Silicon Valley summit to gather 10 global telecom carriers
Editor’s note: This post is sponsored by Telecom Council.
With over 40% of US Telecom investment dollars flowing through the Silicon Valley, the Bay Area is the global hot-bed for telecom. This gravity has drawn 6 of the top 10 global wireless carriers to locate innovation offices in the region, along with many more fixed and mobile operators. Each field office has a direct pipeline to home operations. In fact, the wireless carriers with permanent Silicon Valley offices represent well over 1.4 Billion cellular subscribers.
According to a Tier-1 telco equipment vendor, “There’s no other place in the world where you get 25 global operators [permanently] in the same place – leading the industry forward. These leaders, are all a part of the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley which is what makes this ‘regional group’ much more than that – it makes it internationally significant.” Major trade shows bring these kinds of heavy hitters to places like Barcelona for a few days each year, but only Silicon Valley can boast a permanent presence.
The concentration of carriers is augmented in the Valley by the full ecosystem of capital, experienced VCs, the IT community, telecom vendors, and of course the start-ups. In this fertile milieu, the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley, a regional association of telecom executives, is gathering ten global operators to present current thinking at Telecom Council Carrier Connections (TC3). TC3 is a summit of advanced thinking, where global carriers connect with Silicon Valley and discuss the roadmaps, innovation plans, and opportunities for collaboration and growing the market together.
You’ve heard the choruses of, “Carriers are hard to work with”. True enough. There is definite size asymmetry – carriers are massive companies with legacy businesses to manage. But the practical reality is that operators remain at the center of the telecom ecosystem, they have the direct billing relationships which elude start-ups and established tech companies alike. As such, they are an undeniably attractive channel to market. Many budgets are tapped traveling around the world in attempt just to meet a few of them, but you could dialogue with many right here, and tap into those 1.4B subs.
Understanding why, how, when (and when not) to work with the telcos is a critical part of your business. So let’s cut through the partnership challenges and the asymmetry. The carriers presenting at TC3 will attempt to untwist the ever-tangled vines of collaborating with global-scale partners. Join the Telecom Council members expected to attend including AT&T, BT, Clearwire, China Mobile, DoCoMo, NTT, Sprint, Swisscom, TELUS, Verizon, and Vodafone among many others. If you register now, you take advantage of a $100 early-bird discount at www.telecomcouncil.com/TC3.
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