Verizon, and Vodafone is going to
force a restructuring of players and roles. The hunger for content and
advertising revenue, the interdependencies among the networks,
platforms, and developers, and the extremely capital-intensive nature
of the needed new infrastructure will force a historic realignment. The
“communications service provider” of 2009 will be unrecognizable in a
few short years.
to be continued…
Read the complete post at http://nakina.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/top-ten-reasons-for-the-2010-telecom-rebound/
Posted
12-02-2009 8:05 PM
by
Jay Borden