John Strand

Chief Executive Officer at Strand Consult

Speaker

John Strand founded Strand Consult in 1995. Its first focus was optimizing the sales process and reducing cost for companies in the information technology (IT), telecom and media industries. John had already built successful consulting company providing direct sales and marketing services for the IT, telecom, finance and publishing sectors. The mobile industry exploded in the 1990s, and Strand Consult grew along with its new clients from the mobile and telecom industry, analyzing market trends, publishing reports and holding executive workshops that have helped telecom operators and mobile services providers all over the world optimize their business strategies and maximizing the return on their investments.

For more than 20 years, John Strand has published his annual predictions on how the mobile telecom industry would evolve. You can read the collected predictions and see that John Strand consistently gets it right. Strand Consult was first to describe the 3G market and South Korea’s pivotal role in mobile services. Strand Consult was first to describe the Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) and how it allows classic mobile providers to operate multi-brand strategies. Strand Consult is a leading knowledge center on MNVOs and mobile distribution models. Strand Consult was also first to publish research on premium SMS, value added services for mobile broadband, cost reduction strategies for prepaid services, etc.

John Strand has a unique ability to critique new technologies and how they affect the market and the industry’s ability to make money for their shareholders. Strand described that the celebrated iPhone would not increase shareholder value for mobile operators. Strand Consult’s blockbuster report “The Moment of Truth – A Portrait of the iPhone” proves this assertion and earned John Strand a global reputation as a fearless critic of conventional wisdom.

Strand also examined Wimax and its ability to compete with WCDMA which is the roadmap that we know today as the foundation of 3G, 4G and now 5G. He performed similar analysis of another hyped technology, OpenRAN. Strand has debunked the many OpenRAN myths. When the industry marketed OpenRAN as an alternative to Chinese suppliers like Huawei and ZTE, Strand documented how 44 Chinese companies had a central role in the development of OpenRAN.

In the last decade John Strand has amassed a team of engineering, legal, and regulatory experts to help his clients with growing international policy challenges. In the past, telecom providers enjoyed a measure of permission-less innovation in their product and service development, but no longer. The telecom industry has become a target of rent-seeking by policymakers and their online competitors that use regulation to gain an unfair competitive advantage. Strand Consult bring transparency to expose abuse of the political and regulatory process by self-interested actors whether multinational companies or greedy city mayors wanting to artificially inflate the cost of mobile infrastructure

John Strand’s uncanny ability to predict the future of the telecom market and his compelling communication has made him a valued speaker in the press and at conferences around the world. His precise statements combined with a unique insight in the industry help make complex issues understandable.

Hundreds of companies in the telecom industries have tapped John Strand and Strand Consult’s workshops and reports to develop strategy, launch new products, and conduct a dialogue with policymakers. Strand brings political and regulatory attention to critical and sometimes controversial issues.

John Strand sits on the board of Parliamentary Intelligence-Security Forum. He served as a member of the Arctic Economic Council Telecommunications Working Group and the Advisory Board for the 3GSM World Congress, the event known as the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.