The Way Forward for the Telecom Industry
Why we should not be the only ones paying for our mobile plans ?
Let’s start with why the telecommunications industry should look for a way forward. Is it in trouble ? Is it dying ? Is google finally ready with their hot air balloons capable of providing network services to users and eliminate the Network Providers for once and all ? Is Mr. Elon Musk looking for a way to dramatically and drastically change the industry (Well he can be , you don’t know what goes in that brilliant mind of his’) ?
The traditional value chain of the telecommunication industry has been re-invented a bunch of times now thanks to the Moore’s Law, Butter’s Law, Kryder’s Law and the constantly changing and evolving customer base. During it’s golden era, the Telco companies had a variety of revenue generation streams like C2C communication, customer-tailored services, SMS, MMS etc. and it used to be a lucrative business. I personally remember paying a lot to my network provider for a plan with 10000 free SMSs. Those were the good days for the Telcos and they did make a lot of money.
In comes the 21st century with the ‘Smartphones’ and the ‘Mobile Data Revolution’ which completely changed the way we were using our phones. Now we have mobile apps which are owned and operated by the ‘big tech’ companies and which are completely eating away the profits of the mobile network companies. Why would you spend money on sending an SMS when you can send a message on iMessage, WhatsApp etc. Why would you call someone when you can video call with them on FaceTime, WhatsApp etc.
And then there are the Social Media Apps such as Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter etc. which are all generating value in the billions every year through their Ad Revenues but don’t pay a dime to the Telecom Carrier providing the data which makes their existence and utility possible in the first place. We as consumers are bearing all the stress of paying for availing the data and mobile services from our telecom company while the tech companies are able to generate lots of value from running their apps on the same data.
This only brings one natural conclusion to us i.e. the mobile apps generating such a large amount of revenues from the mobile data should also pay the Telecom Companies their fair share of income generated from the use of such Applications.
The prices of mobile plans have increased 40–50% over the last 10 years and they are bound to increase at an even higher rate as more and more people switch to data based services and starve the operators of their inherent revenue sources such as Calls & SMS. Thus, It is important for the Mobile Operators to start charging companies generating billions in value from the data services that they offer or the consumer shall have to bear the brunt of the complete value chain making mobile tariffs unbelievably high and unaffordable.