The Telco of the Future — Redefining Networks, Rethinking Value

Panel moderated by Amy Cameron (STL Partners) with Sebastian Schumann (Deutsche Telekom), Colm Sunderland (Head of Hyperscale, Indirect & CPaaS, BT International), Wendhy Kusumaatmadja (VP Digital Initiative, Telin), and Ahmed Omer (VP EngageX, e& enterprise)

At CASA25, Amy Cameron of STL Partners led one of the most forward-looking panels of the event — “The Telco of the Future.” Featuring senior leaders from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, the discussion explored how major operators are reshaping their networks, organizations, and business models to thrive in an AI-driven, platform-based world.

e& enterprise: Breaking Up to Speed Up

Ahmed Omer, VP of EngageX at e& enterprise, shared one of the boldest transformation stories in telecom. Once part of Etisalat’s legacy structure, e& enterprise now operates as an independent business with its own P&L — designed to move faster and innovate more freely.

“When you spin off a business, you take full accountability,” Omer explained. “It forces agility. You fail fast, learn, and move forward.”

Under his leadership, EngageX integrates the entire customer interaction journey — from marketing and CRM to CPaaS, contact center, and loyalty. That end-to-end approach allows e& enterprise to evolve from telco to full customer-experience provider.

Omer argued that future success depends on openness and collaboration:

“Telcos need to stop guarding margins and start sharing value across the ecosystem. You might give up margin now, but you gain magnitude later.”

He also highlighted E& Capital, the group’s venture arm, as a catalyst for non-organic growth — investing in startups, JVs, and acquisitions that complement the portfolio.

BT International: Building the Network for AI

Colm Sunderland, Head of Hyperscale, Indirect & CPaaS at BT International, described a transformation rooted in infrastructure and flexibility.

BT’s Global Fabric is a next-generation “any-to-any” platform built to deliver on-demand connectivity with sovereignty, security, and seamless integration.

“You can’t be a telco of the future if your services aren’t consumable,” Sunderland said. “The world expects on-demand, real-time capabilities — and the network has to match that.”

He envisions a world where bandwidth behaves like cloud capacity — elastic, intelligent, and dynamically priced. When Amy suggested “surge pricing for bandwidth,” Colm smiled:

“Exactly — like Ticketmaster or Uber. When demand spikes, capacity should reflect its real-time value.”

For Sunderland, digitization will ultimately define the future:

“It’s about giving customers a single digital pane of glass — low touch, high value, high speed.”

Deutsche Telekom: From Minutes to Meaning

Sebastian Schumann of Deutsche Telekom offered a wholesale-driven perspective. His team is developing a Digital Services Platform that unifies CPaaS, RBM, identity, and network APIs in one architecture.

“It’s not about selling APIs,” he said. “It’s about making what you already have consumable — in the way customers want to consume it.”

For Schumann, success means telcos moving beyond connectivity and participating directly in value creation:

“You don’t need to teach voice salespeople to sell APIs; you just make sure APIs are there when the customer needs them.”

Telin: Transformation Through People and Purpose

Representing Telin, the international arm of Telkom Indonesia, Wendhy Kusumaatmadja, VP Digital Initiative, brought an inspiring Southeast Asian perspective — one grounded in people and culture as much as technology.

“Innovation isn’t an instruction; it comes from people,” she said.

Telin’s transformation began by embedding agile culture across the company, empowering teams to act fast and work modularly. When asked to deliver a CPaaS platform in nine months, the team completed it in three — proof that transformation can be driven by mindset as much as tools.

“We start with what customers want and work backward,” Kusumaatmadja added. “We don’t want to fight alone — we want to be part of an ecosystem. It’s not competition; it’s co-opetition.”

Partners, Platforms & the Path Ahead

When Amy asked whether future growth would come from direct sales or through partners, the panel leaned decisively toward ecosystem collaboration.

Sunderland pointed to BT’s extensive global partner network; Omer described e&’s “partners of partners of partners” model; and Kusumaatmadja highlighted the value of learning through global alliances like TM Forum and MEF.

As Omer put it:

“Thirty years ago we built the towers. Now we need to build the ecosystems.”

What Will Drive Tomorrow’s Revenue?

Each speaker identified a different catalyst for growth:

• Wendhy Kusumaatmadja — Agentic AI: embedding intelligence in every customer interaction.
• Sebastian Schumann — Participation: moving up the value chain.
• Colm Sunderland — Digitization & orchestration: making everything consumable.
• Ahmed Omer — Moments: using AI to personalize every customer journey.

A New Identity for Telcos

Ultimately, the “telco of the future” is defined not by infrastructure but by mindset — shifting from control to collaboration, from services to experiences, and from networks to ecosystems.

As Amy Cameron concluded:

“It’s not just what you sell, but how you sell it — and how you connect people, partners, and possibilities along the way.”