Executive Forum: A View of the Industry David Lassner President and Board of Governors Chair, Pacific Telecommunications Council Vice President and CIO, University of Hawaii
Are business conditions improving or getting worse, and are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future? The global telecommunications industry has come through a period of tremendous tumult in the early 2000’s and is emerging as the primary driver in broader ICT development worldwide. The health of the industry seems strong in this current wave of economic and development cycles. In the Asia-Pacific region, where the Pacific Telecommunications Council is the preeminent membership organization for the sector, strong growth is being experienced in many countries and especially in China and India, where an extraordinary boom in mobile phone use is underway. What do you see as the short term and long term health of the international telecoms industry? It seems that what was forecast for the industry at large is now becoming real: full convergence in practice. We are moving well into triple play services. In most markets we have moved beyond robust, widespread and competitive mobile voice and text. We are in the midst of enormously significant changes in music, news and media/entertainment distribution across a host of telecommunications, broadcasting and ICT networks. And now, the extensive use of video in all forms and across all networks, as well as the demand for high levels of seamless mobility, are defining the new core of telecommunications and services. From your perspective, what is the state of the market, and how will we cope with the change? Who do you see as customers, and how do their past requirements compare to those in the future? From YouTube to enterprise telepresence, from iPhones and iTunes to HDTV-over-IP, the shape
of telecommunications networks and services are being radically altered. The integration of previously distinct services is driving a new interrelationships across entire industries including telecoms, broadcasting and information, Internet, spectrum licensees, undersea cable and satellites. Users are doing what they want, the way they want it, mostly using the power and flexibility of IP. Mergers and alliances continue apace. Acquisitions and expansions are global in nature. Besides the usual push from Western countries, Asian telcos are now investing heavily abroad including in Africa. New partnerships and multi-player projects abound. Market opportunities in rapidly expanding new economies are plentiful. A mix of private investment and public funding is reaching lesserserved regions with more appropriate technologies tuned to local conditions. Regulation may not be keeping pace and it probably cannot. But in occasional rare fits of inspiration, it may provide a reasonable guide to promote further development, investment and a clear explication of market frameworks. The result? Far more users are actually getting what they want at a price they can afford. Advanced integrated service offerings across mature markets, with innovative delivery of personalized information and entertainment, are quickly becoming the order of the day. Even more dramatically, there are now a half billion more mobile subscribers worldwide, largely in lesser developed countries, where there was hardly any telecom access at all just a few years ago. Is this the dawn of a true transformation in telecommunications? John Hibbard, a member of PTC’s Board of Governors and CEO of Hibbard Consulting, Australia, points out, “The boom-bust 9