As you’ll be aware, the third Great Telco Debate 2016 took place in November in London. Once again we gathered an enthusiastic group of industry stakeholders to debate the hot issues facing telecoms today and in the future.
The philosophy of GTD is to frame the debates with expert witnesses, introduce the motion and then debate with the floor. This year we started with Mark Gregory, Chief Economist at EY who made everyone think about value creation and value destruction in the digital economy. Throughout the rest of the day, whether it was telco CXOs from Gigaclear, Orange, Softbank, Telefonica or Vodafone or the suppliers willing to expose themselves to the 3-minute challenge, everyone contributed to the debate. All, of course complemented by analysts and their independent input into the mix.
The conclusion from the analyst panel is that the industry is making progress. Demand has never been so great for connectivity but blending fixed and mobile for future 5G services, along with an emphasis on customer experience from the customer perspective and a willingness for the telcos to work more closely with the supply ecosystem is needed to bridge the gap from today’s unpopular telcos to the connected society of the future.
If you weren’t fortunate enough to be with us please do take the time to look at TelecomTV’s excellent coverage of the event and do give us feedback. And, of course, if you were there, use the video to remind you of what a great event it was and send us any comments, suggestions as to what we should cover in 2017 and help shape the debate.
In the meantime, please save 30th November 2017 for the Great Telco Debate 2017.
We know you will never feel the same about telecoms again!