Opinion
White House legal official Tim Wu will put Big Tech under scrutiny
On Feb. 4, Tim Wu, prominent, progressive attorney, sent his last tweet as a private citizen; the next day, the White House announced its decision to place Wu in the National Economic Council (NEC), one of two key advisory boards to President Joe Biden.
While Wu has been on board over a month, none of the Big Tech anti-trust edicts that are feared by the industry have been issued yet, but there is plenty of time for tech to hear from the White House through the 20 member NEC, via Wu.
While it remains to be seen, there are already many key moves taking place in Congress, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Nevertheless, for Inside Telecom readers, an objective short history of Wu might prove interesting.
He, by no means is a barn burning, rip the system apart firebrand – and in fact, among other employment positions, he was a clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court – but Wu possesses strong opinions on the overarching control tendencies of Big Tech.
The former Columbia University professor of law and legal scholar is known legally for his Caterfone antitrust proposal, which was eventually enacted and for his coining of the now familiar term “Net Neutrality” in a 2003 law journal.
Also notable is that in the late 2010s, Wu was a leading early advocate for a lawsuit calling for the breakup of Facebook.
In his 2018 book, “The Curse of Bigness,” Wu wrote “extreme economic concentration yields, gross inequality, and material suffering, is feeding the appetite for nationalistic and extremist leadership.”
His previous government service included a stint at the FCC, and from 2015 to 2016, he was the senior enforcement counsel at the New York City’s Attorney General’s Office.
He previously served on the NEC during both Obama administrations, which further increases the fact that he is a known factor in potentially having influence in the White House and occasionally having Biden’s attention on Big Tech issues.
His current mandate on the NEC is as special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy, which is a newly created position in the White House.
Seen in a different light, Wu’s approach among that of others is not a simple thrust at breaking up Big Tech, but what is at the root of most antitrust policy historically is to level the playing field and increase competition within any given sector.
The history of successful, large antitrust suits, such as the famous case against Standard Oil in the early 20th century, and later the breakup of AT&T in the 1980s were arguments against what these large corporates, particularly American Telephone and Telegraph, called “natural monopolies,” whereby their size was of benefit to the public.
This was based on the economy of scale that size fosters, but inherently, also acted to crush any competition, and in the case of telecoms, stall any innovation considered a threat to the company.
AT&T, as is a fact of history, did lose, but only after a very lengthy lawsuit.
At question, and what Wu and similar trustbusters argue against, would be breaking up some of these leading tech corporation could be of harm to the economy of the United States.
Inside Telecom will leave this ultimate question for the reader to decide, though in many ways Big Tech is helping drive the tide against their size by actions and policies which are against the public interest.
Long forgotten are the simpler days when Facebook was a social platform for college students and the corporate motto of Google was “Do no harm.”
With size and growth, Big Techs perspective and policies changes; as the old saying goes, “give someone property and they will act like a landlord!”
For some industry observers, it’s too early to tell if Wu’s appointment is meant more as an attempt to include the progressive side of the Democratic party in White House hiring, then as a statement by the administration of set plans to wage a war against Big Tech.
White House sources, however, have tipped to news media that Wu’s role at the NEC and the West Wing will be a significant one.
“With the choice of Tim Wu as special assistant to the president for technology and competition, it is clear this administration is serious about promoting competition in the United States,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the head of the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, said in a statement.
“He has been a leading thinker on technology and competition policy issues, from his work on net neutrality to his recent scholarship on the monopoly power crisis. I look forward to working with Mr. Wu to modernize antitrust enforcement, strengthen our economy, and protect workers and consumers,” Klobuchar added.
Wu is a scholar of the media and technology industries, and his academic specialties include antitrust, copyright, and telecommunications law. Wu was named to The National Law Journal’s “America’s 100 Most Influential Lawyers” in 2013, as well as to the “Politico 50” in 2014 and 2015.
Additionally, Wu was named one of Scientific American’s 50 people of the year in 2006, and one of Harvard University’s 100 most influential graduates by 02138 magazine in 2007. His book, “The Master Switch,” was named among the best books of 2010 by The New Yorker magazine, Fortune magazine, Publishers Weekly, and other publications.
Feeling the Pinch?
The rising cost of living is difficult to avoid. April 2022 saw food prices increase by 6.7 per cent, the highest petrol prices on record and inflation rise to a staggering nine per cent. As millions of customers see their mobile tariffs soar, Ross Slogrove, UK country manager at cloud calling specialist Ringover reveals his advice for avoiding the price hike.
