超越5G，移動世界尋求自我重塑

Seeking to escape a cycle of falling prices and tight regulation, big telecom operators from Vimpelcom to Telefonica are set to reinvent themselves as Internet players to escape the industry's straitjacket of low growth.

This week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona will feature phone companies in various stages of acceptance that the industry's predictable, decades-old business model based on selling data packages by the millions is running out of steam.

Beneath the facade of shiny new phones and dusty debates over network technical implementations, Europe's largest annual technology fair will see top phone companies parading far-reaching business makeovers.

Spain's Telefonica is set to introduce a broad plan it calls the "4th Platform" to help both consumer and business customers keep greater control over their data rather than giving it away to web giants Google, Facebook, and Amazon.

Russian and emerging markets operator Vimpelcom is tearing up many parts of the telecom rule book to remake itself as a tech player in the fast-growing world of messaging apps.

U.S. telecom giant AT&T has inked a series of huge deals to diversify by acquiring Direct TV for $67 billion and is awaiting approval to buy Time Warner for another $110 billion.

"Regulatory and pricing pressure on telecom operators forces them to look to adjacent areas for new sources of revenue and margins," said attorney Tom Levine, head of Allen & Overy's global telecoms practice.

"There isn't a consensus on how to do this."

It's also an open question whether the industry is structurally capable of big change. Telcos have dreamed for decades of breaking free of the shackles of consumer regulation and branching out into Internet services in their local markets, only to be consistently beaten by newer, global upstarts.

RUSSIAN LABORATORY

These dramatic changes come as telcos brace to offer new networks ready to handle not just spiraling data use on phones but in cars, in factories and offices and even crop fields. The new generation of 5G networks will provide them new business options but also spells mounting competition from computer, Internet, and industrial players with digital plans of their own.

Russia has emerged as the world's most advanced laboratory for telecom companies seeking to reinvent themselves as Internet players, as classic telecom business pressures, Western economic sanctions and government rules that reduce Silicon Valley giants to small local players create space to combine forces.

Vimpelcom, Russia's No.3 operator, has undertaken a top-to-bottom overhaul of its business while gearing up for deeper Internet partnerships with the likes of streaming music and online taxi services. The company also focuses on emerging markets from Bangladesh to Algeria and is the world's sixth largest operator in terms of number of mobile customers served.

Megafon, the No. 2 network provider, has acquired control of sister company Mail.ru, a major Russian Internet player—the Russian equivalent of Verizon buying Facebook—and plans to offer a new mobile version of social media site VKontakte.

Top Russian telecoms player MTS is so far sitting on the sidelines, but its executives have signaled they too believe their long-run future lies in Internet services.

Meanwhile, Telefonica sees its "4th Platform" strategy as a way to stoke faster growth and compete aggressively with globally dominant Internet players while being a logical evolution of existing businesses, a senior company source said.

The strategy builds on its long-standing investments in communications services, its broad geographic reach across Europe and Latin America and efforts to offer advanced money-making services on top of basic communication connections, but does not require making huge new investments, the source said.

"Now is the turn of the fourth platform: the data. That is Telefonica's (new) equity story," the source said of its bid to boost margins by, for example, enabling customers to analyze mountains of data to make their own businesses run smarter.

Other phone companies are taking more modest steps.

Norway's Telenor, another emerging markets operator, has pushed into data analytics, while Vodafone is making inroads in new industrial Internet and connected car applications, through its 2014 acquisition of Cobra Automotive.

DO THEY HAVE THE DNA?

Still, many telecom operators take a dim view of some of the aggressive moves being made by these peers, especially when it comes to business models based on commercializing customer data.

Deutsche Telekom, Europe's largest telecom operator by revenue, sees this as no-go territory in privacy-conscious Germany. Instead, it is focused on making strides into new connected industrial arenas and cloud computing.

Telekom's main growth story is likely to remain the United States where it revolutionized the mobile industry by offering unlimited data plans and international roaming packages. Using aggressive marketing, T-Mobile has gained at the expense of rivals, making it nearly as big Telekom's core German business.

France's Vivendi, which embarked on a grand misadventure last decade to combine telecom and media assets, offers a cautionary tale for investors betting on these new reinvention stories.

For telecom operators used to predictable cash flows and firm regulatory boundaries, the main issue may be cultural: Most just don't have the stomach for such drastic transformation.

"Working out how to bring in that entrepreneurial DNA, without disappointing users' expectations of reliability, and recognizing the financial expectations of institutional shareholders, is not easy," Levine said of healthy dividend payouts which remain the industry's main draw to investors.

