#MWC2023: vision of an open future

What future do we dream of?

Our understanding has changed dramatically in the last decade. Last time I attended the Mobile World Congress here in Barcelona, in 2013, we were looking at innovations concerning smartphones and tablets, with first 4G compatible handsets. We were also showcasing how a more connected future – powered by mobile – would improve people’s daily lives across automotive, education, health, homes, retail and more…

Ten years later, there’s now no doubt that our industry has become absolutely critical to consumers and companies, with our networks supporting essential digital services to our societies. Times are exciting in Telecom, with latest technologies allowing us to rejuvenate as we become even more critical and useful to our societies.

But I also realize that over the past 10 years, the situation for European telcos has become completely paradoxical. From fierce competition to sometimes outdated regulation, our sector is dealing with contradictory requirements. 46% of telecom CEOs think their companies won’t make it another decade, according to PWC. Because the massive network investments - almost €600bn in Europe in the last decade! – happen to be hard to monetize, while consumers expect to pay less and get more. In the meantime, telcos are facing pressure from investors to squeeze their capex while coping with exponential traffic growth – mainly concentrated by a handful of digital players.

I truly wonder if this is what we had in mind 10 years ago for the future of our European industry. Despite the strong resolution of the European industry to take up the Digital Decade challenge through innovation and collaboration, are we really setting the right frame for telcos to succeed?  

Let me share with you today some of my convictions, along with examples of what we are currently working on at Orange, in line with our new plan called “Lead the future” which I presented two weeks ago.

First, because the entire sector is at a crossroads, I believe we need to step aside and take a fresh look at our industry.

It looks paradoxical that infrastructure is better valued as a standalone business that within the telecom sector. The pandemic demonstrated how critical a resilient and secure infrastructure is to our customers, but this infrastructure requires huge investments that some telcos are no longer able to fully absorb and are consequently compelled to partly sell their assets off. Yet without infrastructure, many of the digital innovations shown here at the MWC would not be possible. That is why our infrastructure is being modernized. Old copper networks are being decommissioned throughout the world: it doesn’t make sense to continue operating them for technological, economic, and environmental reasons. Simple fact: fiber is 4 times more energy-efficient than copper.

Innovations – such as virtualization and softwarization, combined with AI – are also essential for us to bring even more secure and resilient networks to better meet our customers’ increasing expectations.

I strongly believe that European telecommunication companies are committed to take this future in their own hands, side by side, with an open, sustainable and collaborative approach.

Collaboration is key. It has always been very critical to develop new standards in our industry, it will become an even stronger fundamental in the way we operate and innovate. Let’s take one of the many interesting innovations of MWC 2023, the GSMA Open Gateway that was announced this morning. Telcos already have the experience of existing API exposure to developers, but the Open Gateway initiative is a fantastic opportunity to investigate together this field of new network opportunities. We are working hard to provide easy-to-use Network APIs, that any developer could consume to create innovative services.

We as Telcos know our networks, and we manage their deep technical complexity, but we will offer a very simple and harmonized way to access its numerous functions.

We must also make sure that we’re building a responsible, secure and eco-friendly framework for the digital world we’re supporting.

According to GSMA, network traffic has increased by more than 10 times over the past five years, while telcos’ energy use has remained almost flat in the same period. That’s a great achievement, but it’s only a start when you look at the traffic exponential trends. That is why while rejuvenating, our new networks need to be green “by design”, another area where telcos must work together.

Telcos are responsible for the use of this open digital world, as cyberthreats are becoming a day-to-day concern for everyone. We are committed to invest in cybersecurity with Orange Cyberdefense.

In short, I truly think that telecommunication companies are committed to play their part in building a responsible digital world, green, accessible to everyone and secure by design. We keep innovating and massively investing to support this digital world and meet connectivity requirements. But I must also ask: is the whole digital industry contributing fairly to the fundamentals of our digital world?

Consequently, it is time our industry proactively and collaboratively builds the future we all dream of, because it is only achievable with the right conditions.

Telcos have to deal with a very difficult equation between investment and regulation.

Our industry has been one of the greatest contributors to our economies through massive investments, almost €600bn over the past decade in Europe. While customers demand the highest standards of service quality to meet their increasing needs, European telcos are under pressure to achieve the “Digital Decade” targets. Five of the largest Online Traffic Generators account for 55% of daily traffic on telco networks. This represents approximately €15bn cost by European telcos each year within the €56bn invested by Telcos.

Fair play rules start with acknowledging the unbalanced situation today.

Regulators and policy makers have a major role to play to balance this situation. Recent research shows that there is a risk of 45 million Europeans not reached by gigabit networks by 2030. Our common interest is that telcos keep investing to support new digital services and to meet growing customer needs, in all sectors of Europe’s economy and society!

To that end, we call for a new European framework which would bring a fair contribution of large online traffic generators to connectivity requirements.

All operators are used to implementing wholesale agreements, from fibercos to legacy networks, in order to achieve their existing and future connectivity goals and we are all willing to set the proper commercial frameworks with large online traffic generators.

We’re not asking here to change Europe’s net neutrality principles. Nor are we asking for a new Tax mechanism. In order to achieve the EU Digital Decade, we do believe that a fair and direct contribution to network costs will help create the better conditions we urgently need to keep investing privately rather than requiring public funding.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said: “It’s not about predicting the future but making it possible”.

This is what we’ve chosen to express in our Orange strategic plan called “Lead the future”. Our Telco industry is absolutely essential, we must capture the full value from our services and from next generation open networks.

And our future cannot be built alone, so I ask everyone here to step forward.

Not to lead the future but to lead OUR future!

We can make it happen, by setting the right conditions and choosing the right commitments. In the end, we all want to make our dream of an open but fair future come true.