The telecom industry has invested billions in new wireless networks but it isn’t making it easy for cellphone users, says Rogers Communications’ new chief executive.
“I don’t think we’re delivering on the promise of technology to give back enough time” to subscribers, Guy Laurence said at the opening of the annual Canadian Telecom Summit on Monday in Toronto. While telcos have done a good job bringing fast reliable networks to Canadians, and the technology investment per subscriber is near the top globally, he said the telecommunications sector doesn’t do as well when it comes to simply saving time for customers. A lot of that comes down to complexity.
“As an industry we have thousands of different price plans, each with different rates, eligibility criteria, rules, services and so on,” Laurence said. “The intention was good – to provide customers with solutions uniquely tailored to them. However we’ve gone too far and increased complexity. Now the customer needs to do lots of research and ask lots questions just to get a mobile phone.”
While well-staffed call centres are available to handle customer problems, more and more people prefer to solve their problems online. And they get frustrated by the fact that telcos still speak in technological jargon too much of the time, Laurence said.
More than 50 per cent of Canada’s population will be true ‘digital natives’ in the next six years, Laurence said, and enabling them to increase their productivity by saving time has a huge upside to the national economy. “True innovation isn’t innovation for the sake of innovation. It’s about helping consumers and businesses get what they want more quickly, more easily – giving people more time so they can spend it as they choose.”
The conference, put on every year by telecom analyst Mark Goldberg and telecom industry research firm NBI/Michael Sone Associates, draws telcos, Internet service providers, network equipment makers, Industry Canada officials and regulators from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) for two and a half days of talks on industry problems and solutions.
Innovation and productivity were among the themes from keynote speakers, with panels on cyber security, market competition and network technology transformations.
One of the most closely watched appearances had to be that of Laurence, who took over Rogers (Rogers, TekSavvy reveal law enforcement data demands