Telecommunications service providers can benefit from the cloud computing trend in two ways. One is that the importance of the Internet for companies will increase, thus offering network operators new levers for the sale of broadband Internet connections. The second is that the provision of their own cloud computing services will enable network operators to develop completely new business models.   

The first factor is easily understood: if more and more corporate processes and applications are obtained from the World Wide Web, the Internet connection will become increasingly critical. Even short downtimes can quickly have a negative ­effect on business if they cause paralysis in important parts of the company. The objective must be to provide good connection quality as well as sufficient speed to absorb utilization peaks. This could make it possible to convince companies in industries previously less interested in IT of the necessity of broadband Internet connections. Network operators and ICT service providers should actively support the spread of cloud computing so that this effect is intensified. British Telecom (BT), for example, offers small and medium sized businesses cloud applications such as those from Salesforce.com right along with the plain Internet access.   

A second opportunity for network operators to profit from the trend towards web-based services would arise from the ­provision of their own cloud computing solutions. This involves making traditional telecommunications products such as telephone calls, fax services, and voice mails available in virtualized, i.e., web-based, form. The advantage for the user is that they then only need Internet access to have access to all means of communications.    

These services can be sold by the network operators themselves. However, another variant is far more interesting: making programming interfaces (APIs) available to third-party providers (independent software vendors = ISVs) so that they can develop their own cloud applications on the basis of the virtual telecommunications product. An online market place serves as a sales platform to offer these services to any customer. Part of the utilization fees would be retained by the provider as compensation. Any operator who can gather a large community of developers on their platform would then have a competitive advantage over other network operators. BT is blazing the trail here as well: in mid 2008, the company purchased the Silicon Valley startup Ribbit, acquiring a technology which enables the seamless integration of voice communications into any Web site. The “Ribbit Developer Platform” gives developers the tools they need to establish their own services on the foundations of the BT infrastructure.