Save Money, Make Money with a Predictive Approach to Critical Alarms

Posted: June 24th, 2014 | Author: Ulla Koivukoski | Filed under: Industry Insights | Tags: , , | No Comments »

The influx of smartphones, tablets and other connected devices has changed the fabric of mobile customer expectations: in short, they’re higher than ever before. People today expect to work online, consume content or access cloud services, wherever they are and whenever they want. These new technologies add to the complexity of already diverse networks, which requires an increase in maintenance work and a balancing act of how to allocate scarce resources and competencies across the board.

According to a 2013 survey conducted by Comptel and Vanson Bourne, Quality of Service (QoS) is one of the primary drivers of customer acquisition and retention. It is a basic competitive requirement for communications service providers (CSPs) today, thus traditional network planning and optimisation or maintenance tasks are no longer sufficient. QoS management needs to be a much more proactive process today, to help keep customers happy in the long run.

That being said, the business case for proactive service management has multiple factors. Many telcos have scaled back on preventive plans to save money and resources. But while the savings are immediate in the short-term, corrective site visits and longer downtime can, ultimately, be more expensive and cause costly customer compensation and retention activities.

So, how can CSPs predict network faults and correct them preventively, without overspending? Comptel recently published a whitepaper that outlines the benefits of a predictive site maintenance approach to critical alarms, where tasks are prioritised based on anticipated network failures.

Critical alarm prediction allows CSPs to see further into the future. It’s a new kind of service management that predicts alarms and service disruptions on a network element level with advanced real-time analytics.

Here’s a quick preview of the whitepaper on the value of Critical Alarm Prediction to CSPs:

Reduce operating costs

A major cost in site maintenance comes down to workforce expenditures. When there are no emergencies and maintenance work is conducted during normal working hours, CSPs can achieve the most efficient use of their workforce. By simply predicting faults before they occur, and using the workforce accordingly, CSPs can save on operational expenditures.

Prevent revenue loss

CSPs know the angst associated with an unexpected site failure. Not only is the current traffic on the site affected, but any future traffic to the site is impacted until it’s back online. However, when potential faults are predicted, site maintenance can be scheduled and prioritised, and traffic can be even re-routed proactively, if necessary, reducing downtime and potential revenue loss.

Improve customer experience

The cost of churn, including churn prevention, is the single largest cost item for mobile operators. Coupled with data-savvy customers who are less likely to sit through local network outages, CSPs should prioritise QoS and the quality of experience (QoE). Introducing Critical Alarm Prediction enables CSPs to predict faults and schedule maintenance, which helps reduce site downtime and positively impacts the customer experience.

Build a culture of proactive service

Critical Alarm Prediction has the potential to introduce completely new ways of approaching proactive service management. It’s a business application that can help CSPs act before failures occur and, ultimately, move toward more intelligent analysis and operational processes.


Want to learn more about how a predictive approach can benefit CSPs? Download Comptel’s whitepaper, “How Prediction of Critical Alarms Helps CSPs Reduce OPEX, Prevent Revenue Loss and Improve Customer Experience.”

Download


How Big Data Blurs the Borders of Business and Technology in the Telco Industry

Posted: September 18th, 2013 | Author: Ulla Koivukoski | Filed under: Telecom Trends | Tags: , , | 3 Comments »

This post was written by Ulla Koivukoski, SVP of Comptel’s Analytics Business Unit, and Malla Poikela, senior product marketing manager.

The new normal today is that we live in an ocean of data. Now, it’s up to companies to transform that data into actionable insights that can have a real impact on business.

In the telco industry, creating a vision for data hinges on creating insights based on customer behaviours and around the networks that provide the data in the first place.

For that reason, communications service providers (CSPs) face a unique opportunity when leveraging the power of Big Data. Applying realtime analytics can deliver a holistic and contextual view of customer habits and preferences, and show exactly how CSPs’ underlying infrastructures may be affected by them.

Finding the Platform for the Vision

Any CSP that has delved into the depths of Big Data knows that the sheer amount of information at their fingertips can be staggering. That’s why an intelligent mediation environment is crucial for processing the customer and network information and helping to transform that knowledge into concrete insights. With a mediation platform, in-built predictive analytics can be used in tandem with insights visualisation tools to enable operators to make real-time, automated decisions and actions based on the experience of an individual customer in his/her activity on the network.

