What is Telco ?

#1 What is Telco !

How would Telecom operators of todays generation define themselves as what do they do, they no longer only provide voice / sms / data, but they are rapidly evolving to do much more. So who would you call Telco, and what do you mean by Telco.

Telecommunications providers are abbreviated as Telco. And Wikipedia defines them as “A telephone company, also known as a telco, telephone service provider or Telecommunications operator, is a kind of communications service provider (CSP) (more precisely a Telecommunications service provider or TSP) that provides Telecommunications services such as telephony and data communications access”

I think this definition is so underplaying to all what Telco does today.

 I wanted to create the next generation definition of Telco, that would give a holistic picture of what all they do, and here is my definition.

Telcos Enables Tele - Connectivity, and delivers content/services over it.

 This simple yet powerful definition of todays Telco, tells everything that Telco does or want to do.

 Enables: Telco doesn’t have to provide means for tele-connectivity, however they just have to enable tele-connectivity, users (machines or humans) can use apps / hardware built on top of this layer, which enables connectivity.

From Communication to Connectivity: We have leaped from an era of communication to connectivity, as communication is a two way transfer of information, whereas today we just care about being connected. Often just consuming information.

 Connectivity: When Person or a thing is connected to another person or a thing, via wireless / cable / satellite / wifi / lifi or any kind of medium, Tele: the only condition here is Tele (from ancient greek word τῆλε ‎têle ‘ at a distance’)

 A Telco need not setup his own network, to provide connectivity, he can be a MVNO, MVNA, MVNE, Telco has to be service enabler, by whatever means. A Telco need not just provide connectivity to humans, but providing connectivity to anything that can communicate. However close range connectivity, would be governed by different set of protocols like Bluetooth, NFC, Airdrop … and may/may not be considered under Telecom domain.

 Fast paced development in Telecom area has led to huge pressure on Telcos. Revenues are shrinking, and data consumption is rapidly increasing. Customer no more only expects Telcos to provide Voice / SMS / Data services, consumers expect complete solution for their connectivity. Telco’s have to evolve, reform, modernize, reevaluate their offering and meet these high expectation, with dipping revenues per user. Which is why more and more Telcos are foraying into Content and services, which is consumed over the connectivity.

AT&T is acquiring Time-warner, Jio (India) is building Giga connected homes, with not just FTH (Fiber to home) but Movie library, cable TV and everything else.

On a fun side, this is another definition of Telcos

Telco prevents Human connectivity, by providing you all the mediums Connectivity, Bandwidth and Content, you wont need to see any humans.

:)

 I am Anurag Chitlangia, working in Telecom domain for a long time now, have experience of working with Telcos from APAC, EMEA CALA region. This Article is first in series of multiple articles that would be coming up soon, in the domain of Telecommunications. Keep connected!