“It is time for collaboration, not abuse of position.” This was the invitation launched this Monday by the president of Telefónica, José María Álvarez Pallete, in his opening speech at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona.
Álvarez Pallete has called on the world’s telecommunications companies to work together to define a new environment in the sector in all areas, from regulation to sustainability and, of course, to make responsible use of networks.
“It is time for a global alliance and fair governance to achieve a sustainable and beneficial value chain for all,” stressed Álvarez Pallete, who also presides over the global telecom association GSMA, the organization that promotes the MWC.
The president of Telefónica has gone one step further in his idea of ??asking for fair and equitable treatment for all players in the telecommunications sector and has opted for what could be understood as “if you can’t beat the enemy, join him” Álvarez Pallete has proposed to the large technology companies, the big tech, that they join the telecommunications operators to face the challenges of the sector, among them, that of sustainability.
The president of the GSMA recalled that Telefónica has multiplied traffic by nine in recent years and at the same time has reduced energy use by 9%. An effort to which he now invites big tech. “The responsible use of networks should be the leitmotiv of any technological development,” he stated.
A claim that has been supported by data. According to the president of Telefónica, in recent years content traffic on networks has multiplied and only five operators (large technology companies like Google, Amazon…) account for 50% of the network capacity. “It’s as if there were five trucks on two lanes on a highway and everyone else had to use the only lane left. It is not fair, nor does it make sense,” the manager usually explains.
Along these lines, Álvarez Pallete has praised the collaboration commitment that the GSMA launched last year in this same scenario to promote a new model of collaborative technology, Open Gateway. “A year later, 47 operators have already joined it, including the three large ones that operate in Spain, Telefónica, Orange and Vodafone, with 239 networks that present more than 65% of global mobile connections.
Open Gateway is an initiative that makes available to developers and providers of cloud services and technology a common information exchange language (called API) that is available in a kind of digital marketplace.
At this time, Spain, Brazil, Germany, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and South Africa have already launched their first APIs, with the joint commitment of the most relevant operators in each country. And a total of 40 networks have commercially launched at least one API, responding to needs such as increasing security, monitoring cameras or drones in order to detect anomalies, or improving security to help banks combat fraud. “A year ago we shared a vision for the industry, for the future of our sector, a massive revolution for a new era, the era of Earth Computing, in which networks are becoming proactive and liquid. That future has already arrived,” said the first executive of Telefónica.