These insights aren’t stale numbers; they’re dynamic and are contextually relevant for each individual customer. Analytics-enriched intelligent mediation can lead to unprecedented personalisation when it comes to marketing offers and business development opportunities. Today, those focused campaigns are a must – one survey from Vanson Bourne, in fact, confirmed that nine out of ten consumers wanted more personal interactions with their mobile operator.

Unifying Business and Technology

Previously, data was the domain of business intelligence (BI) teams that would collect, analyse and then disseminate information throughout different departments. But that’s all changing. New insights and analytics tools have made analysis easier and more accessible than ever before, so data is becoming democratised.

This means that the same dataset with insights and predictions can be made available for all decision-makers across an organisation instantly, regardless of department (as Ulla has written before). If all of the relevant silos have access to that information, marketing, technology, IT and business development can be streamlined, and silos are removed from the equation.

In short, accessible data blurs the borders between different company departments. The CIO, CTO and CMO can easily work from the same set of information to get insights about customer behaviour, prevent QoS driven churn, improve network and service quality, and create more sophisticated and targeted campaigns.

The Future of Marketing is Networks, and the Future of Networks is Marketing

At Comptel, we’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: the future of marketing is networks, and the future of networks is marketing.

Given the massive amount of customer data available, CSPs already have the power at their fingertips. They just need to get the right tools for the job, so it’s possible to reach out and grab it.


Want to learn more?

Read Northstream’s new white paper, “Analytics Beyond the Hype.” Some of the analytics strategies covered include:

  • Reducing churn via predictive analytics
  • Making customer acquisition more cost-effective with targeted marketing
  • Operating networks more efficiently by automatically monitoring asset and capacity management
  • Tailoring offers to customers to increase ARPU

Download the White Paper!


New Northstream White Paper Explores How CSPs Can Leverage Analytics to Reap Business Benefits

Posted: September 5th, 2013 | Author: Ulla Koivukoski | Filed under: Industry Insights | Tags: , , , , , | No Comments »

This week, management consulting firm Northstream released a whitepaper showcasing how advanced analytics can help communications service providers (CSPs) improve all areas of their businesses. “Analytics Beyond the Hype” offers readers an overview of analytics in the telco space, demonstrates case studies from analytics vendors (including Comptel) and explores strategies that CSPs can apply to their business models today.

Specifically, the whitepaper charts the evolution of analytics from silo-specific, disorganized data to more consolidated efforts, as CSPs attempt to derive value from their Big Data and achieve their business goals. While analytics are not new, Northstream writes, the application of analytics to cross-departmental data is ground-breaking for many operators. In the past, traditional reporting has been limited to hard statistics like the state of the network, customer count and finances.

But that’s all changing.

New Analytics, New Opportunities

Northstream found that CSPs that are exploring the most advanced analytics tools are using data to build predictive models and real-time engines for offers that can immediately meet customer needs. Additionally, there’s a noticeable trend moving from mass marketing to personalised, individual marketing.

These developments in the world of Big Data analytics are imperative for CSPs looking to grow their businesses. Northstream states that, among European CSPs, ARPU has decreased by 6.6 percent year over year. Telco services are getting commoditised, and the market saturated, so the solution is for operators to differentiate by using their data.

Some suggested analytics strategies from Northstream include:

  • Reducing churn via predictive analytics
  • Making customer acquisition more cost-effective with targeted marketing
  • Operating networks more efficiently by automatically monitoring asset and capacity management
  • Tailoring offers to customers to increase ARPU

We were honoured to be included among the experienced CSP analytics vendors Northstream worked with on this study and encourage everyone to read it!

Download the White Paper!


Passionate about Adding Value

Posted: May 17th, 2013 | Author: Ulla Koivukoski | Filed under: Industry Insights, Telecom Trends | Tags: , , , , , | No Comments »

A good month ago I changed my position from heading Marketing and Communications to leading the newly established Analytics Business Unit in Comptel. Since then, I have had six customer meetings in the Middle East Africa and Asia Pacific regions in addition to the kick-off workshop with the new team and one week of holiday. To sum up, I could state that my past six weeks have not been boring.

Ulla Koivukoski and her new Analytics Business Unit at kick-off

Some of my friends and my dear daughter have asked about the constant source of energy to go for something unknown or new. Advanced analytics is still taking its baby steps in the telecommunications industry. One friend was teasing that wouldn’t it be nicer just to focus on gardening and fishing instead of running constantly into new challenges. The answer to the latter question is naturally yes, but when one has the passion for something else, why not to go for it as long as the inspiration and motivation is there? And the former question? I simply love my job and my colleagues from whom I learn everyday something, if nothing more, about myself.

