Next monday, 17 May is the “World Telecommunication Day”. World Telecommunication Day has been celebrated annually on 17 May since 1969, marking the founding of International Telecommunication Union and the signing of the first International Telegraph Convention in 1865.

Although ITU Council adopted the theme “Better city, better life with ICTs” to mark World Telecommunication and Information Society Day in 2010, Talking about the “Better City, Better life with ICTs” is not so interesting to me (I may write  about it later). Since 17 May is world telecommunication day, let me take this opportunity to write about telecommunications sector (from perspective of telecommunication operators / vendors) and then information society (user rights in the digital world? ACTA?). At first, telecommunication sector.

Is Telco sector turning into a lower margin basic utility sector?

Magic word : change. Last decade was a time frame that technology, society and business evolved and changed faster than ever before and we -all- know that today’s technology and business environment is evolving and changing faster and faster than last decade. No one can claim that technology and business environment in coming decade will not evolve and change faster than today’s environment in the light of the experiences we had during the last decade. In this fast-changing world, nothing survives over the long term if it resists the change, (if) it can not change itself, (if) it can not adopt itself to the changing world or (if) it can not change itself at the same pace of “change”.

All we know is that “change” comes not only with “new things” but also with a more complex and networked things, more complex society and with more information.( sometimes, change comes with a recession or bad effects, yeah, dark side of the moon). As a result of this fast changing environment, none of us, none of the societies and none of the enterprises including telco players can survive in this environment by standing out of this change and evolution.

The question is not about the change, but about telco operators / vendors. Are they ready? Are they adopting themselves to this ever changing world?

Some facts:

• 10 years ago, less than one in six people in the world had access to a telephone of any kind. By 2009, mobile phone was accessible for seven out of ten people worldwide.(Source: ITU ICT Statistics Database, www.itu.int)
• Internet access shifted from dial-up to broadband (see the image file : fixed broadband subscribers in 2008) (Source : ITU ICT Statistics Database, www.itu.int )
• Phenomenal growth of mobile broadband.(3G, HSPA, HSPDA etc.)
• Telecom becomes more data/connectivity-centric instead of voice.

Some other facts :

• End of a decade of golden age? Mobile market is loosing steam. Mobile ARPU (Avearge Revenue Per User) is declining. (DigiWorld Summit 2009, http://www.bloobble.com/broadband-presentations/presentations?itemid=2789)
• Telcos are grappling with falling margins across the mature markets. British Telecom, France Telecom, KPN (Netherlands) and Telefonica (Spain) are struggling to cope with revenue declines in the range of 3-9%. (for some other telcos, 5-15% revenue decline)
• North American telecommunication operators are facing increasing difficulties in assuring revenues from bundled services.(Source: Revenue Assurance Strategies for Recession and Recovery, 22 April 2010, Ovum Research, www.ovum.com)
• Other services including IPTV can not afford declining voice revenues.

New technologies like Digital Subscriber Line – DSL, fiber access etc are changing the face of communication. Users are communicating in different ways like VoIP, Instant Messaging, Social Networks, blogs, twitter etc and they will use them more and more.

Number of subscribers are increasing however voice revenues are declining? Telecom becomes more data/connectivity-centric but data data revenue can not afford declining voice revenues? So far, they can provide some growth from mobile broadband but is it sustainable in long-run? Some markets are mature and saturated? Some other markets have not been saturated but they will.  So, what is the future of telco?

Since that question is so comprehensive question, I can not answer this question on my own, either but there is an interesting report focusing on the future of telco. We are going to look at that report on sunday or monday.

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Update – May 17, 2010

Sorry but I did not have time for another blog entry on this subject. You can find the reports which I mentioned earlier.

Telecoms 2015: New Game, New Players, but Who Wins?
http://www.telco2research.com/articles/AN_Telecoms-2015-who-wins_Full

Telco 2015 :  Five Telling Years, Four future scenarios
http://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?infotype=PM&subtype=XB&appname=GBSE_GB_TI_USEN&htmlfid=GBE03304USEN&attachment=GBE03304USEN.PDF

filmi hemen hatırladınız değil mi? clementine ve joel ayrıldıktan sonra aşklarını ve beraber tüm yaşadıklarını unutmak ve daha fazla acı çekmemek için dahi bir doktora başvuruyorlar ve doktorda önce onların beyin haritalarını çıkarıyor sonra da uyutarak garip bir yöntem ile hayatlarından ve hafızalarından o yaşanmışlıklarını tamamen siliyordu. (tamam, anladık filmi izlediniz, joel’de problem çıkıyordu)

bu filmde yapılıyordu yapılmasına ama ne yazık ki sosyal ağlarda işleyen bir yöntem değil. daha düne kadar -dün dediysek üç beş ay önceye kadar- en popüler ve en büyük sosyal paylaşım sitesi olan facebook’ta sizin sildiğiniz bir resim gerçekte oradan silinmiyor -sadece siz sildiğinizi zannediyordunuz- 30 gün sonra bile internet üzerinden hiç bir kısıt olmadan erişilebiliyordu. meraklısı cambridge üniversitesinden bir grubun yaptığı araştırmayı ve ilgili BBC haberini buradan “your photos – stuck in the cloud?” okuyabilir.

