How to monetise next-gen telco networks

Interview

How must telcos evolve and adapt to stay competitive in a crowded market? What opportunities do technologies such as O-RAN offer for telcos?

Ahead of Total Telecom Congress 2022, we caught up with Will Townsend, Vice President & Principal Analyst – Networking & Security Practices at Moor Insights and Strategy to hear his views on these business critical topics.

Can you tell us about your role at your Moor Insights Strategy?  

I manage the networking and security practices for our firm and am considered an expert on 5G as a featured Forbes contributor and through other media outlets such as NPR Marketplace, CNBC and the Wall Street Journal.

From your perspective, how do telcos need to evolve to remain competitive in the modern connectivity ecosystem?

Find new ways to monetize their significant investments in next generation telco networks with an emphasis on enterprise service delivery.  They must also embrace cloud native and virtualized platforms for scale and agility.

Given your experience working with major players in the industry – what, in your opinion, is the key challenge faced by telcos today? 

Innovative service delivery for consumers and enterprises while managing opex and capex pressures and an ever expanding threat surface resulting from the continual disaggregation of network infrastructure.

You will be moderating a panel on O-RAN, the opportunities it can offer the industry and addressing barriers for successful O-RAN deployment. What’s your own view on this? What’s the key opportunity telcos should be looking at when it comes to O-RAN?  

With disaggregation comes complexity so managing the integration while ensuring the highest levels of security, performance and resiliency over traditional RAN architectures.

What are you looking forward to at Total Telecom Congress next month? 

Returning to an in-person event and the opportunity to meet and network with telco professionals from around the world!

Will Townsend will be chairing a panel on the O-RAN opportunity at Total Telecom Congress 2022 on 1st November. For more details on how to join Will and 1,000 senior leaders from the global telecoms industry, head to the event website.