What keeps me going then?

Think back to one of those moments when you succeeded in making somebody really happy and were appreciated for it? How did you feel? I’m sure you felt good. It’s the same with my job. Those of you who have been in the technology business know that it’s not always bed of roses when delivering complex solutions. However, when you have delivered the solution and see the satisfied smile on the customer’s face, you can feel good as well. You might not be as emotional in this sense as I am, but it’s maybe worth reminding that customer satisfaction and customer profitability have a strong correlation.

During the trips to the regions, it was my great pleasure to meet one of our customers whose marketing team was very happy with the results which we had delivered together with them. I also met some communications service providers (CSP) who don’t yet have our analytics, but who got nearly as excited as I about the business opportunities we could bring to them. To be fair, I must admit that I also visited a customer site, where we are still in the building phase and are a bit learning the environment and way of working. However, I was really delighted to experience the spirit of collaboration “to build the success for both parties”, as the customer stated.

How do I know whether we are adding value?

The hot topic of the entire ICT world is Big Data. There is a lot of hype around it and some scepticism, whether the CSPs can ever really monetise it. In telecommunications, the tendency has been to invest in large systems and then start building something valuable on top of it. The market is changing faster than it used to, and maybe there is a need for more dynamic and ready thought-out solutions to address specific business issues? This is the way how we think we can help derive value from Big Data. We have been working on specific business cases that are based on some of the real results from our projects. Naturally we have applied them in fashion that protects our customer’s anonymity but are still very enthusiastic about the opportunity, for example, to help CSPs prevent churn to both stop wasting their marketing OPEX and get more revenue per customer. One exciting opportunity is related to new technology launches such as LTE, but there are many more.

This week has been another inspirational week for me

Although I did not have time to participate in the Management World 2013 in Nice, I can remotely celebrate the announcements which we have posted at the event. Naturally the greatest pleasure was the Pipeline Innovation Award of the Customer Experience Management for Comptel Social Links. The other news, such as the innovations intent with a cloud computing leader, Salesforce.com and collaboration with Tech Mahindra Limited show that we as a company have succeeded to encourage our people to come up with non-traditional ways of delivering customer value and to understand the importance of partnerships.

The first weeks with the Analytics Business Unit have been hectic and I don’t expect anything less from the future, but there is so much positive momentum and customer interaction that it keeps me and the team going.


Breaking the Language Barrier Between CMOs and CIOs

Posted: May 1st, 2013 | Author: Ulla Koivukoski | Filed under: Telecom Trends | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments »

Traditionally, the telecommunications industry has been separated by a common language: the language of business. CIOs and CTOs, along with their respective teams, have been controlling networks and performance optimisation, while CMOs usually focus on business growth objectives like sales, churn and retention.

What this means is that CIOs’ and CTOs’ performance is evaluated by different metrics than CMOs, so they are concerned about different things. When I attended Mobile World Congress 2013, I witnessed this firsthand. In one corner, communications service provider (CSP) CIOs and CTOs were discussing the impact of cloud, M2M and LTE on their networks. Meanwhile, CMOs and CEOs talked about consumer devices, apps and the latest movements in the market.

The hurdle CSP executives face now is that, to take advantage of the latest innovations and meet their respective objectives, they have to work closer together than ever before.

Painting the Big Picture

Within most CSPs, there are distinct silos. Teams from different organisations rarely talk about the same issues and aren’t often looking to solve the same problems. However, one issue that bridges this divide is customer experience. CSPs want to make sure that customer service is as good as possible. If you’ve delivered a great customer experience, your efforts are praised…no matter what team you’re on.

This is where CIOs, CTOs and CMOs have to discover common ground. As networks expand and markets change, CMOs are going to have to learn more about network optimisation, and CIOs and CTOs will have to start thinking about analytics, marketing and service personlisation. Thanks to technologically complex innovations like predictive analytics, marketing and technology are now inextricably linked.

I believe that every team can acknowledge that one of their top priorities is creating a seamless process that allows the business to define and maximise a customer’s lifetime value. By shifting the focus from network or business metrics to customer experience metrics, CSPs can change the dialogue between silos.

