What is a Service Provider?

 

How’s that for an opening question to my new column?

 

Welcome to my world and my bi-monthly column for TMC (News - Alert). Some of you know me and some of you don’t. I’ll get the formalities out of the way quickly, and move on to why you’re here. I’m an independent industry analyst and have been covering the IP communications space since 2001. We can talk more about that another time, but right now the focus is on this column. I’m quite excited about having a forum like this to create some thought leadership — not just from me — but with you, the reader.

 

This column has an overall focus on the service provider, and I’ll be sharing my views on important trends and developments from an analyst perspective. As regular visitors to the TMC Web site know, there is no shortage of up-to-the-minute news here, and my column is meant to complement that, hopefully making this site a one-stop-shop and primary resource for the service provider sector.

 

Another reason I’m excited about this column is the chance to build community. I regularly contribute written content for a variety of media, and the Web opens up new possibilities that traditional media struggles to keep up with in this regard. I see this forum first and foremost as a space to create dialog, and I’ll actively be seeking your feedback and contributions.

 

To encourage this, I need to deliver a regular flow of thought leadership to provoke you, challenge you and engage you. Sometimes I’ll be doing the talking and sometimes I’ll be using a Q&A format to share the stage with others. To keep things interesting, I’ll mix things up, bringing in views from both industry people you know — and people you probably don’t know. There are a lot of strong voices out there, and this column will be one place to get them heard.

 

With that out of the way, let’s get back to the question at hand — what is a service provider? This seems like a logical starting point for a column dedicated to this topic. Before the advent of IP, the answer was pretty clear. Telcos provided voice services, MSOs provided video services and a little later on, ISPs provided data services. All of these were service providers and their lines of business were clearly defined.

 

IP has certainly changed everything, and that’s what will make this column fun to do. In my view, today, a service provider is anybody who wants to provide communications services. Plain and simple. I really don’t see how you can say any more than that. IP really is a double-edged sword in that it allows you offer services you couldn’t provide before — but that’s equally true for everybody else. It’s a very liberating technology, but IP is also democratizing. Anyone can use it any way they like. Patent issues aside, nobody really owns IP, much like nobody really owns the Internet.

 

In this new world, the traditional distinctions among various types of service providers are becoming increasingly meaningless, and nowhere is that more evident than the success of the bundle. Sure, lots of people hate their cable operator, and others hate their telco, but all types of service providers are having reasonable levels of success selling bundles, with some mix of voice, data and video. The existing distinctions between telcos, cablecos, ISPs and others may be real, but as IP becomes the norm, these will become artificial — meaningful in name only.

 

Perhaps an even bigger implication for the status quo is how IP also means that anyone can get in the game. We all know how non-traditional companies have used IP to gain entry to the “service provider” market, and in short order, have become major players. Incumbent service providers and vendors alike have to completely re-think their modus operandi in response to Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Skype, Vonage (News - Alert), etc. All of these companies become service providers thanks to IP, and along with that bring disruption, innovation and new business models.

 

One of the topics I intend to explore regularly is the service provider of the future. What form will it take? How will incumbent vendors evolve? Who else will enter the space and have an impact? Will local or regional operators be able to survive? Will we see the rise of global service providers? How will service providers be regulated? What market forces will ensure competition and protection for subscribers? How will vendors evolve to serve them? What channels will be needed to support them? Who will drive innovation?

 

Can you see where I’m going here? These are the kinds of questions I intend to focus on in my column, and I’ll be looking for your feedback and suggestions along the way. A good starting point will be ITEXPO (News - Alert) East 2008 next week in Miami Beach. Between the sessions, keynotes and exhibitors, I expect to come away with a lot of great insights and ideas that will form the basis for several columns to come. And let’s not forget the delegates, who are coming there to learn and engage just as much as I will. What matters is being there, and if you want to run some ideas by me next week, I won’t be hard to find.