From July 1, 2022, Virgin Media will hit its 3 million customers with a price hike of 1.5 per cent. So, if a customer signed up to, let’s say, a £30-a-month tariff after May 5, 2022, they will pay an additional 45 pence each month. EE has already increased its prices by 2.7 per cent each year — or £11.30 if you have a £35-a-month contract — while O2, Three and Vodafone are all increasing by 2.5 per cent.
Pay-as-you-go prices are also taking a hit. From July 2022, call costs with Three will jump from 10p to 35p per minute. The cost of sending a text will double, affecting the 14 per cent of Brits that use a pre-pay mobile.
Given Brits are already battling with price hikes from every angle, these costs mount up. 45 per cent of UK households have at least two mobile phones, while according to Ofcom, just two per cent don’t have one at all. And then there’s the toll on businesses, with many still relying on mobile packages to keep employees connected.
Take a Hike
When a mobile contract comes to an end, it’s common for that tariff to be rolled onto a monthly rolling contract at the same price, even though the customer has paid off their handset. Research from Which? shows that customers who allow their mobile phone contracts to roll over without enquiring about better deals could lose up to £100 a year.
Ditching a contract mid-term and without penalties isn’t possible. However, consumers should evaluate whether their minimum contract period has ended if they’re considering switching. If a customer was on a standard 24-month contract that’s rolled on after this, they’re probably over-paying and need to negotiate a better deal.
Claiming that mobile phone networks overcharged UK businesses and consumers by £7.6 million last year, BillMonitor can provide analysis into the best mobile tariffs for your needs. Money Saving Expert has an easy-to-use price comparison tool, too.
Ditch the Big Guys
Some research into mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) may also be worthwhile. Unlike the “Big Four” mobile network operators (MNOs) in the UK, MVNOs do not own their own wireless infrastructure, so use radio networks operated by EE, O2, Three and Vodafone. They include the likes of Giffgaff,Tesco Mobile and Sky.
In Which?’s Annual Mobile Network Survey of the best perceived mobile operators, O2, EE, Vodafone and Three were outperformed by MVNOs. Three fared poorly in the customer survey, receiving the lowest rating for network reliability with customers unimpressed by its technical support.
In contrast, virtual networks Smarty and iD, which both use Three’s infrastructure, were among the highest scorers in Which?’s table with customers applauding the networks’ value for money. Three of the highest scoring carriers in Which?’s survey were Giffgaff, Tesco and Sky, which all use O2’s infrastructure.
Head to the Cloud
Shopping around and switching providers will save consumers from the Big Four’s price hikes, but what about businesses? It may be best for them to ditch traditional telephony altogether.
There are currently 4.98 million business landline numbers in use, according to Ofcom figures. However, this is expected to drop below 2 million by 2024, from a high of 8 million in 2013. With the switch off of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) imminent, businesses that rely heavily on calling should consider an internet-based alternative.
Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, is often a cheaper alternative to traditional telephony. While a traditional landline phone system sends voice communications via an analogue PBX system, VoIP phone systems transmit voice calls over the internet as data packets to bring voice and data capabilities together on a single network, eliminating the need for separate lines and providers for each.
A company using a VoIP service doesn’t need to work with multiple service providers for its office, mobile, and data services, IT support is reduced and hardware and installation needs are condensed. Furthermore, because users are no longer tied down to a particular country, address or phoneline for their communications, companies can save on the cost of international charges.
With the cost of living rising, price hikes are difficult to avoid. However, consumers must check in on their current mobile contracts or they risk losing money. For businesses, it’s time to move on from the landline and onto more cost-effective, future-proofed alternatives.
About Ringover
A leader in cloud communications, Ringover seamlessly combines unlimited calling, group messaging and video conferencing into one easy-to-use app. No expertise is needed to set up and integrates with your CRM or helpdesk tools. Within a few clicks, you’ve gained access to all the data you need to enhance your call centre or sales team’s performance and boost customer engagement.
Big Tech’s entry into telecoms is shaking up the industry
2021 was a huge year for tech giants and telecoms with Google, Verizon and most recently Amazon Web Services (AWS) all announcing plans to enter the telecoms space. The convergence of Big Tech telecoms is nothing new and each company has their own plans to disrupt the current landscape for the better. But is this disruption a dream or disaster for telcos? Here, Hamish White, CEO of digital-first telecom software provider Mobilise, navigates the benefits and drawbacks of the growing tech-telecom convergence.
