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Telecom Startups Are Hot Again
In case you haven't looked, telecom is hot again. Not telecom as in wait "till Sunday to make your long distance calls," but today's telecom as in home phone, wireless, web and TV bundles. While certainly the times are turbulent, and convergence is breaking down walls and bringing new competitors into previously protected markets, it is this volatility that also provides immense opportunities. Gone are the Bearish days of the early century, when overinvestment in 3G spectrum, fiber, and the dot-com crash killed off hundreds of companies – some of them worthy of surviving.
One challenge of any telecom investor is in identifying the key market segments of interest in the present climate. With the major telcos still at the epicenter of the industry, it is useful to know what they think are the segments that are important for investment and R&D. Let me give you the benefit of that insider insight.
In Silicon Valley, over two dozen globally significant major telcos have installed satellite offices to monitor the wealth of technology and ideas coming out of the region, and out of the Americas at large. Generally, the representatives of these field offices are senior-level executives with a broad view of the convergent telecom industry, and direct lines to the CTO at headquarters. I'm talking about mobile and fixed industry heavyweights like AT&T, British Telecom, France Telecom, NTT DoCoMo, Telefónica, and others.
I have the privileged position of being President of the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley, a regional umbrella organization for all stakeholders in the expanding new world of telecom. Within this organization, we run a forum called the "Service Provider Forum" (SPIF), where over 20 of these telco satellite offices have joined as members. From a recent member survey, we aggregated results that identify the hottest areas of interest to them. First, the SPIF members brainstormed the areas of interest to build a list, then we asked them to vote on the segments. The results are displayed below:
Areas of Investment and R&D Interest
Source: The Kerton Group, n=17 major global telcos
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