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Dutch incumbent overhauling back office systems, networks so it can offer ever-increasing portfolio of services.
KPN chief executive Eelco Blok on Tuesday discussed how his company is busy simplifying its networks and back office systems so that it can cater to the increasingly-complex demands of its customers.
"We are in the middle of transforming into a next-generation telco, which is digital," he said during his keynote address at Total Telecom Congress in London.
The transformation is part of KPN’s ‘Simplify – Grow – Innovate’ strategy, which was unveiled in March. As well as generating €300 million worth of savings, one of the strategy’s major objectives is to enable KPN to offer access-agnostic services by 2019.
This involves flattening almost every element of KPN’s network and IT architecture.
On the access side, KPN is adding ever more capacity to the mobile network. Plans are afoot to roll out triple-carrier aggregation so it can offer a theoretical peak connection speed of up to 400 Mbps, Blok explained. It also means pushing fibre closer to the premises and upgrading KPN’s copper access networks to support ever-increasing data rates. With suffiicient capacity, any service can be delivered over any connection, fixed or mobile.
Some of the most important changes are happening further back in the network though: rationalising and virtualising core infrastructure and rolling out a content delivery network, for example.
KPN is also undergoing an IT transformation to make it quicker and easier to launch new bundles and tariff plans, as the telco seeks to cater to the ever more complex and diverse demands of its customers.
60% of the Dutch incumbent’s fixed broadband customer base have signed up to a triple-play package, Blok explained, and KPN is seeing strong uptake of fixed-plus-mobile service bundles, all of which is helping to drive customer satisfaction and ARPU growth.
"Content is also an important part of our strategy," Blok continued, with KPN offering IPTV services, replete with music, sports, entertainment, and film content. Its IPTV platform also offers access to a range of OTT video services.
The ultimate goal for KPN, he said, is to migrate to a "simple, efficient, agile operating model [that] supports [the] best customer experience by enabling continuous quality improvement."