Yine facebook’un son yaptığı “privacy”değişiklikleri de hem bireylerin dijital haklarını savunan kurum ve grupların hem de kullanıcıların tepkisini çekmeye devam ediyor. Özellikle “Connections” denilen ve geçtiğimiz günlerde facebook’ta devreye alınan yeni uygulama kullanıcılar için öngörülemeyen tehlikeli bir takım değişiklikleri de beraberinde getiriyor. Bunlardan biri mesela “Visibility” ile “Publicly Available” kavramları. Siz gizlilik(privacy) ayarlarından bazı bilgileri veya durum güncellemelerinizi saklayabilirsiniz ama onlar hala “publicly available” yani arama motorlarına ve diğer bir takım şirketlerin geliştirdikleri uygulamalar için erişilebilir durumda ve siz bunu kesinkes değişti-re-mi-yor-su-nuz. yani artık hiç bir şey sizin kontrolünüzde değil. (zaten değildi, yoksa siz kontrol edebildiğinizi mi sanıyordunuz:)

Electronic Frontier Foundation‘da yayınlanan bir yazı bu son değişiklikleri ve kullanıcıları nasıl etkilediğini madde madde özetliyor.

1. Facebook will not let you share any of this information without using Connections. You cannot opt-out of Connections. If you refuse to play ball, Facebook will remove all unlinked information from your profile.
2. Facebook will not respect your old privacy settings in this transition. For example, if you had previously sought to share your Interests with “Only Friends,” Facebook will now ignore this and share your Connections with “Everyone.”
3. Facebook has removed your ability to restrict its use of this information. The new privacy controls only affect your information’s “Visibility,” not whether it is “publicly available.” Explaining what “publicly available” means, Facebook writes:“Such information may, for example, be accessed by everyone on the Internet (including people not logged into Facebook), be indexed by third party search engines, and be imported, exported, distributed, and redistributed by us and others without privacy limitations.”
4. Facebook will continue to store and use your Connections even after you delete them. Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not there. Even after you “delete” profile information, Facebook will remember it. We’ve also received reports that Facebook continues to use deleted profile information to help people find you through Facebook’s search engine.
5. Facebook sometimes creates a Connection when you “Like” something. That “Like” button you see all over Facebook, and now all over the web? It too can sometimes add a Connection to your profile, without you even knowing it.
6. Your posts may show up on a Connection page even if you do not opt in to the Connection. If you use the name of a Connection in a post on your wall, it may show up on the Connection page, without you even knowing it. (For example, if you use the word “FBI” in a post).

ne diyordu filmde Joel: “Look at it out here, it’s all falling apart. I’m erasing you and I’m happy!”.

ne yazık ki sanal dünyada öyle olmuyor.

BBC’nin dediği gibi siz siz olun sosyal ağlara ve onların gizlilik sözleşmelerine kanıp bu ortamlara sonradan silmek isteyeceğiniz resimler yüklemeyin.

(ben mi? ben sadece böyle eften püften şeyler yazmak için bilmem gerektiği kadar kullanıyorum sosyal ağları)

Privacy. It has become “hot topic” as number of people who use social networking tools grows and it seems that it will be so for a while.

Recent case, provoking a protest storm across the internet, is about Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder. According to Mark Zuckerberg, privacy is no longer a social norm. (http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/3848950)

So, should we get over it? Really?

Look, what did Zuckerberg say:

“People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time. We view it as our role in the system to constantly be innovating and be updating what our system is to reflect what the current social norms are.”

Have the current social norms really evolved? Someone had better remind Zuckerberg that being social and sharing openly are not being naked* on the net ( naked on the net : to be visible with all his/her private information)

Numbers tell us different story about that social norm : http://fstutzman.com/2009/03/09/ny-times-botches-sns-privacy/

Michael Zimmer, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, who has done extensive research on social media, said Zuckerberg’s comments seemed calculated to make users and advertisers feel more at ease with sharing online. That’s the world he wants, so he makes statements to make it seem as if it is true. Social-Network sites need users to share information, and any attempts to limit that sharing is contrary to SNS business models.” (http://www.crm-daily.com/story.xhtml?story_id=13000005HZQC)

Is privacy a social norm of the past as more people use social networking tools?

End of Privacy or Time for Privacy?

For whom the bell tolls?

Of course,  The bell tolls for you.

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Anyway, share and drink responsibly and dream of a warm country :)