The Telecom Review Leaders Summit in December was a great success with a new record attendance. Executives from around the world attended this year’s event and reported that they were able to connect for quite a bit of new business in 2020.

Telecom Review North America will of course be in attendance in Hawaii and I look forward to seeing you at the event! We have been active with PTC for several years and actively support their programs. I am doing several video interviews at the event so I will see you there!

We recently visited with Eric Cevis, the President of Verizon Partner Solutions, to get a feel for Verizon’s continued technology leadership, and how they see their continued growth and leadership in our business. Eric is responsible for both domestic and international wholesale strategy and execution which includes marketing, sales, customer service, and wholesale business operations.

The term “Fourth Industrial Revolution” was coined by Klaus Schwab, the Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum. He wrote in his book of the same name that this coming era, what he called the fourth industrial revolution, is fundamentally different than the previous three eras’. These were the use of water and steam power to mechanize production, the use of electric power to create mass production, and the advent of electronics and information technology to automate production. This new industrial revolution, he argues, will happen at an exponential pace and the new technologies that will be introduced will change society in unpredictable ways.

Eric reminded us that the technology of today and tomorrow is the platform on which innovation, creativity, and entirely new industries will form. Technologies like 5G will usher in this new wave of development. The 4th Industrial revolution is going to change the way people think, learn, and process information and the environments around them, and that is ultimately the sea change that will make our world look very different.

Going forward, service providers must transition from operating as independent islands of excellence to being integral players in a worldwide business federation of cloud-like networks that support standardized dynamic services across multiple operators. This will unleash industry innovation on a massive scale while simultaneously helping maximize return on SDN and NFV investments.

Jeff Seal

Managing Partner of Telecom Review North America