NSN CTO: collaboration key to ICT growth

Operators worldwide are clearly looking for opportunities to transform their networks to become more efficient, keep customers on the network and add value on the network

8 October, 2009

By Kathleen Maksymec

As the information and communications technology (ICT) sector continues to grow, it needs to become faster, more flexible and more open to collaboration with third parties, said Dr Stephan Scholz, chief technical officer of Nokia Siemens Networks, speaking to the Show Daily.

"In the telecom industry, we can't wait for years to standardize functionalities and architectures," said Scholz. "We need to have the end-to-end view and look at solutions from more of a holistic perspective. We also need to simplify - which will help us become faster and more flexible-and we need to create more openness as the media and IT industries merge."

Scholz, who was one of the panelists at yesterday's CTO roundtable, emphasized that network operators in particular need to become more open to third-party applications on their networks and more adept at managing change as their role in the ICT value chain shifts - for example, as network operations are increasingly outsourced to vendors.

"Operators worldwide are clearly looking for opportunities to transform their networks to become more efficient, keep customers on the network and add value on the network," said Scholz. He cited the joint venture between Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile and France Telecom's Orange in the UK as an example of how two companies can work together effectively to drive cost savings, while taking advantage of economies of scale.

Moving forward, Scholz expects the Asia Pacific region-particularly China and India-along with new mobile and Internet technology, the energy industry and concerns about climate change to continue to drive growth for the ICT sector.

"China Mobile already has more subscribers [450 million] than Europe has inhabitants [350 million]," said Scholz. "From a technology perspective, in emerging markets, the real growth is happening on the mobile side. However, in developed markets, we're also seeing a more classic role for ICT, with new types of services on the Internet and new applications such as HDTV, IPTV, and voice over IP."