The Great Depression in the 1930´s has been a reference point for the world´s economy and is used as an example of the decline and evolution in many industries. The global traffic of communications declined because of the growth in macroeconomics, leaving a legacy to benefit the evolution of technology.

It is possible to make a comparison between the Great Depression of the 30s and the year 2015, which brought a similar decline in the traffic of international voice carriers. This decline has brought to the world an innovative structure to the telecom market with the implementation of OTT communication services. Just to mention some of the companies that are becoming domain in the industry: WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook messenger, and Apple´s facetime. They are offering voice messaging and video calls, making the customers adjust to the growth of their ecosystem and creating dependency on new technologies, leaving the traditional ways of communication as part of history. This is generating more investment and focus on the software or services that are delivered to the customer and not into the infrastructure that is getting obsolete. This also is bringing the recast of business models from worldwide companies, implementing OTT services as a priority. The entrance of new technologies brings to the table more opportunities of growth, creating a significant pressure in the competitors to improve service, offer better pricing, and customizing packages. The transformation is bringing optimization in the incorporation of digital strategies, that will bring reduction in costs by a 30 to a 70%, flexibility and other unique advantages. Companies can offer connectivity and other added value solutions to the clients preparing them for the future, as mention before shaping the clients to their environment.

The situation shows that the evolution is changing very fast and the companies, in order to keep up with these changes, have to come up with digital strategies. As a big difference between 1983 to 2007, international phone traffic grew a 15 percent annually creating false expectations for further years. Today there are historical results never seen before in the communications ground, for example Facebook with over a billion users and WhatsApp with 1,200 million active users per month. The numbers are an incredible consequence of the transformation and easy access of this sort of international connection between businesses and people.

Think about the position you are in right now in the communications´ industry. What is your company doing to prepare for the new revolution in the communication services? Are you evolving your network at the needed speed? Is your service ready for the next generation?
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