NEW ORLEANS – Arguing that video lies at the centre of all of today's most significant network and cultural trends, Calix Networks CEO Carl Russo believes that service providers are now in a challenging, but possibly rewarding, position.
Speaking at the TelcoTV conference here last week, Russo observed that most of the information being captured today is now digital, while our culture is becoming increasingly virtual. And video sits at the centre of it all. "Video is the common denominator of all these trends,” he said. “Video will be the way people interact, not only with content, but also with each other. And when we say video, we mean streaming video files."
The broadband tech company’s CEO focused much of his talk on the biggest service provider trends, identifying cloud computing and smarter mobile devices as two of them. "The number of devices connected to the cloud is expanding at a geometric rate," he said. Ultimately, these new consumption patterns and trends could shift power away from traditional service providers, Russo said. So, he argued, providers must figure out where they enjoy a unique position in the market and where they can offer the most value to consumers.
"The opportunity is to focus on the customer," he said. "What unique services can I provide to them that I'm best positioned to provide?"
With consumers having a set of IP devices connected to a network, Russo argued that service providers have the opportunity to learn more about their subscribers and build billable service offerings that can be offered at a low cost. Although he didn’t spell out specific services for them to try, he suggested that providers keep trying out various offerings until they see what customers like. Flexibility, he stressed, is the key.
Alan Breznick is a Toronto-based senior analyst at Heavy Reading, part of the Light Reading Communications Network at UBM TechWeb and was in New Orleans last week to cover the Telco TV conference for Cartt.ca.
