Telcos fighting back against vendor strangle hold

The balance of power has been firmly in the hands of the vendors for years, but now we are witnessing the telcos aggressively pushing back and wrestling for control of their own fate.

This is not a battle which can be won over night, it is a war of attrition which will be fought quietly. There will of course be passive aggressive comments, you can expect bold statements and it wouldn’t be the telco space without hollow promises of evolution, but what we are now witnessing is the slumbering telcos emerge from the shadows.

Throughout the keynote sessions and pre-conference workshops at this year’s Big Communications Event in Austin the battle lines are being drawn. The Open Networking Foundation spoke about a reconstruction of the supply chain, AT&T’s Melissa Arnoldi talked up the telcos white box dream, Reliance Jio’s President Mathew Oommen boasted about in-house developments, while Telstra’s Jim Fagan cooed over the benefits of open source. All of these comments indicate the telcos are trying to wrestle back control of the industry.

This is the complicated situation the telco industry has evolved to. For years the operators have found themselves searching for innovation externally. The likes of Huawei, Intel or even Ericsson on occasion held the trump cards, dictating the terms of the relationship. This is still the case as it stands, but the telcos are seemingly not going to sit quietly and do what they are told anymore.

Open source projects are key here, as is the disaggregation of software and hardware, alongside a operational model which allows for innovation and experimentation in-house. This is not to say proprietary solutions will disappear, but they will have to settle into their own place. Another critical factor is the attitude of the operators. Slowly we are starting to see a backbone emerge, challenging the status quo, and wrestling the balance of power back into the buyside camp.

Of course it will not be the smoothest of roads. The separation of software and hardware is an excellent example of where we are likely to see some resistance. The status quo leans towards vendor lock-in, and subsequently guaranteed business for the vendor. The new world of disaggregation offers flexibility and empowerment for the operators, and an entirely new business model for the vendors. The question is who will embrace the change and who will resist. Samsung has been making encouraging comments, but how much substance there is remains to be seen.

A healthy industry is one where the balance of power is evenly distributed through the ecosystem. This is not the case in telecoms, but the right noises are certainly being made. Hopefully there will be action to back-up the claims and power-plays being made by the operators.