How Blockchain Could Disrupt The Telecom Industry
However, in recent years, for many Telecom organizations, the main revenue is no longer call but data, which required another change in their business model. With every organization turning into a data organization, there are significant opportunities for the Telecom industry to reinvent itself once again, thanks to Blockchain.
Since telephony is so pervasive, the telecom industry is huge and often complex, with over 2000 mobile network operators. Many different players and billions of consumers and devices that interchangeably use a variety of networks. In addition, the Internet of Things will add tens of billions of devices to the global telecom networks, providing a huge opportunity for the Telecom industry. All these connections and billions of transactions have to be managed, and Blockchain is. Blockchain’s core attributes to make data immutable, verifiable and traceable enables the Telecom industry to create an ecosystem where consumers are in full control, and there is trust, security, and transparency in the participating ecosystem. The result is lower costs for consumers, better networks and overall improved experience for all stakeholders.
Within an ecosystem with billions of transactions, there are probably numerous applications of blockchain. However, I would like to focus on the three main applications that I believe will have the most impact on the global telecom industry.
5G is rapidly being developed across the world. It promises to offer high-speed internet, required for the data-rich future ahead of us. To achieve ubiquitous access across networks for billions of devices, telecom organizations, or Communication Service Providers (CSPs), need to ensurea variety of access nodes and mechanisms. Each telecom organization can, of course, do this centrally but it often results in delays and non-seamless provisioning. A much more reliable and efficient solution would be to do this using a private blockchain, accessed by the CSPs.
Within a private blockchain, the rules and agreements among various CSPs can be coded in smart contracts, which are stored on the private blockchain. Devices that want to connect to the network broadcast their identity to the decentralized network. Based on the parameters within the smart contracts, users are charged accordingly. While the smart contracts are immutable, the parameters can easily be changed if required, allowing for flexible and reliable service to any device.
Online identity is the next big thing, and numerous organizations are working on developing self-sovereign identities for individuals, organizations, and things. In the future, each bit of data might also have its own identity (or meta-information) that enables easy and reliable data sharing across consumers and organizations. A self-sovereign identity brings back full control to the end-user to manage their identity, and it offers a new revenue model for the telecom industry.
CSPs could offer a virtual sim card, an eSIM (embedded SIM) that offers virtual identities for devices, data or users. This virtual identity can then be used to perform transactions among users, organizations and connected devices such as logging in to a social network or purchasing goods online. A virtual identity can offer many benefits, and these benefits are only limited by the number of partners the CSP can sign on to the system. This ‘identity-as-a-service’ could be a significant new revenue model for Telcos.
By 2025, the average person will interact with a connected device nearly every 18 seconds, in effect digitally documenting every move, query, purchase, plan, and transaction.
