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| Source: ALAMY |
A long time ago, before the industrial revolution and before
the Dark Ages, one of the primary means of long-distance communication was the
smoke signal. In most instances it relayed a need for people to assemble and
advance a cause. It facilitated the social agenda, which has been a pillar for
our species dominance of the planet.
The ignorance of the Dark Ages was because of the curtailing of ideas
and turning everything new into a heresy. This was further propagated by the
fastest transportation systems then in the form of horses and sail ships. Fortunately,
this ignorance waned with the introduction of the printing press. But it was with
the introduction of the telegraph-an innovation of the industrial revolution
and Samuel Morse’s first public telegraph message, “What hath God
Wrought?” in 1844-that the world became a lot smaller. For the first time,
it was possible for humanity to communicate almost instantaneously despite
distance and location.  |
| A man on a telegraph pole |
The telegraph business model required it to function across great distances; over land and undersea, and begged for a high initial investment. Due to lack of support, the patent holders had to settle for licensing their innovations to regional companies that eventually consolidated into national monopolies with checkered relationships with governments.
The industry’s initial challenges educated the commercialization
of later inventions in the telephone, radio, television and satellite systems.
Some of these innovations were driven and embraced, in most cases, by companies
that had already achieved success through previous inventions like AT&T, GE
and Westinghouse.
Today, global operators like MTN, Airtel, Vodafone and
Orange S.A. own mobile network operators in Africa partly or wholly. This is
largely attributed to previous decades when telephone companies in Africa were
poorly run, state-owned monopolies that offered sub-standard services, with job
security, cronyism and corruption being their primary focus. For this reason
while the world advanced Africa lagged.
In the 1990s, the privatization of these state-run companies
and the deregulation of the telephone markets, effectively transformed Africa
for the better. Suddenly the intent was profitability that resulted in
competition, which was reinforced with the issuance of several GSM licenses in
countries across the continent.
While this was happening, the Internet had matured over the
decades from a military experiment to a mainstream solution that promised the
universal connection of every living person in the world.
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| CompuServe-ad-8305-BYTE |
The Internet evolved because we are social beings. From the Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) of the
60s and 70s when hobbyists aspired to share, discuss and collaborate, to
CompuServe’s mainframe system in the 70s and 80s that allowed the sharing of
files and access to news and events, to AOL’s member created communities in the
early 90s, to the late 90s ability to create personal profiles, invite friends,
organize groups and search other user profiles brought about by sixdegrees.com,
and asianavenue.com. To the evolution of the social networking sites of the early
2000s including MySpace (2003), LinkedIn (2003), Facebook (2004) and so forth.
The story behind this evolution has always been about choice
and freedom for the end user.
Over the last century communication has shifted and changed
with various technologies converging on Smartphones that cost less than $50. More
services are using the Internet for voice, data or video. And the speeds of
these advances are outstripping the return on investment for the average
African Telco, which is still grappling with the need to connect large areas of
rural Africa.
The flipside is that Over The Top (OTT) providers have grown
astronomically over the last decade as they have met and exceeded the needs of their
users who were previously offered uninspired, overcharged services by their
Telcos.
Flash with cash OTT providers have innovated and acquired
their way to a critical point where they are connected to the aspirations of
the global Internet user.
We live in a society where participation is fundamental. The
organization that wins online allows the human of today, to create unrestricted.
One that can create a fertile ground for a person’s ideas to be appreciated and
accepted by likens. Fundamentally we are human and we are social. It matters
not whether we achieve this through blogging, photo and video sharing, instant
messaging, conferencing or newer features available on social media networks
today.
There is a technology disruption affecting Telcos as their
niche and mass-market services slowly become commoditized and democratized by
services offered by WhatsApp, Skype and YouTube.
Most Telcos in Africa have not positioned themselves
strategically, as technology seeks to blur the divide between the physical and
virtual world.
And because they have been unable to break into the rural
frontier, due to spiraling costs, the low-orbit satellites that Google
and Virgin
are deploying is starting to look more enticing compared to mobile phone masts
(Even if low-cost solutions like village
telco used).
Is the future geared towards having less bulky satellite
phones with Smartphone features? Will companies like Iridium
innovate for Africa? Will the
partnerships that OneWeb speak about with Telcos work? In the short term these questions can be
answered in any direction.
We anticipate more Telcos will lobby governments
to stop losing revenues.
Simultaneously, there will be further consolidation of Telcos across the African
continent. Telco
2.0 strategies will take root, but
have mixed results given that most Telcos lack the chutzpah to compete against
OTT players. It will be like Kodak trying to compete with Instagram.
Some will survive and some will be powerless against the changes happening.
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| Telco 2.0 |
What I do know is the world is becoming more open; people
and things are becoming more connected. The future ‘provider’ who will create
tools that empower people to make choices will find great success and thrive.
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