A Holistic Experience

In the telco industry, the future of networks is marketing and the future of marketing is networks. When a customer is using data across a network, CMOs now need to know how the data is being used. This allows for real-time, targeted marketing campaigns aligned with customer usage trends.

These kinds of findings would be impossible without the help of the CTO and CIO, as they track the performance and behaviours across a network. Likewise, advanced, automated marketing campaigns are going to impact networks in new ways.

By uniting silos with the common goal of creating a better customer experience, teams can finally break the language barrier and work toward shared objectives. This shift won’t just help revolutionise things for customers, it could help revolutionise things for CSPs, too.

Comptel will be at Management World 2013 in Nice, France from 14 -16 May. Stop by if you’re there and we can talk more about the future of CSP marketing!


Three Reasons Why the Telco Industry Needs to Be Thinking about Big Data

Posted: April 4th, 2013 | Author: Ulla Koivukoski | Filed under: Industry Insights | Tags: , , , , | No Comments »

At Comptel, we really do believe that data is more than just bits and pieces that can be turned into something truly beautiful. This may seem like a daunting challenge to most communications service providers (CSPs), but that’s why we’re here.

We’ve been doing a lot of work to change that perception—and it’s clear that we’re not the only ones thinking about how Big Data can be a game-changing asset for CSPs. Here are three recent topics that have come up in the news that draw on Comptel’s studies and opinions on Big Data:

1. Flexible Service Packages

As mature markets become saturated, CSPs have to get creative with offers, and one thing is for certain: service packages are going to have to change.

In a recent Computerworld Bulgaria piece, we saw the consumer survey that we debuted at Mobile World Congress highlighted to put more emphasis on this trend.

To recap: our survey found that 49% of consumers chose their current mobile operator because of the service plan, and almost half said they would pay for a temporary upgrade that improved their plan.

The bottom line is that CSPs need to find a way to get the right promotion to the right customer at the right time. Using predictive analytics, it’s now possible to make sense of Big Data and proactively offer the right customers a more flexible service plan that can meet their needs.

2. Monetization

In a recent RCR Wireless News report, The smarter telco: Exploring service and network intelligence, Kelly Hill explains that many CSPs are looking for new ways to keep monetizing their services. She points to three specific trends that will have a huge impact:

  • The transition to all-IP and LTE networks
  • The accelerating trend toward cloud connectivity and network virtualization
  • Big Data collection and processing

When discussing Big Data, Kelly cites our research showing that only 27% of operators are currently using analytics on a daily basis, while 33% are using them on a weekly basis.

This could prove to be a disastrous oversight for CSPs. As trends like the shift to all-IP networks and cloud connectivity come into play, analytics that can drive the most value out of Big Data in near real-time is critical for engaging customers and making business decisions.

3. Influence

Big Data analytics isn’t just about finding out what customers need, it’s finding out which customers are influential.

In a recent Financial Times web piece that cited one of our recently commissioned whitepapers, the big message was that, finally, CSPs have the technology to actually use the considerable data at their disposal.

The piece highlights several viewpoints from established telco experts. One of the most interesting points is that, by using Big Data, CSPs can discover which customers are “queen bees.” These are the users who have extensive networks of friends and family. If this particular user leaves his/her operator, then dozens of others could follow because of that influence.

So, it’s best to use Big Data to identify those “queen bees” and find ways to make sure they’re happy.

Continuing the Conversation About Big Data

Most CSPs have Big Data in one form or another, but having it and using it to its full potential are two different things. As this conversation shifts from data to strategy, it’s time to consider how to best operationalize all the valuable information that’s been gathered. In other words, it’s time to leverage Big Data for results.

Over the past few years, Comptel has worked hard for those results to be attainable by offering advanced predictive analytics tools that can automate customer interactions and take relationships to the next level. We’re at the start of an exciting new kind of Big Data revolution. With the right strategy and the right tools, CSPs won’t just have more information for their operations than ever before, they’ll actually be able to do something with it.


Comptel’s Strategy Update – Turning Big Data into an Opportunity

Posted: March 21st, 2013 | Author: Ulla Koivukoski | Filed under: News | Tags: , , | 2 Comments »

Comptel held Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 20th March. Our Board of Directors and management updated the company’s strategy and objectives for the next three years. The updated strategy for 2013-2015 focuses on accelerating the execution of the Event-Analysis-Action strategic framework we launched in 2011. Comptel is aiming at over ten percent growth in net sales annually and EBIT margin between 8 to 15 percent during the strategy period. This includes scaling up the sales with partners. Both of these focus areas facilitate Comptel’s growth strategy.

