Telecom domain overview

I had the pleasure of attending a talk on telecom domain by Tech Mahindra veteran, Utkarsh Kikani on the 11th April, 2009.

Telecom story

• It started in 1876
• 80’s and 90’s saw a lot of churn
• 21st century is seeing new phenomenon

Market

• It is a $2+ Trillion worldwide market
• N.America and Asia Pacific are $500 million each
• It is expected to grow at 5% until 2012, which is pretty good considering current economic situation

Once upon a time

• The telecommunication has evolved from semaphore to telephone in 1876
• A blind woman, named MaBel Hubbard was the inspiration for Graham Bell.
• National carriers took over next.
  • AT&T – American Telecom and Telegraph
  • BT – British Telecom
• Strong in-house R&D, circuit-switched and high entry barrier were characteristics

Winds of Change

• New medium like wireless appeared
• Computers and packet-switched became norm
• Demand for data services grew

The boil and churn

• AT&T and Bell was broken
• Internet took a lot of traction
• VAS, Service provider and lot of new entities emerged

Overall, it was a great event for telecom professionals, who are mainly into programming, as it provided a business perspective. It was a whirlwind tour in 1 hour of a course Mr.Kikani teaches at telecom MBA college in Pune.