Blockchain and Telecom: Securing Value Over the Network
Blockchain has the potential to be for ‘value’ what the Internet has been for ‘information’.
In addition to the many use cases being explored for industries such as finance, healthcare, and government, there are plausible applications of the blockchain for a CSP, both within its current portfolio of operations and also to capitalise on some of the future telecom trends.
Mr Sudhir Chaudhary, founding member of Auxledger told us about the benefits and challenges in implementing blockchain technology in the Telecom Industry.
He explained the need to further facilitate blockchain benefits and to overcome the remaining challenges:
1. A blockchain’s ‘enabled’ trust improves coordination between various partners, due to a shared view of transactions and liabilities. This in turn permits the elimination of third parties, resulting in cost savings.
2. It Facilitates a single view of data instead of the need for consolidation across various disparate systems. Also, it allows for reliable audit trails due to the history of all transactions being available in The ledger.
3. Implementation of smart contracts in roaming and other cases allows for near-instantaneous charging, thus leading to improved revenue assurance and fraud reduction.
4. Potential to facilitate new business models for revenue generation for Communication Service Provider who are looking for new avenues to increase both top and bottom lines.
5. A blockchain can act as the ledger that enables, for example, an M2M economy to prosper based on the common platform available, in which M2M transactions can be recorded. It can thus act as the enabler for an IoT ecosystem.
There will be challenges to adoption of the blockchain, as with any new technology that holds the promise of significant disruption. However, CSPs would do well to work together to enable the full realisation of the benefits, just as many of the global financial institutions are currently doing (e.g. In the R3 Consortium).
The benefits of adopting a blockchain in the core and auxiliary operations of a Communications Service Provider are plenty, as highlighted above. CSPs should take a long term view of blockchains and their potential to add value to the enterprise in both their current and new business models.
Auxledger: The next generation blockchain can lead the way for industry leaders of telecom to overcome the challenges of existing blockchain solutions.