The market demands the communications service providers (CSPs) to better monetize the growing data traffic, known as Big Data, beyond the communications network data. This data can include for example usage data, social network data, location and customer relationship management data. Comptel helps the Communications Service Providers (CSPs) turn the Big Data into an opportunity. Today, Comptel already processes 21 terabytes (1012 ) data per day.

Comptel’s differentiation strategy challenges the traditional operating and business support system (OSS/BSS) approach by bringing predictive, real-time analytics as an innovative element to help CSPs integrate technical, sales and marketing organisations and automate the CSP’s customer interaction. We commissioned a research earlier this year that revealed that nine out of ten customers desire personalised interaction with their mobile operators. The yearn for communication at every touch point—from the first interaction when joining the service to when they are experiencing issues with the service to when their needs are changing.

Key investments in the product and solution offering will focus on strengthening the Event-Analysis-Action approach. Big Data opportunity strengthens Comptel’s position in event data collection – applying analytics turns this data into automated actions that are carried out by Comptel’s service order orchestration.

By the end of 2015, Comptel aims to become a recognised thought leader and leading solutions provider in customer interaction automation space.


Mobile World Congress 2013: Guest Speakers on LTE, Analytics

Posted: March 1st, 2013 | Author: Ulla Koivukoski | Filed under: Events, Industry Insights | Tags: , , , , | 4 Comments »

As I mentioned the other day, Mobile World Congress was filled with excitement, with a robust exchanging of ideas among the various attendees and our customers and partners, as we look to the future of telecom. At the show, we were happy to further some of the discussions on LTE and analytics by welcoming a few guest speakers to Comptel’s booth.

The founder of operator benchmarking consultancy tefficient, Fredrik Jungermann, took us through how to pinpoint the right LTE customers. He first mentioned that not as many LTE customers are signing up as operators would like, but the numbers are rapidly growing. For example, 58% of Korea’s data traffic was over LTE in December 2012, and, likewise, Tele2 in Sweden saw an LTE penetration of 40%.

Fredrik explained that we’re transitioning away from a world of unlimited data, with more demand now put on unlimited voice and text. Of the smartphone data that is being used, 60% is through Wi-Fi, which is going un-monetised. With this in mind, he posed the question: what if operators could turn things around and monetise this traffic using LTE or operator-owned Wi-Fi?

Fredrik Jungermann at Mobile World Congress 2013

The upsides include basic monetisation, which will mainly be based on volume, and as data traffic grows over the top (OTT) players can become an additional source of revenue. Further, offering shared data plans will help enable unused devices and drive revenues even further. The downside to this, though, is that it can be costly to supply LTE handsets, as they have the highest specs. Analytics can help match the expensive and rare handsets to the right customers – dynamically based on individual customers’ needs and behaviours. Overall, this is much more efficient than providing subsidised LTE handsets to everyone.

Additionally, we heard from Zain Kuwait’s director of management information systems, who delved into the various ways the company is improving the customer experience with analytics. If you are interested in learning more about this presentation, as well as Fredrik’s, please email [email protected].

What did you think of this year’s Mobile World Congress? We’d love to hear your favourite highlights and if you heard any interesting news or stats around LTE and analytics. Safe travels home to all!


Mobile World Congress 2013: Qtel Rebranding

Posted: February 28th, 2013 | Author: Ulla Koivukoski | Filed under: Events, Industry Insights | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments »

Here in Barcelona, I had the fantastic opportunity to attend an exclusive Qtel event in which the company unveiled its new brand: Ooredoo. This translates to ‘I want’ in Arabic, which reflects the telco’s new focus on customer centricity and catering to end users’ desires. Examples of this vision include statements like: “I want a service that reflects who I am”, “I want the world to smile with me”, and “I want to fly higher”.

QTel new brand launched at MWC13

There were an amazing number of people who spoke at the launch, including Cherie Blair on her charity for women, the general of the International Telecommunication Union, the director general of the GSMA, Qatar’s Olympic medallist from the summer 2013 games, and the CEOs of Qtel Qatar and its subsidiary, Indosat. It was also announced that football star Lionel Messi is the operator’s new global brand ambassador, although he was unable to attend due to an important match.

