“New customer demands, changing competitive dynamics and emerging business models call for a profound transformation of the connectivity industry. To meet new customer expectations and support future needs, providers must work to identify areas of cooperation with the ultimate goal of delivering a seamless connectivity experience," said Elisabetta Romano, chair of the GLF board, CEO of Sparkle and chief network, operations and wholesale officer at TIM.
"Delivering Tomorrow’s Telco together as an industry - also partnering with the broader ICT ecosystem - is paramount to serve customers and enable the ongoing innovation and digital transformation across the board.”
The report entitled Tomorrow's Telco outlines the network requirements for the latest demand drivers. These drivers include digital enterprise, mass 5G adoption, cloud as standard, IoT and Industry 3.0, and immersive consumer content such as augmented reality and virtual reality.
According to findings, all these next-gen network use-cases have similar network requirements, which are low latency, high capacity, secure & trusted, consistent quality of service, adaptable, and globally standard.
“The telco of tomorrow is fast approaching, with requirements for enhanced connectivity that must be fulfilled. It is crucial to begin work today which will ensure that we can meet those challenges," said Rolf Nafziger, SVP of Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier.
"With innovative solutions that put us, as an industry, in pole position to drive the future of the communications. We can only do this by working together – a cooperative strategy that has also been a guiding principle here at Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier. And why we are intent on continuing to make contributions to the advancement of GLF initiatives.”
Other findings indicate that future network connectivity will need to meet customer requirements end-to-end irrespective of network provider, and regardless of customer be they consumers, enterprises or machines. As no one network provider will have its own end-to-end infrastructure, collaboration will be crucial in delivering future network requirements.
Produced collaboratively by GLF Board members as a roadmap for network transformation, the project was spearheaded by Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier, Orange International Carrier and Telecom Italia Sparkle.
“Infrastructures and Network services have always been at the “core” of Telco value proposition. In the past few years, Cloud transformation is pushing us to reinvent ourselves," said Emmanuel Rochas, CEO, Orange International Carriers and GLF Board Member .
"To remain relevant to our customers and continue supporting societal aspirations, our industry must evolve toward more programmable, on-demand and interoperable networks as a natural evolution of our activities. This requires strong involvement of our community toward network softwarisation, digitization and APIsation to transform customer experience. At Orange International carriers we are strongly engaged in this transformation journey and thrilled to contribute through GLF Tomorrow Telco initiative to support the global digital transformation.”
As a result of the report, the GLF’s has redesigned its programmes and working groups to identify key areas for collaborative action and focus. Specifically, the GLF defined a new four-pillared programme strategy. These pillars include:
Digital Infrastructure 2030: Defining next generation network architecture to ensure our networks are a relevant pedestal to support future societies and economies
Use Case Enablement: Creating services on top of interoperable infrastructures to create the best value for the community
Operational Transformation: Creating the ‘gold standard’ of interoperability and on-demand services across the operational lifecycle
People: Driving diversity and inclusion across the industry and developing the next generation of talent for the international carrier industry
“This thought-leadership piece is an important step for the GLF and its publication alongside the announcement of our new programme structure truly demonstrates the determination of the connectivity industry to deliver seamless end-point to end-point experiences for customers," added Annabel Helm, director of the GLF and GLF Community.
"This document also clearly highlights that there is a lot of work required to achieve these ambitious goals. Collaborative action is needed and it is needed fast. Our four new programme pillars give us a strong matrix and focus for delivery. The GLF welcomes and encourages all industry stakeholders to join us in our mission to realise this vision.”
For more information on the GLF Programmes and working groups, as well as other findings from the thought leadership-piece, Tomorrow’s Telco is available for download here.
