Greenwood Village, Colorado — Many of the world’s largest telecoms will team-up to launch a blockchain-based platform to make contracting and payments between themselves faster and cheaper.
Known as the Communications Blockchain Network (CBN), it will go live in the coming months.
Currently, 11 carriers have agreed to join: A1 Telekom Austria, China Telecom Global, Colt Technology Services, Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier, IDT, Orange, PCCW Global, Tata Communications, Telefonica, Telstra and TNZI.
More than ten technology providers have already confirmed support, including IBM, Orbs, ConsenSys, and R3.
Having providers specializing in permissioned and permissionless blockchains makes the project distinctive. When the network is live, the telecom and IT carriers will be able to choose specific technology vendors they are comfortable working with.
The ITW Global Leaders’ Forum, a network of leaders from the world’s largest wholesale telecom carriers, says that by smoothing payments CBN could be worth billions to the global industry.
