Cloud Computing Integrated service provider: The future of telecom operators

Over the past few years, the rapid development of cloud computing has become the focus of attention in telecommunications, the internet and IT industry, although there are still some disputes and obstacles to overcome, but the future will be a "cloud" era has become the consensus of the industry, which is actively seeking the road to change the telecom operators, It is not only a new opportunity but also a bigger challenge, how to adapt to the change of business model brought by cloud computing, adjust its transformation strategy to conform to the development trend of industry, become the urgent task faced by operators. To this end, this newspaper reporter interviewed the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications Management School deputy Dean Professor Pan, he believes that the emergence of cloud computing for the operator to provide a new big idea, to the integrated service provider transformation of cloud computing may be the future direction of operator transformation.

Pan, vice dean of Beijing University of Posts and telecommunications

The road to a difficult transition

In fact, as early as a few years ago, with the rapid development period of telecommunication reform brought by China's telecom industry, after entering the relatively stable stage of development, the major domestic operators began to face more and more new problems: the fierce market competition brought about by the tariff downward, the number of users tend to be saturated and stagnant, ARPU value continues to decline, The complexity and diversification of users ' needs has led to a slowing of the development of operators, even lower than GDP growth rate. Therefore, there are many different voices on the future development prospects of the operators, and there are two diametrically opposed views.

Some academics are pessimistic about the future of China's telecoms operators, it is believed that the operators are gradually declining, the traditional voice, SMS business development encountered the bottleneck was replaced by IP, especially the issuance of 3G license--because of the current domestic demand for 3G business is not high, too large infrastructure construction and network operation and other aspects of investment, The number of users is not enough, investment is difficult to recover, it is bound to cause huge losses to operators.

Other scholars believe that although China's telecommunications operators face major challenges, but its prospects are still bright. And, 3G technology will bring more value-added services, mobile internet business applications, so that operators bring new opportunities.

Pan that, although the traditional communications business is deteriorating, gradually reduced to a pipeline, but the telecommunications industry has a natural irreplaceable, so operators can not go to "death." However, there is no denying that the telecommunications industry is no longer a sunrise industry, in recent years the pace of development of industries has slowed down, the new employee income no longer has a strong appeal, is good evidence. Today, operators have encountered many obstacles to the development, which forces operators to transform to find new ways of development.

In fact, in order to adapt to the current situation and meet the needs of users ' business, the domestic telecom operators have begun to try to transform from the traditional communication service providers to the integrated information services providers, whose landmark service is China Telecom's 114 based on the number of a know-it-all, The original 114 platform of the number query service upgraded to comprehensive number information search service. Similar to the 12580 launched by China Mobile. Comprehensive information Service is a good attempt to effectively expand the value chain of operators. However, from 2005 to the present, the effect of this transition is not very significant, the proportion of business income is also very low.

With the technology of "cloud computing" becoming more and more mature and rapid development, the transformation of telecom operators has brought new opportunities. Pan pointed out: "At present more suitable for telecom operators of the transition direction is the integrated cloud services provider." ”

What is a cloud computing integrated service provider

Pan: Operators in the Cloud Network has a unique advantage, combined with cloud computing processing and cloud storage construction, will eventually be expected to be the cloud computing platform for the best provider of services.

Cloud computing integrated service provider refers to the operator as a cloud computing service platform provider to provide users with computing processing, storage and network services. The future cloud computing platform consists of cloud computing, cloud storage, and the exchange of data, and operators have a unique advantage in cloud networks, which, combined with cloud computing and cloud storage, will ultimately be the best provider of cloud computing's underlying platform services.

Considering the transformation of the operator, its business must conform to the characteristics of large input, large output, relative norm and relative monopoly. and cloud computing integrated services just in line with the above characteristics: it requires a nationwide focus on the construction of large-scale computing processing centers, storage centers, using operators already have a monopoly of high-speed transmission network (mobile + broadband), the formation of another relatively monopolistic integrated services platform for cloud computing, Services for all business and individual users who need cloud computing services.

