Convergence – getting your business model right

Telecom TV has a good panel discussion of convergence and business model implications for telcos from over-the-top applications. The panelists are Alan Meehan, CEO of INQ, and Alan Nunn, Head of Services, Intelligence, Applications BT Innovate.

I guess there were four things that stood out to me, that:

• the walled-garden approach is not sustainable (not that I needed convincing of that)
• there is a clear drive to “make the Internet real” for mobile users
• we can expect continued innovation in communications from applications development
• innovation and growth is happening in the web and a lot of the focus is shifting to mobile connectivity.

From the INQ perspective, “making the Internet real” is in making it easy to use what their target market wants – Facebook, Instant Messaging and Skype. Now, what these applications have in common is that they are used to keep in contact with people. I suspect that Telstra’s “phone mum” advertising campaign actually resulted in a lot of those connections being over Skype or Facebook, not a phone call. In short, connectivity for many people these days does not involve making a traditional phone call.

Alan Nunn spoke about some going innovation, such as converting speech to text, arising from BT’s acquisition of Ribbit, an IP phone company.

There is also some interest insight about mobile network investment decisions such as stringing out HSDPA & deferring optic-LTE roll-outs, and the anticipated roll-out of femtocells. Nonetheless, the end-game is expected to be LTE, taking IP to the edge and cutting through the remnants of mobile operator walled-gardens.

It’s all another sign of the de-coupling of content from underlying infrastructure – a market-led separation in fact, driven by what the consumer is doing.