Blockchains meet Telecommunications: Opportunity, Risk, or Necessity?

Can the telecom industry benefit from blockchains and decentralized ledger technologies?

The blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies are set to revolutionize many industries. While the technical component themselves are nothing new, the blockchain mixes them up in a previously unexplored layout that enables many new use cases. Essentially, blockchains are a new kind of live and self-updating databases exploring new models of governance.

Before we dive into blockchains applied to the telco industry, let’s address some of the most critical dimensions of blockchains. We’ll then be able to consider the potential use cases blockchains enable for the telecommunication industry with live examples of existing projects whenever possible.

A 3 minutes intro to blockchains

What are blockchains?

Blockchains (and others distributed ledger technologies known as DLT) allow nurturing different relationships between service/data providers and their users. The main innovation carried by blockchains lie in their distributed nature.

Through game-theory mechanics and cryptographic seals, blockchains offer a credible solution to the challenge of maintaining a database without…