It may sound suspicious, because after all this industry isn’t about art. But there is so much to be said about trying to see things in a different light.

Sunil Mittal is the man behind an unparalleled success story in telecom. He is living proof that you don’t need expert knowledge yourself, but rather business creativity, to turn telecom into a multibillion-dollar operation – from scratch.

Operators are utilizing on average less than half of their network capacity. It takes some creativity to turn this huge dormant asset into profits. The principles of yield management might kick start the thought process.

Savings through economies of scale seems obvious and within reach, but many operators find them hard to realize. Getting full buy−in from all involved is the most cited barrier. But the rewards are plenty and sweet.

It’s been called the hidden goldmine of telecom: The vast amount of customer data. Generic business intelligence solutions generally fail to meet the specific needs of telecom. Thinking “real−time” can deliver new returns on data investments.

Convergent charging and billing helps operators manage costs while gaining agility and competitive advantage. Convergence is not about technology: The only way to achieve it is to base it on business objectives.

We are all consumers, so we must ask ourselves how we can contribute to smart energy usage and how this will affect our daily life. Utilities are in for a radical change.

Mobile advertising has been slow to deliver, but supported by standards and brokering functions, advertising now looks set to become a bastion of growth for the operator community.

O2 Ireland took a daring step when it launched a radical transformation program that swapped out its entire live network. This turned O2 into a fully fledged mobile broadband operator – and the move has already paid off. 

The growing number of device−specific or operator−specific “app stores” seems to indicate that mobile application development is becoming increasingly streamlined and efficient. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

Open platforms are arriving, inviting new players and more innovation. Could this also be an invitation to chaos? Operators are advised to keep a cool head and look at the potential for leveraging core assets.

Traffic shows explosive growth. Could this be a problem? Not for the bottom line anyway. Looking at numbers from real operator cases shows that mobile broadband is, in fact, very profitable.