The Next Era of Enterprise Networking Had Already Begun
- Tim Sullivan
What the BT–Verizon joint venture reveals about the future of multinational enterprise networking
Twelve years ago, if you were choosing a global networking partner, the first question was often “How much of the network do they own?”
Back then it made sense. Competitive advantage was perceived as deriving from owning infrastructure. The telcos with the biggest number of PoPs, the most fibre, the most NNI’s and the widest footprint held strong cards.
Today, that question never gets asked.
Instead, CIOs and their teams ask, “how quickly they can deploy sites in a new country, improve resilience, simplify security, automate operations or gain better visibility across a global estate?”
That shift says a lot.
Enterprise buyers now prioritise outcomes over ownership
Enterprise clients won’t celebrate network backbone rationalization. They value opening sites in a new country in weeks, not months. They celebrate faster incident resolution, stronger cyber resilience, and avoided outages. They crave more time for their team to focus on strategic work instead of operational firefighting.
The proposed BT–Verizon international joint venture announced late June generated plenty of industry discussion. Most of it focused on the strategic rationale for each of the 50:50 partners or the integration execution risk.
Most commentary has been from the telecom-industry or investor perspective rather than from the perspective of CIOs running multinational businesses. Little discussion has offered strong benefit statements for enterprise customers. You know, things like quality of client experience, innovation, enhanced agility, and business resilience.
I think the more interesting question than utilisation of assets or headcount reduction is:
Has the source of competitive advantage in enterprise networking fundamentally shifted?
We've changed what we buy
For much of the past three decades, ownership of the physical network asset was a big differentiator, and multinational enterprises bought accordingly.
I don’t believe that’s where the greatest value sits anymore.
We’ve watched enterprise applications move to the cloud. Security became software-defined. The internet became the default transport. Now AI is beginning to reshape operations. As organisations become more digital, resilience is no longer just about redundant links. It’s about whether the entire operating model can predict and absorb disruption. Enterprise IT teams have become more sophisticated buyers.
Value hasn’t been commoditized or destroyed. It’s simply moved higher up the stack above the connectivity underlay.
The question is not “Who owns the network?” But rather, “Who can best orchestrate secure networking outcomes?”
That’s a fundamentally different challenge.
Why operating models matter more then ownership
Today, delivering a high-performing global network means bringing together multiple access providers, cloud platforms, security services, observability tools, automation platforms and operational processes into a single, coherent service. Bringing together scores of ISPs, platforms and technologies into a single operating model. This is where the new value layer sits.
Clients judge success less by the ownership of infrastructure and more by outcomes.
Some procurement teams are still evaluating providers using criteria that made perfect sense ten years ago: overestimating the value of scale, along with underestimating the value of the operating model and the IP that underpins it.
If competitive advantage has migrated towards software, security, AI and automation, then simply combining infrastructure assets doesn’t create a stronger proposition.
Orchestration is different. It has to be designed. It depends on engineering capability. It needs to be continuously improved.
You can’t simply merge your way there.
The service IS the product. The IP behind the operating model determines who delivers it best.
This is the shift I find most interesting.
Enterprise networking is following the same economic pattern as cloud computing. Cloud used to compete on the scale of servers and storage. Now cloud competes on developer productivity and AI. The network industry is going through the same transition.
Increasingly, multinational enterprises aren’t just evaluating technology. Technology decisions are business decisions. CIOs are discussing resilience with their COO, cyber risk with their CISO, capital allocation with their CFO, and speed to integrate acquisitions with their CEO.
They’re evaluating how their provider operates in this commercial context. Can they work alongside an internal IT team rather than replace it? Can they simplify complexity rather than add another management layer? Can they continuously improve instead of simply maintaining yesterday’s architecture? Can they adapt quickly when the business expands into another market or adopts another cloud platform?
Those capabilities are determined by people, engineering discipline, automation, and culture.
Enterprise networking next evolution
Our industry has reinvented itself before. Private networks gave way to MPLS. MPLS gave way to SD-WAN. Networking and security are converging through SASE. Locked down Fully Managed or fully DIY gave way to Co-managed. Now AI is beginning to reshape operations.
Each transition has changed where value is created.
This feels like another watershed moment. Software over transport.
Whether the BT–Verizon joint venture succeeds or fails will ultimately be judged by history. But I suspect historians will remember something bigger.
They’ll remember this period as the point where enterprise networking stopped competing on ownership…
…and started competing on operating models.
Because in the next era of enterprise networking, clients won’t buy the biggest network. They’ll buy the team that delivers the best outcomes.
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