At that time, such as Google, Alibaba and other Internet service providers, as well as the industry, small and medium-sized enterprise users need the cloud platform, do not need to build their own, directly by the operator to provide. Take the insurance company as an example, the insurance company has a large number of business personnel, dispersed in all provinces in the country, liquidity is strong, daily need to carry out, obtain, complete a large number of business work, these business work has generated a large number of process approval, resulting in a large number of data storage, computing, In the original operating mode, the storage and calculation of data is borne by the IT system that the insurance company builds and operates, each new business needs to be configured or upgraded in advance to the IT system, which will cause a lot of waste of IT resources if the business growth exceeds the expectation that it system is not enough to support and the business is unfavorable. and using cloud computing can easily solve these troubles for insurers. The insurance company may order the cloud computing comprehensive service to the operator, by the operator to provide the complete computation, the storage, the network service, when the business expands expands, the business shrinks shrinks, momentarily opens the instantaneous expansion.

In addition, operators can provide personal consumer cloud services, such as the iphone, Android phone is a good personal cloud service platform, it is no longer a traditional mobile phone, but a microcomputer. In the future, individual consumers only need to access the cloud computing platform through the network, no matter how the operating system upgrades, how the game requirements to upgrade, only to the operators to increase or upgrade the cloud computing services requirements, without upgrading their own equipment, you can meet demand.

At present, there are many people worried that cloud computing as a new concept, it is difficult to be accepted by consumers, Pan that this is completely unnecessary. In foreign countries, there have been many successful use of cloud computing business cases for reference, and, after several years of development, cloud computing has become increasingly mature. In China, consumers are more and more mature, rational, high-end consumers accounted for more and more, the acceptance of emerging things should not be underestimated, and operators in the past has accumulated sufficient consumer trust, this will also be the operator to cloud computing integrated service provider to the successful transformation of the important guarantee.

January 28, 2011, Verizon, the US telecoms operator, spent $1.4 billion in cash for a cloud computing service provider Terremark CSM inc.,4 28th, US telecom operator CenturyLink Inc. (CTL) The acquisition of cloud computing and business hosting provider Savvis, at a cost of 2.5 billion dollars, aims to expand hosting and cloud computing services for business users, enabling corporate customers to store, access, and use applications on the Internet. These can be seen as an attempt by operators to transform into a cloud-integrated service provider.

Operator's "cloud" advantage

Pan: The urgent task of the operator transformation is to solve the 3 problems of cloud processing, cloud storage and cloud network, and operators have the natural advantage in these aspects.

How should telecom operators transform their integrated service providers into cloud computing? Pan that the true concept of "cloud computing" should contain 3 parts-cloud processing, cloud storage and cloud Network 3 platforms, in the future "cloud" era, all services need to be based on these 3 platforms, so the most urgent task for operators is to solve the cloud processing, cloud storage and cloud network of the 3 platforms.

China's telecommunications industry belongs to the oligopoly market, the 3 operators by the state management, the advantages of both pros and cons, the advantage is that it can concentrate resources, large-scale upfront investment, but also facilitate the national integrated planning. This in the cloud computing 3 platform construction will also be reflected, compared with other competitors, it can be said that operators in the "cloud platform" of the construction has a natural advantage.

In the area of cloud storage, the data center must ensure the security and efficient and fast operation of its storage devices, which has high requirements for its environment. To build a national "cloud platform", the establishment of its cloud storage center is the first fundamental problem to be solved. China's western region is vast, and since the establishment of the foundation of China, it is the research base of many major research projects, therefore, relying on the geographical advantages of western China and good cultural heritage, can be developed into a telecommunications operator's cloud storage center.

In the area of cloud processing, most of China's universities are concentrated in the central and eastern regions, in recent years, the phenomenon of graduates to the Central and eastern regions has become more and more obvious, operators can take advantage of the advantages of universities in the east and the talent, in-depth research on cloud computing processing of emerging topics, to build their own cloud processing center.

The telecom business development of traditional operators is centered on each province, in the process of transforming to cloud computing service providers, the operators can break the pattern gradually, and finally form the concept construction calculation and storage center of large area, and concentrate the cloud storage business to the western region, the cloud processing business concentrates to the Middle East region, The two are connected through a high-speed cloud network, and the current business provinces are developed into business development units. In this way, it is reasonable to optimize the configuration, saving resources, but also in line with the national construction of high-speed broadband network strategic deployment.

In short, for today's telecom operators, the practice of sticking to the rut and "laurels" is tantamount to sitting still, we must seize the opportunity, take the initiative to seek a change, find a way to meet their own characteristics, at the same time accord with our country's national conditions and development strategy, only in this way can we make our telecommunication industry have a bright future

(Responsible editor: Liu Fen)