By: Scott St. John - Pipeline

When was the last time you went to a mall? Or went into a bank to withdraw money or even make a deposit? How long has it been since you got your daily news from an actual newspaper? How many years has it been since you used a pay phone or even a landline? Better yet, when was the last time your kids untethered themselves from their devices to go outside and play?  I’m willing to bet that, like for me, it’s been a while. Digital transformation isn’t changing the world, it has changed the world.

Fight it though you may, there is no avoiding it and no going back. And I can’t think of a single industry impacted more than telecommunications. When you think about it, it wasn’t that long ago when a switchboard operator manually connected a call from point to point, using a physical switchboard and connection cable. Now, not only is the switchboard a thing of the past, so is the operator. Both have ultimately been replaced by virtual software and end-to-end automation.

The Great Digital Rift

This shift is just one manifestation of the seismic transformation that continues to take place in the telecommunications industry. But today, telecom companies are peering over a great, digital rift. This divide lies between the many point-product solutions, legacy systems and tools that have served service providers well for decades, and mounting pressures to achieve greater agility, scale, efficiency, zero downtime, and hitless updates.

Legacy systems, the multitude of disparate systems, and even our own human capacity can’t meet these demands—or manifest success. Humans, in all our glory, simply can’t keep up using outdated methods. To bridge the great digital rift, simplicity and automation are imperative, and are essential to survival as an explosion of future technologies looms in the not-too-distant future.

These technologies – such as 5G, cloud, IoT, and network virtualization – offer enormous promise but add enormous complexity. A complexity that’s rife with data. This vast and constantly expanding universe of data presents a wealth of information as well as opportunity for innovation. Bridging the rift enables service providers to immediately and efficiently address network demands and service issues; create new, innovative tools and technologies; and deliver exceptional customer experiences in ways that build true and lasting loyalty. Taken together, these are some of the most important keys to success and bridging the digital divide.