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Nine telecoms operators form alliance designed to help them gain access to digital innovations.
Nine major international telecoms operators on Monday announced they have formed a partnership that appears to be a way for them to tap into the growth potential of major Internet brands.
The companies have come together to create what they describe as a Partnering Operator Alliance, founder member MTS revealed.
In addition to the Russian operator, the group also includes BT, Deutsche Telekom, Reliance Jio Infocomm, Millicom, Orange, Rogers, TeliaSonera and TIM.
The alliance identifies itself as "an open network of like-minded operators worldwide with complementary geographical footprints."
Its purpose is to exchange best practices on bringing partner offerings to market, to jointly identify possible partnerships, and to share knowledge on "upcoming trends and services," MTS said.
The partners in question include major Internet brands that offer the kinds of services telecoms operators have been unable to successfully launch and scale up themselves, such as digital music specialist Spotify and mobile marketing firm Celltick.
The alliance has existing relationships with 30 such partners in total – others including AirBnB, Disconnect, Idoomoo, Magisto, and Mojio – and is looking to add more to the list.
It is also open to the idea of recruiting other operators and said it will add new names "soon".
"Partnering becomes more and more important," said Christian von Reventlow, chief product and innovation officer at Deutsche Telekom.
"We as operators can provide partners with the best networks and easy distribution to customers," von Reventlow added. "And the partners enable us to provide our customers with the best and most innovative products and services."
There were similar comments from representatives of the other operators in the alliance.
"By teaming up with our great peers we’ll get the possibility to work with partners and access innovations that we otherwise might not have come across," TeliaSonera’s commercial head Jesper Hedblom said.
"The joint forces of industry leaders create additional value for our customers and give us a chance to provide the latest innovations, best services, products and client experience," said Vasyl Latsanych, chief marketing officer at MTS.
Meanwhile, Orange and TIM focused more on how the alliance will help them engage with start-ups.
Mari-Noëlle Jégo-Laveissière, senior executive innovation, marketing and technologies at Orange, noted that her company already works with digital start-ups, via in-house initiatives and other partnerships.
"We strongly believe that this alliance will contribute and enhance our collective ability to scale up innovators," she said.
"This alliance is a unique arena where the most important operators can build upon their respective innovation experiences and solutions providing also an opportunity for operators to introduce their start-up ecosystems to an international footprint," said TIM’s head of innovation and industry relations Lucy Lombardi.
