Evolving for the next decade of wholesale: Part 1

Telecoms operators are faced with many strategic crossroads that will affect their businesses for the next decade. In this Q&A, our Global Strategic Account Director, Gareth Prosser, provides some insight into what the biggest priorities are for operators today and how they can adapt their roadmap to the ever-changing wholesale landscape.

You’ve had a long career in wholesale telecoms. What does your journey through the industry look like to date?

I started back in 2005 at MACH, the data and financial clearing house. I began in Business Intelligence product consultancy, and my exposure to customers was a natural transition into a sales role.

MACH became Starhome Mach, as part of a merger, and my sales journey took me across Africa for a few years. It was an amazing time, giving me enormously diverse experience. Subsequently, I transitioned to Syniverse,, as a Carrier & Partner Sales Executive, but came back to the Starhome Mach family in 2019, which had become TOMIA, after a merger with Telarix. Lumine split the business units apart in 2024, and I joined the Telarix business unit, but we still maintain close connections with our sister companies in the Lumine portfolio.

I started here as the Sales Director for EMEA and have since transitioned into the Global Strategic Sales Director role. It means I’m touching all our accounts on a global scale now.

The telecoms industry has evolved significantly in the past decade or two. What are some of the most notable changes you’ve seen throughout that time?

If you look at interconnect services for voice and messaging, the complexity of the market has never really gone away – it’s just transformed. Telarix started out building BSS platforms for the voice market as a response to the increased complexity of the market at the time. But as margins declined over the past few decades,operators needed to look for new revenue streams.

This is where Telarix has worked hard to respond to market changes. For example, as messaging became more important as a revenue stream we added solutions for SMS, A2P, and now RCS/RBM, into our platform.

What new challenges does this pose for operators in the wholesale space today?

The main challenge is that while the margins have become more challenging, the technical complexity remains. This forces operators to not just look for new revenue streams, but to look for new ways to manage their interconnect business without the same overhead they once had.

That’s where the push for automation and digitalisation has really come in. Operators have had to significantly reduce manpower to manage margin constraints, so they’re looking to their platforms – and vendors like us – to provide more support and simplify operational complexity.

Hear more about how AI is strengthening the wholesale voice market in this blog from our product manager, Harry.

Alongside automation, what are some of your customers’ priorities for the mid-to-long term?

Operators are having to make some aggressive decisions about what they’re going to be doing over the next 4–5 years. Some Tier 1s are leaving wholesale messaging altogether because they don't see the return, while others are doubling down on profitable, growing markets.

This poses the question of where to invest outside of traditional voice. From what I’m seeing, the really forward-thinking carriers are shifting focus into the enterprise space. It’s not an easy transition, and it requires a lot more agility in how they service the market and the customers, but it’s a key growth area today.

It’s also something we’re evolving our platform to support. Our customers have invested into our infrastructure, so it’s important to us to help them leverage this existing investment by adding capabilities that meet their enterprise needs into it – instead of building a new product.

What else is coming up in conversations with your customers today?

A big conversation right now is regulation. Regulation is becoming a massive piece of the puzzle, especially with the current geopolitical climate. We’re seeing a shift where operators, particularly in Europe, need country-specific hosting to meet local regulations. It’s moving beyond just GDPR into a very complex, country-by-country landscape, and that requires a partner who can take that journey with them on an individual basis.

All of these changes are asking a lot from operators, but it’s also up to platform providers, like Telarix, to become more agile, automated and scalable to enable operators to manage increasing service complexity.

What will happen if operators don’t transform proactively based on market dynamics?

We’ve seen it already. Some carriers have had to step away from the A2P space because they just weren't agile enough to compete with more flexible new entrants. The same risk applies to anyone who can't react to the changes in voice and messaging or successfully pivot into the enterprise market for new revenue. Ultimately, if you aren't transforming with your partners, you’ll either be forced to walk away from the market entirely or face consolidation just to stay in the game.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our conversation with Gareth, where we dive into the importance of collaboration between vendors and operators for enabling wholesale evolution.

In the meantime, you can read more insights and hear from our team members in our resources section.