Telecom product strategy
Defining product direction, investment priorities, differentiation and roadmaps for communications products.
Telecom consulting
Telecom consulting & product strategy
Telecommunications is changing quickly. Traditional voice platforms are moving to the cloud, operators are modernizing legacy networks, communications products are converging with SaaS and contact center platforms, and AI is beginning to reshape both how calls are handled and how communications services are built.
I help telecom operators, communications technology companies and investors make better product and market decisions in this changing environment.
My work combines deep telecommunications experience with product strategy, commercial analysis and hands-on understanding of modern cloud and AI technologies. I can help whether you are evaluating a new market, modernizing an existing voice portfolio, assessing vendors, defining a product strategy or working out where AI creates a real opportunity rather than simply adding another feature.
01 / Services
Telecom consulting services
I typically work with clients in areas including:
Cloud voice strategy
Evaluating migration from legacy switching and on-premises platforms to hosted, managed and cloud-native voice services.
UCaaS and business communications
Product strategy, competitive analysis, packaging and positioning for hosted PBX, unified communications and business voice.
CCaaS and contact center technology
Assessing the changing contact center market, voice infrastructure, conversational AI and the relationship between communications platforms and customer experience.
AI voice and conversational AI
Identifying practical opportunities for voice agents, real-time AI, automation, authentication and fraud prevention.
Carrier and operator strategy
Helping service providers evaluate platforms, partners, migration options and new communications services.
Market and competitive assessment
Sizing opportunities, analyzing competitors, evaluating vendors and understanding likely market evolution.
Go-to-market and positioning
Translating complex communications technology into a clear customer proposition and commercial strategy.
Product due diligence
Helping investors and leadership teams assess technology companies, products, market position and growth opportunities.
02 / Cloud voice
Cloud voice and network modernization
Many telecom providers are operating voice platforms that were designed for a very different market.
The challenge is not simply replacing one switch with another. Moving voice into a managed or cloud environment raises questions around service architecture, operational control, regulatory obligations, provisioning, migrations, interconnection, resiliency and the economics of supporting a large installed base.
I help operators and technology providers work through those decisions.
That can include evaluating hosted voice platforms, assessing whether a vendor is genuinely carrier-ready, defining the operational boundary between an operator and managed-service provider, developing migration strategies, or building the commercial case for a new managed voice offering.
The objective is not modernization for its own sake. It is to identify an architecture and business model that can support the next decade of communications services.
03 / Enterprise
UCaaS, CCaaS and enterprise communications
The boundaries between traditional telecom, unified communications and contact center technology continue to blur.
Business voice increasingly sits alongside collaboration, messaging, contact center applications and AI. At the same time, enterprises still depend upon highly reliable telephony, numbering, routing, emergency calling and carrier connectivity.
I help communications companies decide where they should compete in this evolving stack.
That might mean evaluating whether to build, partner or resell; identifying the right target customers; assessing competing UCaaS or CCaaS platforms; defining a differentiated proposition; or understanding how underlying voice infrastructure can become a strategic advantage rather than a commodity.
04 / AI voice
AI voice and the future of telecommunications
AI is likely to create some of the most significant changes to voice communications since the move from TDM to IP.
Conversational voice agents can now understand natural speech, reason about customer requests and complete actions in real time. AI can also improve fraud detection, caller authentication, call routing, quality measurement and network operations.
But adopting AI successfully requires more than adding a large language model to an existing product.
Communications providers need to decide where AI belongs in the architecture, which experiences should remain deterministic, how quality should be evaluated, how customers and agents should be authenticated, and how AI-generated traffic changes the economics and trust model of the telephone network.
I help companies separate near-term product opportunities from longer-term technology speculation and develop a practical strategy for AI in communications.
05 / Experience
25+y
nearly three decades in telecom and communications technology
Experience across telecom, cloud and AI
I have spent nearly three decades working in telecommunications and communications technology, including more than twenty years at Metaswitch and senior product leadership roles at Microsoft.
My experience spans carrier voice infrastructure, cloud communications, business voice, contact centers, real-time conversational AI and product strategy.
That combination matters because many of today's most interesting communications problems sit between traditional domains.
A successful cloud voice strategy needs to make sense technically and commercially. An AI voice product needs to work with the realities of telephony networks. A carrier platform needs to support operational requirements as well as an attractive customer proposition.
My role is often to connect those pieces and help leadership teams get quickly to the decisions that matter.
06 / Clients
Who I work with
I work particularly well with telecom operators, communications software vendors, cloud communications companies, private-equity and investment teams evaluating telecom assets, and smaller technology businesses that need experienced product leadership without building a large permanent strategy organization.
Engagements can range from a focused market or product assessment through to ongoing fractional product leadership.
07 / How I work
A practical approach to telecom consulting
I prefer small, senior engagements to large consulting projects.
I work directly with executives, product leaders, engineering teams and customers to understand the problem, test assumptions and reach a clear recommendation.
The output should be something you can act on: a product strategy, market assessment, investment decision, partner recommendation, business case or prioritized set of actions—not a hundred-slide presentation that simply restates the problem.
08 / Contact
Let’s talk.
If you are evaluating a telecom market, modernizing a voice platform, defining a communications product strategy or trying to understand what AI means for your business, I’d be happy to compare notes.