CPaaS Acceleration Summit Day 1: A look at the future of telcos

The first day of CASA23 brought together a slew of industry leaders, all sharing insights, forecasts, and expert analyses about the future of the Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) within the telecom industry.

Here are the highlights from Day 1.

Telco Transformation and Opportunities with CPaaS

Ellen Aartsen, Manager of Innovation & Partnerships at KPN kicked us off with a discussion about telco transformation. She focused on the importance of standardization efforts, specifically project CAMARA with its emphasis on API standardization across global network operators. CAMARA is early in its evolution, and operators are still looking for more relevant use cases.

Ellen offered an exciting future use case for developers: allowing providers such as WhatsApp to rule out fraudulent activity by combining carrier SIM swap information with real-time location. Quality on demand at large events was another use case that she is excited about.

Emerging Technologies and Integration Challenges

Adnan Saleem, CTO of Software and Cloud Solutions at Radisys Corporation took us through a wide variety of CPaaS capabilities and use cases that communications providers can deploy for their customers. The big takeaway from his presentation: individual technologies such as Computer Vision, Generative AI, and Real Time Translation are advancing rapidly, but the difficulty of integration is holding carriers back.

Network Operator Growth and the API Economy

Christoph Uferer from Arthur D Little provided an optimistic view of the growth opportunity available to network operators through:

1. The global API economy
2. Adoption of services from SMEs

Arthur D Little forecasts that the API market alone will grow to $62B by 2030. Arthur D Little believe that carriers will be able to regain market share in the API space. This on the back of industrial IoT applications, Security & Identity services, Advanced Network as a Service, and Metaverse as a Service – all of which leverage the power of telco networks.

Panel Discussion on Telco Transformation

Ellen Aartsen, Adnan Saleem, and Mark Bridges, CTO of CableLabs engaged in an insightful panel discussion. The group further discussed telco transformation and capitalizing on the opportunity offered by CPaaS and APIs. Every panel participant was excited about the opportunity in the market.

Two keys to success were identified in this panel:

• Stop treating APIs and use cases as silos in the business. This needs board-level buy-in to drive change across the business and ultimately be successful.
• Stop thinking “not invented here” with these new services. Increasing complexity requires deeper expertise that can only be supplied through partnerships.

Messaging Evolution From CPaaS 1.0 to CPaaS 3.0

Virginie Debris, Managing Director of Messaging at Sinch discussed the shift from messaging-centric CPaaS 1.0 to a more use-case-centric CPaaS 3.0.

She highlighted the need for providers to appeal to diverse buyers including marketing, operations, and finance, with 50% of all emerging CPaaS use cases being delivered outside of the traditional IT team in 2024.

Overcoming Innovation Barriers in the Communications Ecosystem

Tim Otto led a lively panel discussion focused on addressing barriers to innovation in the ecosystem. He was joined on stage by Virginie, Philippe Millet of i3forum, Asa Larsson, regional growth director of Infobip, and Pieter Veenstra, Chair of 5GMRR & RIFS at GSMA.

The group dove into three significant topics for the industry:

Security: Pieter highlighted that security teams are dealing with increasing complexity and security demands in the face of static budgets. He stated that ecosystem players must standardize and focus on making things easier in order to help security teams be more effective.

AI in Operations: Asa noted that AI is enabling operators to move faster in finding fraud and sharing data on malicious usage patters. This is helping create a higher level of trust between brands and network operators at a lower total cost of service.

Regulation: Finally Virginie noted that the industry needs regulators to drive standardization and instill trust in the market, but that operators must guide regulators to help find the best balance between regulations, trust and consumer value.

Successful Telco and CPaaS Enabler Collaborations

Pankaj Gupta, CEO of EnableX, showcased success stories for partnerships between CPaaS enablers and network operators. He highlighted two key success drivers:

1. CPaaS enablers work hand-in-hand with telcos to help sell and deliver new use cases & solutions
2. Telcos drive success by hiring domain experts from contact centers and other markets, which helps them start talking about solutions and use cases instead of minutes and packages.

Charting the CPaaS Path Forward

The day’s sessions wrapped up with a panel led by Michael Brandenburg of Frost & Sullivan, focusing on the course ahead for telcos and CPaaS. Panel participants included Pankaj Gupta, Francesco Graziano of BICS, Sebastian Schumann of DTAG, and Haitham El-Hanafi, Head of Sales for SpeechLogix. The panel addressed three key drivers of success for telcos on their CPaaS journey:

Partnerships: Telcos cannot address every market need on their own. They succeed by partnering with trusted companies that can quickly deliver the innovative capabilities their customers need.

Sales Enablement: CPaaS is not a traditional telco sale. Successful companies sell through teams that understand use cases and can guide business buyers to the right solution. CPaaS Enablers are critical in helping telcos develop this capability.

Speed to Market: Successful telcos deliver capabilities in smaller bundles that can be brought to market quickly rather than wide arrays of features that take longer to deliver and increase the likelihood of failure.

Wrapping Up and Day 2 On Tap

The day concluded with a networking session and boat ride, allowing attendees to interact, share insights, and forge collaborations. With an exhilarating first day behind us, Day 2 will delve deep into AI, SME success strategies, and the convergence of UCaaS, CCaaS, and CPaaS. Stay tuned for more insights!