It is time to reset the telco button

As ARPUS dwindle and OTT/Big Tech pressures mount, telcos face a critical juncture: overhaul legacy models or evolve anew amidst AI and 5G promises?

- PRATIMA HARIGUNANI

It is never easy for a Baby Boomer to talk to someone Gen Alpha. There is so much new slang. A completely new set of glasses (tinted with psychedelic colours and lined with Al) for looking at the world. A really strange

vocabulary. And the clothes. That is another topic for another day altogether.

Relevance is tough. Connection is slippery. And yet, it's a table where conversation 'has' to happen. There is no postponing it. Not when OTT, 5G, 6G, AI, Softwareeverything and hyper-personalisation are shaking up so much on the table of communications. And definitely not when profitability, ARPUs, margins, and revenue streams are drying up at such a rapid and irreversible pace.

Is it time to rethink telco models?

THE B.C TO A.D MOMENT

With low ARPUS and outdated business models, especially in the B2B space, a lot can be changed, says Dr Roslyn Layton, Executive Vice President of Strand Consult, in a candid and well-argued way. "More so when we look at how telcos have been unfairly restrained from using advertising-based services and twosided business models that the tech league has been leveraging. The internet has changed since 1995, but broadband access models have not. It is, surely, time for new business models." The conventional model of Communications Service Providers (CSPs) of providing connectivity solutions is not yielding sufficient outcomes for their target priorities of generating revenue, excelling in customer experience and improving operating margins, concurs Amol Vishwanath Nerlekar, Principal Analyst at Gartner.