Since our first coverage of the “Telco Cloud”, Appledore Research has emphasized that this is a business model and economics shift, more than a technology shift. Technology is merely the enabler. This is why one of our earliest major research documents investigated “The Economics of Virtualized Networks” and noted that without product innovation and significant operational shifts (automation, on-demand) the promise of the Telco Cloud would be largely unfulfilled. Virtualization will demand more agility throughout the service provider business, from service creation / innovation through order management, order personalization, flexible charging and immediate provisioning. Yet these same qualities – innovation and micro-segmentation — can be exploited today, as we build toward our necessary future infrastructure. Appledore Research recently published a paper on this topic, sponsored by a supplier of flexible, catalog driven service-layer OSS, Sigma Systems (thank you). In writing this paper we took the opportunity to show how an investment in flexibility today can pay two significant dividends down the road: First, it establishes the infrastructure needed to take advantage of Telco Cloud technology (e.g.: NFV and SDN) as they grow in importance. Second, it provides a construct for an incremental, low risk path from today’s environment to a […]