Developer platforms and communities in the telecom industry

Even though the Internet has turned into something that virtually no one today would want to miss, infrastructure operators are uneasy about it. The majority of their revenues does not come from the Internet access business, but from the steadily declining phone business. Even mobile revenues are subject to the change, as voice communication services turn into just one variant of traffic the IP protocol is capable of carrying. Although Telcos understand these developments and prepare to migrate their networks to IP, there are further challenges to their business. Growth takes place on top of the networks but doesn’t yield a share to the bit-pipe operator automatically, asking operators to look for alternative revenue sources. The ‘two-sided business model’ or ‘Telco 2.0’ concept seems to be a good choice for Telcos to not only participate in – but rather contribute to – the development of the Web, and thus might be more than appropriate to make good for the doomed telephony business. ‘Enabling’ others, thus, is the theme of the day in telecommunications research and strategy and it really holds promises to Telcos, web-players, entrepreneurs and developers alike. The question still is what to expose and how to sell it?