The traditional business model for wholesale carriers is changing, and like the telecom industry, wholesale carriers need to adopt new connectivity and monetization models to meet demand.
A key factor impacting this is the uptake of over-the-top (OTT) services from players such as Facebook and WhatsApp. More importantly, there is a breed of cloud communication platform providers, such as MessageBird and Twilio, delivering comprehensive B2B voice, data, and omnichannel services. As a result, traditional wholesale carriers have to evolve in line with the growth of next-generation network services, and particularly the adoption of cloud solutions.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Continuation of threats by new players in the wholesale ecosystem
GlobalData discussions during the period 2022-2023 with leading wholesale providers continue to highlight agility, simplicity, and automation as being key in the development of future products and services. Wholesale customers continue to demand the flexibility and agility to scale up/down their capacity, order their services online, pick and choose the required services, and have access to on-demand/pay-as-you-go billing models. Wholesale providers continue to become platform-centric with open application programming interfaces (APIs) and greater automation – artificial intelligence (AI) will play a key role here.
A number of carriers have also been revamping their service portfolios, making them simpler and less fragmented, retiring a number of legacy products, and tailoring their proposition to different customer segments’ needs.
Here, companies including Telefónica are offering a strong and innovative set of products focusing on customers in key markets by focusing on digital technologies and strong security credentials. Portfolio coverage includes enhancing the company’s voice and UCC portfolio as well as incorporating business intelligence (BI) and analytics in roaming and virtualizing its networks with the aim of harnessing technology such as AI and blockchain. Such portfolio initiatives will enable the provider to stay relevant and compete as well as partner with a differentiated offering in a changing competitor landscape.
The evolving telecom wholesale cloud ecosystem
The overwhelming view from GlobalData’s discussions with senior stake holders across industry is that traditional wholesale carriers are challenged in establishing how they position their businesses against new players in the ecosystem. Many of the obvious opportunities in wholesale, in the context of cloud, are targeted by traditional wholesale carriers. These are in sub-segments that carriers can easily exploit with partnerships with hyperscalers to enable them to operate in new wholesale and cloud-enabled connectivity models.
How well do you really know your competitors?
Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.
Thank you!
Your download email will arrive shortly
Not ready to buy yet? Download a free sample
We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form
By GlobalDataThere exists a multitude of examples where this is occurring, influenced by areas of play: BICS partnering with Microsoft to provide SIMs and eSIMs to roam between public and private networks. The partnership aims to provide capabilities to partners through Azure private MEC.
Other examples include Telefónica stating that in the main the majority of items are evolving to a virtualized approach, including SIP trunking replacing international voice for corporate customers and enabling carriers to not only deliver their services through a cloud model but to greater agility, and subsequently, reduce CapEx and OpEx expenditure through new cloud models.
Lastly, pure-play disruptive segments are served by players including Twilio, Vonage (Ericsson), and MessageBird, delivering services through cloud communications platforms to enable enterprises to build and manage enterprise communication applications (voice and enterprise without the need to create and maintain the underlying infrastructure).
The challenge with the latter for traditional telecom wholesalers is establishing whether they should directly compete with a new breed of disruptive cloud providers or partners. In summary, telco incumbents (including their wholesale divisions) must develop an underlying strategy for cloud that is interlinked across the different business units, including enterprise and wholesale. This will enable telcos to gain the scale and agility to operate effectively in future ecosystems.
Related Company Profiles
Microsoft Corp
Twilio Inc
Vonage Holdings Corp