Despite seeming similar, in many ways telecoms and Big Tech are polar opposites. While Big Tech tends to position itself at the forefront of innovation, paving the way for new upcoming capabilities, the telecoms industry tends to stick to its traditional but stable principles and ways of working. But could a unification be just what’s needed?
Better Together
Big Tech’s entry into telecoms has a wealth of potential for service providers (SPs) and their customers. Big Tech has what many providers are lacking — the resources, financial resources and culture to accelerate the pace of innovation of the telecoms industry by applying a Big Tech approach product development and improvement. Big Tech brings its own way of innovating to the market, resulting in quicker, better products and services that smaller providers can tap into too.
This has a positive knock-on effect on consumers, who ultimately receive a better experience from their SP. Through their advance data management techniques, Big Tech has the potential to gather, organise and present more customer data from various sources. The more a SP knows about its customer, the greater the level of personalisation they can offer. A greater level of personalisation leads to more relevant marketing, great customer satisfaction and increased customer lifetime value (CLV) for the SP. A win-win for both the SP and the customer.
Personalisation is complicated to deliver, often requiring significant investment on new technology and involvement from stakeholders across the business. As a result, smaller and medium-sized providers often cannot offer personalisation services on par with Big Tech or Tier 1 SPs, leaving them uncompetitive and missing out entirely on new opportunities.
With the help of Mobilise’s HERO platform, small and medium-sized SPs can now deliver personalisation on par with industry leaders. This is because they have access to all customer data needed for such services through one central location which also houses an orchestration layer which acts as a single entry point between interconnected systems in order to capture the data required for hyperpersonalisation.
Fair Share
Despite the potential benefits that Big Tech could bring to the telecoms market, there’s also shared concerns from mobile operators all over the world. SPs’ ongoing dissatisfaction with Big Tech’s lack of investment into the physical telecommunications infrastructure has been documented publicly.
In December 2021, the Financial Times published an open letter from Europe’s 13 biggest SPs addressing tech giants to demand a greater contribution to network investment. Why is this so crucial?
Data from Sandvine’s Global Internet Phenomena Report revealed the top six tech firms are generating over 56 per cent of global network traffic. Their entire business model and profitability relies on the infrastructure funded by SPs, but despite their successes, they’re still not contributing investment that is commensurate with the gains they’ve reaped.
What’s more, telecoms’ frustration with Big Tech’s lack of infrastructural investment is without even considering the latest layer of the problem: Big Tech’s attempt to launch products and services that directly compete with SPs.
A Market Monopoly
Several tech giants are developing or already have developed telecoms business areas. There’s concern from regulators, SPs and consumers that if Big Tech’s expansion continues, they could monopolise the entire technology sphere.
From a SP’s perspective, monopolisation has already begun. AWS and Microsoft have both acquired SAS-SM accreditation, required for the cloud deployment of one of telecoms’ latest development: eSIMs. eSIMs allow SPs to onboard subscribers remotely, virtually performing the traditional functions of a physical SIM card, directly provisioning a device over the internet.
While the intentions behind AWS and Microsoft’s acquisition of this accreditation are unclear now, it’s possibly linked to the development of eSIMs for Internet of Things (IoT) use cases covering sectors like manufacturing and supply chains, where their use improves operational efficiency.
While Big Tech is free to do this, and has the technology and resources to develop products quickly, this approach of cherry picking certain areas of the telecoms network could negatively affect the industry.
Double-Edged Sword
The implications of Big Tech’s lack of infrastructural investment is concerning. Currently, SPs are entirely responsible for the physical infrastructure that keeps our modern digital societies connected. But as of yet, Big Tech’s shown no interest in supporting this activity.
If Big Tech continues to only cherry pick certain elements of telecoms it wishes to enter, it could jeopardise the revenue SPs can make from their products and services, reducing investment availability, which could then place the critical infrastructure under threat.
There’s buzz from regulators and consumers around the impact of Big Tech’s potentially anti-competitive app store practices. In the US, in February 2022 the Senate passed the Open App Markets Act, which seeks to remove the control of Apple and Google over their app stores, creating a more accessible and diverse market. Similarly, in the EU, in October 2022 the Digital Markets Act will be adopted, banning practices used by Big Tech to gatekeep information and encourage competition.
