The Rise of ´as a Service´ Solutions: Your Shortcut to the Digital Telco!

Spotlight on Digital Telco | TelecomDrive.com

Thanks to digital transformation, networks are becoming increasingly complex, as are the services delivered by them. Subscribers expect a network that scales to their needs, offers innovative digital services and is highly engaging.

To meet this challenge, operators must embark on the journey to be a fully digital telco. The current mainstream path for operators on this journey involves investing in rapidly changing technologies and building digital competence in-house to meet the demand. Ericsson is actively investing in technologies, developing products and participating in open source forums to help many of customers who are on this path.

While it is a fully viable path, for operators that are looking to leapfrog the transformation, there is an alternative path emerging: as-a-Service (aaS). With aaS, operators can consume the necessary network capabilities on demand to deliver services their subscribers need.

Several reasons have contributed to a rise in demand for ‘as a Service’ delivery. There has been an increase in general adoption of enterprise Software as a Service (SaaS) models, with more and more critical infrastructure being involved.

‘As a Service’ – why now?

At the same, cloud technologies are maturing at a rapid pace while Capex constraints are on the rise. Telecoms are increasingly looking for delivery models that are not Capex intensive. Finally, ‘as a Service’ allows operators to address rapidly evolving network requirements and achieve improved efficiencies by allowing frequent updates and essentially eliminating the worry of life-cycle management of the software.

The benefits of 'as a Service' solutions

The benefits of ‘as a Service’ are well known including faster Time to Benefit (TTB), reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), scalability, speed of deployment, and significantly lower risk. However, Ericsson differentiates its value with multiple additional benefits such as leveraging economies of scale, enabling frequent updates, market differentiation, rapid response to customer needs, as well as highly predictable revenues.

The question is, how can Ericsson help service providers evolve to a true digital operator. Well, there are four key steps through in the journey to become a true digital operator through four pillars:

• First, automate your operations.
• Second, upgrade your network to an elastic, scalable network.
• Third, fully digitalize your customer engagements.
• Finally, launch new digital services and build ecosystems together with other industry leaders.

The Ericsson ‘as a Service’ platform focuses on four main areas – Digital Engagement, Automated Operations, Digital Service and Ecosystems, and Programmable Networks.

Ericsson is an established leader in the telco aaS with offerings such as IoT Accelerator, eSIM Manager, Communication Accelerator and others. With Ericsson’s aaS platform, operators are always on the greatest software release.

Given Ericsson’s technology leadership and participation in various open source forums, our aaS platform bring the best of breed technologies on a secure and resilient infrastructure that is compliant with global regulations. Additionally, the services are continuously improved with platform analytics.

This article has appeared in the December 2020 issue of Disruptive Telecoms.