The sponsors of the Telecom Application Developer Summit made a press release today, copied in this weblog, on a Manifesto to solve the Telecom Industry’s innovation gap.

Austin TX, Cambridge UK, Colombo Sri Lanka, Paris France, San Francisco CA, 1st October 2013 – Apidaze, hSenid Mobile, OnMobile, OpenCloud, Telestax, and Tropo Inc., the companies leading the new wave of telecommunication service innovation, today released today a draft of the Telecom Application Developer Manifesto for public comment.  The Manifesto documents what is required to make the Telecom Application Developer ecosystem a reality, through identifying the needs and responsibility of the three main actors in this ecosystem: developers, vendors and telcos.

Globally, the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)  industry will be a $5.0 trillion sector in 2013, up from $4.7 trillion for 2012. There were 6.8 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide by mid-2013, up from 5.9 billion in November 2011, according to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).  Most electronic products are now ‘connected’ from tablets, through TVs, to thermostats.  Telecommunications is an exciting and influential industry, and continues to evolve with important trends such as:

• Rise of VoIP (Voice over IP), so voice becomes just an application on the internet, accessible to any internet connected device or application;
• Democratization of telecommunications technology with open source telecom software, easy to use and powerful telecom application platforms, and telecom APIs;
• Broader competition not just between telcos but with web-based service providers;
• Global addiction to the internet for communications, information and entertainment; and
• Evolution of mobile networks towards global broadband ubiquity.

However, a gap exists in the telecommunications industry; it lacks a viable telecom application developer ecosystem.  The ecosystem gap will become critical as voice and messaging revenues are under pressure from app and web-based services such as Skype, Whatsapp, WebRTC, KakaoTalk, and increasingly ubiquitous internet connectivity.  To respond, the telecoms industry must deliver more services built on the telecommunications network.

The purpose of the Telecom Application Developer Manifesto is to set out from the grassroots of the industry what is required to make this ecosystem a reality by identifying the needs and responsibilities of developers, telcos and vendors.  The companies and developers play a critical role in brokering this ecosystem through meeting the needs of developer and telco needs; and ensuring the go-to-market and business model needs are aligned.  With this alignment innovations from developers can deliver hundreds of new services to the telcos’ customers.  And critically we must not forget the vendor’s and the industry’ need for transparency and publicity to share best practices, rather than remain divided and hence conquered by web-based service providers.

The steps to create this ecosystem include:

1. The first step is to publish the draft of the telecom application developer Manifesto for industry comment. Please send your feedback to info@tadsummit.com.
2. The second step is at TADSummit (Telecom Application Developer Summit), 21-22 November Bangkok, to bring the ecosystem together to see if we can build a telecom application developers ecosystem together.  And through the event revise the Manifesto given the discussions and learning to deliver the first formal issue of the Manifesto.
3. The TADS website will be an independent repository including videos from the developer summit, an active weblog with case studies of telecom application success, and where the Manifesto resides and is revised as we learn what it takes to create this ecosystem.
4. Beyond this is for the industry to decide.

Upcoming Events in Support of the Manifesto include:

• Webinar discussing the Manifesto and TADSummit on Thursday 3rd October at 10AM NYC time, 7AM San Francisco, 4PM Central European Time, and 10PM China time and will be available as a live stream and recorded for later viewing on the TADS weblog.
• Future of Voice executive workshop and networking event, London, 8th October: This event will cover TADS-related themes around voice as a programmable feature.
• ICIN conference tutorial session on WebRTC and implications/opportunities for service providers, Venice October 14th. Given by Dean Bubley and Tim Panton from Tropo.
• Illinois Institute of Technology School of Applied Technology, Real Time Communications Conference and Expo, Oct 15-17, Chicago.  “The Winners and Losers in the move to Real-Time Cloud Communications” given by Alan Quayle.
• OpenStack Summit, 5-8 November, Hong Kong. Telestax will present on “Building Communications Apps On OpenStack Cloud Infrastructure” showing the Manifesto in action.
• Workshop at the Telecom API conference 11-13 November, London, entitled, “All You Wanted to Know About Telecom APIs, But Were Too Afraid to Ask!”.
• ITU Telecom World 2013 in Bangkok 19th-22nd November (immediately prior to TADS). Dean Bubley and Martin Geddes are both leading panels and workshops on the future of voice and broadband. See .

