Killing the Sacred Cows of Wireless Cellular Industry ?

What is the most important entity about any business ?

My personal experience is, whenever I ask this question to a fellow colleague, peer or pundit in the domain of Telecommunications. They all say happily in unison

Idea, Idea and Idea

And couple of seconds later they say :

Technology technology technology.

Well it may all look good and sound fancy on paper and in theory. But the most important thing for any business including telecommunications is

CUSTOMERS , CUSTOMERS and CUSTOMERS !!!

When I say this I get the classic response.

Whenever I say customers matter , give the customers what they need first often people get defensive and say ,

 
” No Azar you don’t know what you are talking about . In tech domain if the idea is brilliant customers will come”

For a minute, lets assume maybe I don’t know what I am talking about. But I do know one thing for sure, that a market does not care about your ideas and technology. If you do no offer a value and convenience for your consumers.

Its ultimately up to the market to decide , (people like you and me as consumers) to decide what is better for us,

• convenient to use
• and friendly for your wallet
• Brand loyalty
• Just being lazy
• Etc.
• Etc.

The truth is as consumers you and me do not care (maybe you do) who we get service from as long as we get the service which fits our requirements , budget and convenience etc.

A lot of people present arguments saying look at Uber. It was a brilliant idea and technology behind it, which made it so popular. However, that is not true. The idea of Uber was already existing in the form of Taxi magic. But Taxi magic idea did not capture the market share, was not executed well and could not empower people through the idea.

The end result do you still know Taxi magic today ??

What does it has to do with Telecommunication sector ?

As a consumer of wireless cellular service in the US. Few of the sacred cows for wireless service industry have been.

1. One of the sacred cow of wireless cellular communication in the US has been the length of service contract you have to go through,  before you can switch carriers or else you will get penalized with $$$$$.
2. Another sacred cow has been data overages to penalize and charge the customers for it.
3. Over decades Telecommunication companies have made fortunes by selling voice connectivity. But not anymore. The paradigm has change with OTT , Wi-Fi , internet etc.

And the list goes on and on…

In order to kill these cows. Unlimited data was launched by these companies in August 2016  which disrupted the wireless industry in US already.

Both Sprint and T-Mobile CEOs tried to troll each other , to claim who is the winner in disrupting the long time business model.

You can read the troll details here.

This disruption in the industry made other big players AT&T and Verizon to comply with it and were forced to join the party a little late in order to offer competitive plans as well.

In case if you are interested to know, who is the best among them ?  The answer is relative. Some pointers can help you such as reading this over here.

As consumers start moving towards a competitor which offers more freedom and flexibility. It does not matter how arrogant and elite an industry is. Competitors and Service providers have to comply.

This brings me to the point. Yes, we do need more ideas and better technology to satisfy customer needs. However, whoever gets more customers in business and keep them happy. The respective company can take the market share as well. The data clearly says so.

What does this means for us as technical professionals

Two things are evident.

• With wireless and data getting unlimited now. In near future, imagine yourself working for a wireless provider maybe equivalent to working for a utility company. The elite part may go away as the consumption increases exponentially. Similar service models such as utility service providers may come into play as well.

• In addition to existing ICT sector industries.More industries will originate which will use wireless connectivity mere as a utility to offer varying amount of services. We already see and use services from similar industries everyday.

Does this means your professional career prospects will expand not only in the domain of wireless provision industry but services industries using wireless connectivity as a utility as well. ??

That will require different skill sets in addition to already existing wireless know-how.

Having said all that. I would like to know from you. What is your opinion by seeing these changes in the industry. What makes you excited or upset about any of these changes ?

Feel free to leave a response in the comments below.