Everyone is talking about Web 2.0. The way in which the World Wide Web is being used is changing dramatically: User Generated Content, Social Networking and Virtual Reality are just a few examples of this. An equally fundamental change process is gripping the telecommunications industry. Telco 2.0 demands a thorough rethink of strategy and business model – the stretched-T strategy.

The Internet is becoming ubiquitous. For example, humored as a vision of trend researchers just a few years ago, the mobile use of the Internet is turning into an almost basic need for many people. From mobile e-mail to mobile download to mobile www– the development path is clearly marked and is being laid rapidly and consistently using mobile broadband technologies like HSPA and WiMAX. At the same time the provision of services is being made much more flexible. The implementation of the next generation of IP-based access and transmission networks is going to have a dramatic effect on the Internet as we know it.


The revolution in the telecommunications industry started before that in the web and is continuing in parallel with it. The effects, when compared to the web, are at least as manifold. They affect the competitive situation, business models and organizations, as well as the development, production and marketing of telecommunications services. It is thus no exaggeration to speak of a new generation - Telco 2.0.


The Challenge
A whole range of economic, regulatory and technological megatrends, which support and strengthen one another, provide the foundation of the dramatic changes to be seen in Telco 2.0




Market saturation in developed areas and regulator-forced market liberalization in growing markets are heating up the competitive situation. At the same time competitive structures are changing due to the breakdown of the previously integrated value creating levels network, service development, and marketing & sales. MVNOs and branded resellers in the mobile business are an example of this, as are VoIP providers and VNOs for managed services in the fixed network.


Value creation which is stretched to include content, as being implemented by telecommunications operators within the framework of IP TV or mobile TV, is shifting the market structures further.
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