Operator Examples

Some network operators are moving faster than others, and rolling out innovative solutions while laying the groundwork for future enhancements. Comcast’s Xfinity X1 platform offers a good example. Cable operators lost points when they couldn’t natively integrate web-based content with their bread-and-butter pay-TV and on-demand video. Xfinity X1 started by enabling these sorts of integrated experiences. Then Comcast leveraged X1 to bring two new services to market: Stream, its own OTT video service, and Xfinity Games, a gaming platform created with Electronic Arts.

AT&T, like many operators, is rapidly preparing its network for the future and making it extremely agile with the power of virtualization (SDN and NFV). Domain 2.0 is AT&T’s network roadmap for the future, and it’s all about bringing the agility of the cloud to the network itself. According to AT&T, “Domain 2.0 is a transformative initiative, both internal and external, to enable AT&T network services and infrastructure to be used, provisioned, and orchestrated as is typical of cloud services in data centers.”

How does this impact service agility? “AT&T services will increasingly become cloud-centric workloads,” writes AT&T in its Domain 2.0 Vision whitepaper. “Starting in data centers (DC) and at the network edges – networking services, capabilities, and business policies will be instantiated as needed over the aforementioned common infrastructure.”

Organizational change

Becoming an agile operator is difficult due to the sheer size and often glued-together nature of many large CSPs. As a result of mergers and acquisitions, as well as outmoded workplace philosophy, many CSPs are simply too siloed and fragmented to make quick moves possible. Two ways to break out of this without breaking the mold entirely are by embracing external developer communities and financing innovation incubators.

CSPs are also financed on different standards of success, as compared to their Silicon Valley competitors. The measure of success for a company like Facebook is closely associated with the number of users in the network, not necessarily gross revenue. Although it will be many years before this changes, it is important to note that boardrooms in Silicon Valley pivot on different metrics than telecom boardrooms.

Agility is the new differentiator

Moving quickly has always been important in business, so why all the fuss now? Agility matters because its definition has undergone monumental change in the past ten years. Telecom timelines today simply can’t keep up with the cloud generation, traditional networks are by nature relatively inflexible, and telecom structures are too siloed and massive. At the same time, connectivity is becoming commoditized. Agility is the new differentiator, and it is crucial that operators embrace the strategies in this article to remain relevant and profitable.