The telecommunications market is in an unprecedented period of change and upheaval, says Clayton LiaBraaten, SVP of sales, delivery and business development for the global telecom company Transaction Network Services (TNS) Telecommunications Services Division.

LiaBraaten has decades of telecom experience under his belt, but now sees an unfamiliar marketplace due to factors like LTE, Internet of Things, net neutrality and massive consolidations.

LiaBraaten tells CRN about the trends he's seeing in the telecom market and how some communications service providers (CSPs) are struggling to capitalize on the opportunities available.

How competitive is the overall telecom market today?

All one needs to do is look at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) docket to understand that we are in an unprecedented period of change and upheaval -- net neutrality, number portability, spectrum and privacy. Unlike some of our competitors, we have not alienated our client base and in fact have been able to nurture long-standing relationships. Fortunately, TNS is perhaps better positioned than any of our competitors to exploit and capitalize on this change. In many ways our talent, platform and data assets are some of the best kept secrets in the industry. I aim to change that.

How is the telecomm industry facing an unprecedented period of modernization, consolidation and upheaval?

On one hand, we all see the consolidation amongst the multiple-systems operators (MSOs), mobile network operators (MNOs) and local exchange carriers (LECs), and even software and media companies, which ultimately means more consumers/subscribers concentrated under larger logos.

On the other hands, we see emerging, non-traditional competitors like Google Fiber and Telco over-the-top players challenging the status quo. The trick is to be skating to where the puck is going, not where it is on the ice this minute. At TNS we are anticipating technological and market shifts in advance to ensure service offering continuity for our evolving customer.