Chris Lewis has been a telecoms industry analyst for 30 years and says that telcos have hidden behind a protective wall of secrecy and and an unhelpful "we-know-more-than-we-can-tell-about-our-technology" attitude for far too long. It is now time for them to simplify things, to dump the carapace of legacy systems and services and transform for a new environment into a bright imago: the software-shaped telco. In the past, telcos were, perforce, defined by hardware, by cabling, ducting and switches and the physical network. However, they are starting to take up powerful software tools that can be used for many tasks including the setting up of services, the analysis of data and supporting the customer. Chris Lewis argues that while a total change to a completely software environment is probably neither necessary nor even desirable, a blend of hardware and software that can shape the the way telcos do business is the path to the future.

FILMED AT: The Great Telco Debate, 2016, London