Quotes

Leading executives in support of TADS comments:

“It is clear that the $1trillion market for standalone communications services such as basic phone calls and SMS’s is in danger of crumbling. To combat this, the telecoms community needs to move from having two or three monolithic $100bn+ services to ecosystems supporting multiple forms of both standalone and embedded communications, ‘manufactured’ both flexibly and at scale. The TADS Manifesto encapsulates the philosophy needed to make this a success” said Dean Bubley, director of London-based research firm Disruptive Analysis

“This Manifesto combines the hard-won learning from many of the leading figures in Telecom service innovation into a clear vision and structure for creating the telecom application developer ecosystem.  We are proud to be at the inception of the Manifesto and the TADSummit; and encourage developers, vendors and telcos to join us,” said Jason Goecke, CEO of Tropo Inc.

“The Manifesto and TADSummit are break-out industry initiatives.  The choice is simple: take control of your destiny by joining us, or continue to hope for a miracle,” commented Ivelin Ivanov, CEO Telestax.

“The Manifesto is a template for the industry.  It’s much more than just APIs – it’s about creating a profitable and sustainable telecom application developer ecosystem.  Developers, vendors, and telcos must continue to collaborate to deliver competitive telecoms innovation,” explained Jonathan Bell, VP Marketing OpenCloud.

“Telcos have many strengths: subscriber base, underlying technologies, local knowledge, local brand, enterprise sales force, operator billing, network assets etc. The Manifesto provides a simple framework upon which telcos can use their strengths to become the best go-to-market partner for telecom application developers,” stated Dinesh Saparamadu, CEO hSenid Mobile.

About Apidaze
Apidze offer a second generation cloud communications API providing easy to integrate development tools for building any web or mobile communication service, with a special focus on WebRTC. Other services include voice and SMS, phone numbers available for 4,000 cities in 50 countries.

About hSenid Mobile
hSenid Mobile Solutions is a multi-national Telco-Mobile Software Solutions provider catering primarily to the Telecom and Financial markets across the globe. For over a decade hSenid Mobile has been at the forefront of innovation in providing dynamic wireless applications and back-end integrations that has evolved into a Next Generation Telco Platform converging Messaging, Mobile-Money, Operations/Business Support Systems and Core-Signalling.

About OnMobile
OnMobile Global (BSE: 532944, NSE: ONMOBILE), headquartered in Bangalore, India, with services in 59 countries, is one of the largest white-labeled Data and Value Added Services (VAS) companies for Mobile, Landline and Media Service Providers. OnMobile offers an innovative array of products in Mobile Entertainment, Search and Discovery, Data Services and Mobile Social Networking and is a leader in the VAS Managed Services industry. The products span a range of channels including SMS, Voice, Video, WAP, Web, USSD and On-Device Portals, enabling OnMobile’s over 100 telecom and media customers to generate high revenues. With over 1,650 employees worldwide, OnMobile has offices around the globe, including London, Paris, Madrid, Silicon Valley, Miami and Seattle.

About OpenCloud
OpenCloud delivers open, standards-based network service layer transformation solutions to the telecommunications industry. OpenCloud Next Generation Service Layer products enable the agile delivery of classic and Telco2.0 telecommunication services at a dramatically lower price-point across next generation IP and legacy networks.  OpenCloud has more than 50 customers including multiple Vodafone and T-Mobile operating companies and Telkomsel in Indonesia. OpenCloud ranks in the UK’s top 50 fastest growing privately owned companies.

About Telestax
TeleStax (www.telestax.com) offers carrier-grade communication products under the TelScale™ brand, based on a core set of open source projects. TeleStax’s mission is to remove complexity from the traditional telecom infrastructure and in the process create a new market for innovative communications services built by mainstream developers at a cost and time comparable to building web services.

About Tropo
Tropo lives at the intersection of developers and service providers. We invest in revolutionary ideas and innovate new communications solutions. Tropo products are used by over 190,000 developers and many of the largest operators, mobile carriers, businesses and service providers around the world. For more information, visit http://corp.tropo.com.