While these steps promote consumer choice and a fair market, regulators also must consider how Big Tech’s partial entry into telecoms could have a detrimental impact on infrastructure development. The juxtaposition we see is that Big Tech could provide much needed innovation to the telecoms industry, but the infrastructure required to support this innovation won’t exist. Mobilise offers a suite of advisory services, including strategy and regulatory policy consultancy, to assist SPs and regulators in navigating these uncertain times and to see Big Tech as an opportunity rather than a threat.
The tech-telecom convergence will undoubtedly shake up the market. But more consideration needs to be taken to ensure infrastructure investment remains stable and the market remains competitive.
About Mobilise
Mobilise is a leading provider of SaaS solutions to the telecommunications industry. Focused on delivering highly engaging digital-first service propositions with excellent customer experience, Mobilise has a proven track record, deep industry knowledge and a team of specialists to support clients to building and executing transformational strategies.
Clients range from large corporate organisations with over 100,000 employees to small enterprises with under 20 employees. Mobilise has a deep knowledge of the telecoms business model and our experience includes working with over 40 service providers across eight markets for brands including Virgin, Dixon’s Carphone, Red Bull Mobile, Manx Telecom and Freenet.
A seamless UX enabler
In its Top 7 trends shaping digital transformation in 2022 report, Mulesoft claimed the 2020s as the era of seamless digital experiences, enabled by modular software design. All more often, consumers are expecting the same quality of user experience (UX) from their service provider (SP) as they receive from tech giants like Amazon and Meta. Here, Hamish White, founder and CEO of telecoms SaaS solution provider Mobilise explains how a composable business model and a modular API-led connectivity architecture is an SP’s best friend.
Organisations that have adopted innovation must not just be able to use it, but use it well enough to deliver a seamless digital UX. Consumers expect the same highly engaging experience from every single brand they interact with, so smaller SPs must offer a UX that’s on a par with tech giants to remain competitive and keep their customers happy.
Offering digital services is essential in our modern digital society. A consistent, intuitive user interface is a core differentiator for SPs seeking a competitive edge, contributing to a positive CX and ultimately preventing churn. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Future of CX report, 32 per cent of all customers would stop doing business with a brand they once loved after just one bad experience. So, a positive UX right from the start is crucial.
APIs Enter the Chat
In today’s digital society, data is king. But despite the widespread recognition of its power, most organisations don’t have a comprehensive data strategy in place. According to Capgemini’s Master the customer experiencereport just 21 per cent of brands have an integrated, holistic view of all customer information. For the others, data is scattered in silos in incompatible formats, and in some cases it’s not even captured and stored. But APIs help to solve these issues.
API-led connectivity links data to applications through application programming interfaces (APIs). It decouples data from the business logic and experience layer to create functions specifically with CX in mind. APIs are developed for specific purposes, but once created, they are reusable. So, adopting an API-led connectivity model allows an organisation to create ecosystems of applications that are modular, purposeful and reusable, enabling businesses to operate with more agility.
Elevating CX
Implementing API integrations, or an orchestration layer, into an organization’s digital infrastructure supports digital CX in many ways. APIs enable the full integration of external systems and third-party services so that processes appear seamless. What is actually a sequence of several individual processes and triggers behind the scenes, enabled through applications from several vendors, can appear as single interaction to a customer.
For example, in telecoms, when onboarding a new customer through an in-app eSIM subscription, subscriber provisioning, stock management and Know Your Customer (KYC) is all handled by APIs. Yet for the customer, all that’s required is the tap of a button.
For smaller SPs, having the resources and expertise to successfully implementing a API-led digital architecture may seem an impossible task. Mobilise’s HERO is a digital BSS platform that enables SPs to deliver digital-first customer experience. Through its orchestration layer, which is fully compliant with the TM Forum Open API Specifications, there are over 60 APIs available to integrate into front and back-end systems, for functions including self-service, eSIM provisioning, payments, in-app push notifications, marketplace for cross selling, and user profiles maintenance.
Preventing churn, maintaining satisfied customers and elevating CX is essential to success in the ever more competitive telecoms space. Creating a consistent, intuitive digital ecosystem, powered by APIs gives SPs the ongoing flexibility to adapt and keep pace with innovation.
About Mobilise
Mobilise is a leading provider of SaaS solutions to the telecommunications industry. Focused on delivering highly engaging digital-first service propositions with excellent customer experience, Mobilise has a proven track record, deep industry knowledge and a team of specialists to support clients to building and executing transformational strategies.
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Ian Terblanche, Global Strategic Sales & Channel Director at Sigfox
