Week in Review: Telco chiefs will soon face worst nightmare

• eSIM will change how mobile operators, operate and put power back in hands of consumers
• Startup looking to disrupt Southeast Asia’s printing industry

AS if the telco industry does not have enough challenges from the large over the top internet players. Now the trillion dollar industry will soon face its worst nightmare, when the customer no longer belongs to them, well, not at least in the current manner of defining a customer.

Because it will soon lose its grip on customers when the SIM card or Subscriber Identity Module becomes welded to the phone and no longer belongs to telcos who typically will lock you into a yearly contract. Welcome to the era of the eSIM.

Telenor Group president and CEO, Sigve Brekke thinks it will be a ‘game changer’ and that in response, telcos have to get very close to their customers so that the customer has no reason to switch.

And how easy will it be to switch in the era of the eSIM? Try going online, logging into your own account and picking another service provider. It will be as easy as that. No wonder the telcos are nervous about this impending change they have to navigate.

But while waiting for this era to hit us, telcos are still focusing on coming out with new plans, as Malayaia’s fourth largest player, U Mobile did, to lure over rival’s customers via cheaper or better value deals.

Meanwhile, in the ever exciting startup world, Gogoprint is boldly looking to disrupt Southeast Asia’s printing industry. For, while the printing industry globally, is in decline, thanks to software and algorithms, the same industry has found a new lease of life, online.

Another industry that has found a new lease of life is the PC industry where thanks to gamers and their desire for lower latency, more powerful engines under the hood, some key players in the PC sector, such as chip maker AMD, are predicting a shorter replacement cycle for consumer PCs and more frequent component change cycles .

And that gaming catalyst for PC and chip makers such as AMD is now also behind the reason DNA has launched its own eGames festival called HotShotz. We will share more as the kick–off approaches for the University Malaya qualifiers and that is only 2 weeks away !

With that, I wish you a restful weekend and productive week after.

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No more telco contracts & roaming charges with Gemalto eSIM? We are almost there...