Europe’s telcos are, broadly speaking, much like one another. In Asia, it’s a much more varied story. FutureNet’s first Asia-focused event was an ambitious undertaking. Asia is home to a around 60% of the world’s population. It includes 48 countries, two of which are the world’s most populous nations – China and India. It covers 11 timezones. FutureNet Asia did indeed cover a lot of ground (and sea). The challenges and contexts of an M1 (one of four operators in Singapore – total population just short of 6m) are radically different to those of say Reliance Jio or Airtel (the world’s second and third largest mobile operators with over 440m subscribers each). No doubt that the Nordic countries have challenging topography, but Telenor’s Asian interests include Pakistan (pop. 226m), Bangladesh (pop. 166m), Thailand (pop. 70m) and Malaysia (30m). What Asia doesn’t know about connecting people probably isn’t worth knowing. The Future: Not What it Used To Be Ciena Blue Planet’s Kailem Anderson was the first but far from the only speaker to point out that telcos are no longer at the top of the food chain: a future of interdependent partnerships is the only model for success in 5G and […]