Ooredoo strides to enrich people’s lives by understanding every single person’s wishes and dreams, and looking at how they can be fulfilled regardless of income or demographic. With this thinking, mobile services and Internet will be more broadly distributed in order to evolve the mobile economy, for prosperity, equality and beyond.

It was clear that the operator is really committed to people’s needs, as both connecting and challenging customers was stressed. It’s leading a Millennium initiative with the GSMA to help alleviate the burdens of poverty, simplifying broadband access so more people have the opportunity to educate themselves.  The CEO of Indosat, Alex Rusli, explained that island people previously had to travel up to four hours for the closest services. After access was made available where they lived, they started to grow and develop. The moral of this story is that rural communities should have the same opportunities as those in the city – everyone deserves an opportunity to grow.

Adding to this is a particular emphasis on women. For instance, the company is rolling out a special program in Iraq specifically for women where the tariff decreases after three minutes of a voice call. Since women tend to talk for longer periods over the phone, they can now enjoy less expensive calls. There are also going to be more female staff serving women at various points of sale and an initiative to help women establish businesses – checking the price of fabric, for example, to ensure they are not overpaying.

Every person wants to grow, and Ooredoo is providing the opportunity to do so by contributing to social business, enriching people’s lives and connecting the world. What do you think of Qtel’s new brand? Leave your comments here or email us at comptel.marketing@comptel and share your thoughts about the 2013 Mobile World Congress!


Mobile World Congress 2013: Live from Barcelona!

Posted: February 26th, 2013 | Author: Ulla Koivukoski | Filed under: Events, Industry Insights | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Comptel booth_6C30The excitement was (and still is) palpable here in Barcelona, as Mobile World Congress kicked into full gear yesterday. The keynote sessions on day one did not disappoint, with four of the largest mobile operators across the globe outlining their business strategies over the past year and looking ahead to 2017 and beyond. First up was chairman of the GSMA and CEO of Telecom Italia Group, Franco Bernabè, who stated that spectrum, privacy and investments must be the key focus for mobile operators moving forward.

Sixty-two million wireless connections are already using LTE, and this number is expected to grow to 920 million by 2017. Spectrum, then, is clearly a priority. However, as Bernabè explained, it’s critical to do more than simply having the right amount of spectrum—mobile operators must ensure that it is also harmonised across the world, in turn, making mobile services more affordable for consumers.

Privacy is another element for operators to consider, as mobile phones are carrying an increasing amount of personal information. With $350 billion compromised this year due to security risks, there is a clear place for mobile operators to become central in secure identity and access management.

Finally, Bernabè urged, operators must find a balance between competition, innovation and investment. Investments will depend on three factors: economics of scale, foreseeable business environments and up-to-date regulatory frameworks. He continued saying that operators must remain committed to Near Field Communications (NFC), LTE and voice over LTE (VoLTE) to create economically viable competition, especially in regions where excess competition is depressing the markets.

Following the opening remarks, GSMA’s director general, Anne Bouverot, moderated a discussion on the challenges and opportunities for mobile operators. AT&T’s president and CEO, Randall Stephenson, believes that we’re moving from a period of wireless experience on mobile devices to one where connectivity is always assumed and new services, like home security and mobile wallets, can be layered on top.

Next, China Mobile’s chairman, Xi Guohua, added that operators should be more concerned about OTT competition, which can erode the value of services. He suggests consolidating industry resources, like networks and devices, to gain a competitive advantage in the value chain. Additionally, Xi believes there is an opportunity with LTE to strengthen collaboration among the Internet of things, such as M2M, which will increase dialogue and align interests for the world’s operators.

Adding to this, Telefonica’s executive chairman and CEO, César Aliert, stated that operators need to lead the ecosystems into a healthy future by implementing new commercial models to better serve customers and change market dynamics. This includes breaking the taboos associated with network rollout and providing the best experience possible to customers.

Then, Vodafone’s CEO Vittorio Colao dove into how his group of operators is transforming in this digital revolution. Interestingly, he noted that more than a quarter of mobile users check their phones at the dinner table, and 66 percent sleep with their phones. Life is clearly mobile, and this is only going to increase. Because of this, Colao stated that operators need to enrich the customer experience with other services. Winners will be those who have the best products and lowest prices and are most willing to compromise and put in the work.

So far, the keynotes have been exciting to listen to, and the show floor has been packed! We’re looking forward to attending more sessions and meeting our customers, partners and other across the industry to share ideas about our changing telco landscape. In the meantime, stop by our booth in Hall 6, stand 6C30!