At this year’s Capacity Europe, the leading theme revolved around the continuing trend in the telco industry: everything is becoming increasingly softwarised. For DNA, the theme and discussions with customers confirmed that the company has made the right choices in its focus areas, A2P and wireless options for traditionally fixed network services.
Arranged since the beginning of the millennium, Capacity Europe is the largest telecom networking conference in Europe. After a two-year pandemic break, it was arranged live in London from 17 to 20 October and also online.
The conference attracted over 2.800 on-site attendees, more than 700 companies and over 90 speakers. Among them were also DNA and its owner Telenor.
“The most significant thing was to see how certain trends that I had thought about are becoming stronger such as the demand for quote/order APIs. There was also plenty of interest in the wireless offering, which has been developing significantly over the last few years,” says DNA’s Sales Director Juho Hyvärinen.
He has attended the conference several times already.
“Compared to the last time in 2018, there was new stuff such as APIs and wireless, but the basic mood seemed surprisingly similar. However, the dress code had gone in a more casual direction with many people wearing jeans,” he says.
His colleague, Sales Director Santeri Leeve, attended Capacity Europe for the first time.
“I have been to many conferences this fall, and it feels great to be there and meet people face to face again. When you know each other from a live meeting, it makes it much easier to do business when you connect remotely,” Leeve says.
Discussions provide feedback
The conference had lots of talks on its agenda. However, neither Hyvärinen nor Leeve could go and listen to any presentations. Instead, they were heavy users of the conference web portal where registered participants could see each other, post messages, or book a meeting. They also enjoyed evening events where lots of spontaneous discussions took place.
“We didn't even have time to sit in the conference room since our calendars became fully booked with meetings. At events like this, it is invaluable to meet existing and potential customers, listen to their wishes and feedback and stay on top of their minds. Of course, it is also good to reserve time for walking around in such a big trade fair with lots of stands,” Juho Hyvärinen tells.
Capacity Europe gathers all relevant players in the telco field working with wholesale together. An attendee can quickly see the latest developments and what’s around the corner.
“Attendance helps to see how the industry is developing and where technology is going, discuss about your own development, share competitor information, and check that our product portfolio is able to respond to emerging customer needs,” Hyvärinen says.
For DNA, the event offered a chance to verify whether two focus areas, A2P or application-to-person messaging and wireless solutions are future-proof. An example of A2P is a 2-step identification code as an SMS. In general, it means messaging that is not generated by a person. Regarding wireless access, it is already a real alternative in Finland thanks to DNA’s high-capacity mobile networks with unlimited data usage.
“I think that Capacity Europe confirmed to us that DNA has made the right choices. The A2P business is getting lots of traction as the value of voice business starts to go down. We also had many meetings with companies that trade SMS traffic, for instance,” Leeve says.
“In addition, it became clear that interest in wireless solutions is growing in data services,” Hyvärinen continues.
Capacity Europe also raised thoughts about the future plans for DNA’s product road map.
“One thing that we are focusing our attention on is API interfaces and the quoting process. We are now going fast forward with this and developing solutions,” Juho Hyvärinen says.
Read more: DNA provides pre-priced wavelength connections for the most popular routes
