From 'dumb pipes' to 'techcos'
Some lingo that has gathered steam in the telco industry for the last couple of years is the phrase "techco," a portmanteau of the words "telco" and "tech."
The term refers to the idea of a telco firm that operates more like a tech company — one that invests in cutting-edge technology and offers digital services to consumers to help them make money from the significant capital expenditures they've allocated to upgrading their wireless networks.
For two decades, tech giants such as Meta, Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Netflix have flourished in a world where content can be delivered directly to people's devices, consumers can communicate seamlessly with one another, and data can be stored or streamed online without having to own cumbersome infrastructure — all thanks to innovations like the internet, smartphones and the cloud.