ABSTRACT
Telecommunications carriers have been disrupted not only by email, but by well-funded startups such as Skype, WhatsApp and Zoom that have built network effects by enabling the communications in the form of messages, voice and video between individuals counted in billions. Again, these digital platforms have not built their own infrastructures, but they rely on the traditional infrastructures developed by traditional telecommunications operators. Operators have been platformed, as their infrastructures are always used, but the most powerful network effects are built on top of them, by platforms enabling the interaction of users of different terminals (fixed telephone, smartphone, PC), different carriers and different countries. Platforms extract value from the industry, as charging for SMS and telephony minutes was not viable anymore, and the model is to charge for mere access to the internet (dumb pipes). Platforms in the smartphone ecosystem such as Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android are the ultimate example of how telecom carriers have been excluded from the new value chain in the mobile internet.
