Reality IP - the new telecoms talent show ?

Reality TV productions entertain us with attempts to short-circuit the usual rules.  To be an ‘overnight star’ used to take a pop wannabe about seven years of hard graft before the wider public sat up and took note.  

Even in our world of fast-growth networked services, the long and winding road to success is littered with road-blocks, diversions and confusing signposts.  Brilliant concepts often emerge years before their time.  When the early hype fades they either rot down into a sort of intellectual compost to nourish the new innovators, or they take time out until some other parts of the giant jigsaw are slotted into place.   

The innovations that do take off quickly, like iPod, are timed to perfection.  They work because the enablers are sufficiently in place and there’s little dependency on some wider and uncertain collaboration.   If your great idea needs proper broadband (at least more than 2Mb/s), or if it needs a little bit of wireless spectrum, then you’d best take a break or focus only on those countries where the infrastructure and regulations are rather more attractive or enlightened. 

So it’s no surprise that five years on from the early frenzy around hosted applications services we are now beginning to see things slotting into the ‘next generation’ space.  The so-called Web2.0 movement now has a brother, ‘Office2.0’.  The latest jargon for hosted Applications Services is ‘SaaS’ - Software-as-a-Service – and heralds yet another re-run of the old centralised versus distributed debate.  Telco’s all over Europe are building their all-IP Next Generation Networks with the promise of new services like IP Centrex.  Much of this is already available from ISP’s and the AltNets – but only, of course, if you can get sufficient and affordable high-quality broadband access.  

Businesses in countries like France are now benefiting from a much earlier approach to Local Loop Unbundling.  France has over 30% of all DSLs delivered over unbundled local loops compared with less than 7% in the UK – a figure that hides a miserable 1% in Wales and the North East region and apparently even less in Northern Ireland.  In terms of competitive choice and innovative services we can begin to map the new European ‘digital divides’ that stem directly from different national approaches to regulation.  

The current European Telecoms Framework Review suggests a more centralised regulatory approach.  The UK argues against this – preferring to not to dilute Ofcom’s responsibility for regulation of the telecoms industry.  France and Germany are also agin it – they’d certainly not want their business economy or consumer choice to be held back to the slow pace and lack of imagination of less progressive countries or incumbent operators.

With the growth of practical and reliable web hosted services for the enterprise market, there’s a real concern that British businesses – especially in smaller towns and rural areas – are being left behind.  Is shoestring broadband a unique British approach to keeping innovative talent in its place?  Reality IP, the new telecoms talent show, seems unlikely to be a big hit on UK computer screens.

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This article was first published in NetworkingPlus November 2006