為了逃離價格下降和嚴格監管的循環，從Vimpelcom到西班牙電信（Telefonica），各大電信運營商都準備將自己改造成一家互聯網企業，以擺脫電信行業低增長的束縛。

本周在巴塞羅那召開的世界移動通信大會（Mobile World Congress）上，各大電信公司將在不同程度上認同這樣一種觀點：數十年來，基於出售數以百萬計的數據包的可預測商業模式，正在失去增長動力。

在光鮮亮麗的新手機和圍繞網路技術實現的激烈爭論背後，此次歐洲最大的年度技術大會上，我們將會看到業內領先的電信公司紛紛開始影響深遠的業務變革。

西班牙電信將推出其稱為「第4平台」的廣泛計劃，目的是幫助消費者和企業客戶加強對數據的控制，而不是將這項業務拱手讓給谷歌（Google）、Facebook和亞馬遜（Amazon）等網路巨頭。

俄羅斯及新興市場電信運營商Vimpelcom將打破電信業務的許多規則，將自身重新塑造為一家科技公司，進入快速增長的信息應用領域。

美國電信業巨頭美國電話電報公司（AT&T）為實現業務多元化，已經完成了一系列大規模交易，包括以670億美元收購Direct TV，其以1,100億美元收購時代華納（Time Warner）的交易也在等待批准。

安理律師事務所（Allen & Overy）全球電信業務負責人湯姆·勒文律師表示：「電信運營商所面臨的監管與定價壓力，迫使他們不得不轉向相近領域，尋找新的收入和利潤來源。」

「但對於具體做法，業內並沒有達成共識。」

另外，電信行業在結構上能否應對巨大的變革，也是一個未知數。數十年來，電信公司一直希望打破消費者監管的束縛，在本地市場發展互聯網服務，結果卻總是在突然崛起的新型全球公司面前落敗。

俄羅斯實驗室

這些巨變出現的時機，恰逢電信公司準備提供新的網路。新網路不僅可以滿足手機上加速增長的數據使用，還能夠滿足汽車、工廠、辦公室甚至農田裡的數據需求。新一代5G網路將為電信公司提供新的業務選擇，但同時也會面臨計算機、互聯網以及其他擁有數字計劃的行業參與者日益激烈的競爭。

在俄羅斯，由於傳統電信業務的壓力、西方的經濟制裁，以及政府規定導致矽谷巨頭不得不化身為規模更小的本地企業，為企業的聯合創造了空間，因此對於希望改造成互聯網市場參與者的電信公司來說，俄羅斯成為了世界上最先進的實驗室。

俄羅斯第三大電信運營商Vimpelcom，正在對業務進行自上而下的大規模改革，同時準備加大在流媒體音樂和在線計程車服務等領域的互聯網合作。此外，公司還將孟加拉國、阿爾及利亞等新興市場作為重點，該公司服務的手機用戶數量排在世界第六位。

俄羅斯第二大網路提供商Megafon收購了姊妹公司Mail.ru的控股股份——該筆交易與威瑞森（Verizon）收購Facebook的作用異曲同工。公司還計劃提供社交媒體網站VKontakte的最新移動版本。Mail.ru是俄羅斯重量級的互聯網公司。

到目前為止，俄羅斯最大的電信公司MTS尚沒有動作，但公司高管暗示，他們也認為互聯網服務才是公司未來的根本所在。

與此同時，西班牙電信的一位資深人士透露，公司認為其「第4平台」戰略，能夠促進增長，使公司更積極地應對全球互聯網巨頭的競爭，同時也是現有業務的一次合理進化。

這位知情人士稱，該戰略的基礎是公司長期以來對通信服務的投資，在歐洲和拉丁美洲廣泛的地理覆蓋，以及除了基本通信連接外提供有利可圖的高級服務的努力，而且並不需要規模龐大的額外投資。

「現在是該向『第4平台』轉變的時候了，即數據時代。這是西班牙電信（新）的股權故事。」他提到了公司為提高利潤率所做的努力，如支持客戶分析海量數據，提高業務的智能化水平等。

其他電信公司採取的措施較為保守。

另外一家新興市場運營商挪威電信（Telenor）涉足了數據分析領域，而沃達豐（Vodafone）通過2014年收購Cobra Automotive，正在向工業互聯網和聯網汽車應用等新興領域進軍。

電信公司是否具備互聯網企業的DNA？

許多電信公司並不看好同行所採取的部分侵略性的措施，尤其是關於基於客戶數據商業化的商業模式。

歐洲收入最高的電信運營商德國電信（Deutsche Telekom）認為，這種商業模式在極其注重隱私的德國是行不通的。相反，公司將中心放在了新興的互聯工業領域和雲計算。

德國電信的主要增長策略可能是留住美國市場。公司在美國通過提供無限制數據套餐和國際漫遊數據包，引領了移動行業的改革。通過積極營銷，T-Mobile已經從中獲益，並讓競爭對手們付出了代價，目前其規模已經接近德國電信的核心德國業務。

而法國維旺迪（Vivendi）在過去十年間開始整合電信與傳媒資產時的不幸遭遇，則為押注電信公司改造的投資者敲響了警鐘。

對於習慣於可預測現金流和穩定監管界限的電信運營商來說，主要問題可能出在文化方面：多數公司並沒有進行這類激烈轉型的勇氣。

勒文表示：「解決如何在不降低用戶可靠性預期的情況下讓企業家的DNA發揮作用，以及確認機構股東的財務預期等，並不是一項簡單的任務。」勒文所指的是健康的股息發放，這依舊是電信行業吸引投資者的主要因素之一。（財富中文網）

譯者：劉進龍/汪皓