We live in a connected world, where everything is linked through digital experiences. The world is undergoing significant changes that challenge all aspects of life, introducing more gadgets and gizmos that require various forms of connectivity. From a tiny Airtag relying on “UWB” to communicate with nearby devices to powerful processing units like VisionPro, and the rollout of 5G and WiFi 6, these innovations drive business growth.
However, these advancements don’t always scale seamlessly in the technology landscape, and telcos are no exception.
Yesterday, we all witnessed the nationwide outage at Optus, and the wait for the service to recover was crippling for many customers. This affected citizens waiting for important calls from the hospital, individuals needing to make emergency calls, and even a story about a cat unhappy because its feeder machine wasn’t working.
The problem extends beyond Optus alone; it has a cascading effect on the entire industry. Comedian Jimmy Rees brilliantly depicted the chaos in his recent Instagram posts (for more information, visit: https://instagram.com/jimmyrees).
So, what’s the problem statement? It’s not just a matter of technological incompetence within one team or business. The issue lies in how telcos operate – with legacy systems, bulky and outdated platforms, non-cloud-native solutions, on-premises architecture, and, not least, a lack of customer experience advocacy at the core of the telco industry.
Let me provide an example: during the outage yesterday, we received a significant number of requests to port-out from Optus to Felix. However, due to the deep outage we experienced, the port-out was not possible since the departure service couldn’t send or receive the authentication SMS, a core legacy service embedded in telco OSS and BSS ages ago.
With the advancements we see today, like PassKeys and MFAs, relying solely on one method of authentication would be risky and could lead to bottlenecks for customers, especially in emergencies and unforeseen situations.
Telcos must embrace several other improvements to keep up with other industries, such as enhancing eSIM delivery, providing a framework-agnostic experience, offering embedded services, streamlining high-cost, low-efficiency operational activities, and simplifying complex business models and billing processes.
Especially given recent significant events, it’s time to reflect on what needs to change and what should be introduced to overcome these situations.
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