Leapfrogging Technology: From African Telecom to LLMs

The Telecommunications Leapfrog

Leapfrogging is what many African countries did in telecommunications.

By the time these countries started rolling out national networks, they could skip copper-based infrastructure and "leapfrog" to mobile directly.

This theoretically saved the capital cost of copper networks, albeit at the expense of many years without telecommunication.

If a country had invested heavily in copper infrastructure just as mobile technology became affordable, it would have been a massive waste of capital.

New vs. Evolving Technologies

The Telephone Evolution

After the telephone's invention, the core premise remained the same - one-to-one voice communication. Evolutionary improvements included:

• Automated switching (replacing human operators)
• Fax transmission
• Area codes and international dialing
• SS7 signaling

These enhanced the technology while maintaining its fundamental nature.

The Mobile Revolution

Mobile changed something fundamental:

• Reached people anywhere (vs. fixed locations)
• Made home phones obsolete for voice
• Absorbed functions of multiple devices (fax, camera, calculator)
• Enabled easier infrastructure deployment

LLMs: The New Technological Leap

Large Language Models represent a similar paradigm shift. They're not just an evolution - they're a new foundational technology that will replace multiple existing systems.

Technologies LLMs Will Replace:

1. Chatbot Systems
   (Decision trees → contextual understanding)

2. IVRs & Menu Systems
   (Intent navigation → natural language)

3. OCR Technologies
   (Traditional OCR → vision-enabled LLMs)

4. Spam Filtering
   (Rule-based → contextual analysis)

5. Language Translation
   (Dedicated systems → multilingual models)

6. Speech-to-Text
   (Separate transcription → direct audio tokens)

Key Insights

1. Recognizing True Technological Shifts is crucial for capital allocation
2. Entire Paradigms Must Be Reexamined in light of LLMs
3. The Opportunity Cost of investing in soon-to-be-obsolete systems

At Stubber, we're excited to build in this new era. What will you create? Which evolving technologies will you replace?

Author: Werner Stucky