Telecom 3.0
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| Telecom Transformation and Trends |
Technology-driven telecommunication has entered almost every sphere of our lives strongly
influencing how we communicate, how we work, and how we spend our leisure time.
Therefore, businesses across industries are bound to be impacted by the current
and future trends of the telecom sector. And it is the responsibility of the
telecom players to offer faster and cheaper services that function across the
enterprise.
In
2019, the global telecom sector services market was
sized at $1.74 trillion. The continuous increase in the total addressable
market (TAM) is positively impacting this growth with a predicted compound
annual growth rate (CAGR) of almost 5% in this decade itself. This is highly
commendable considering the fact that telecom is one of the most recent sectors
and product development to visual signals from previously concentrated growth
of purely voice signals is as recent as the dawn of this century. The Asia
Pacific region is hailed as the growing SAM or serviceable available market for
the telecom sector and barring China, most other economies can be considered as
SOM (serviceable obtainable market).
Telecom Transformation and
Trends
Technology
transformation is fueled by an increasing need for wireless communication due
to the popularity of the cloud; however, this must be fast and secure to be
effective. These 2 are also the key factors pushing organizational spending on
advancing their current telecommunication infrastructures.
Access
over mobile devices includes the element of flexibility that must work
hand-in-glove with the requirements of speed and security in the backbone
telecommunications. Therefore, the current and future trend predictions reflect
an increasing number of corporate mobile users resulting in soaring demands for
high-speed connectivity including value-added services.
Further,
the businesses are becoming more and more sensitive to the technological
advances germinating in the form of 5G, IoT (Internet of Things), AI
(Artificial Intelligence), and Cloud Computing including Cloud billing.
The
demand for faster protocols for improving data transfer speeds in the current
environment has completely stretched the existing 4G network to the hilt. The
5G architecture is entirely user-centric instead of being application-centric
like its predecessor. This difference is touted to spearhead improvements like
increased communication capacity, the scale of connections, and improved data
transmission rates. The telecom sector is all set to benefit further from the
lower cost and lower-latency that are ingrained in the 5G network.
IoT
is the buzz-word of the telecom sector in 2020. This technology trend is likely
to contribute significantly towards enabling the remote monitoring of telecom
base stations and data centers. The telecom sector is already displaying signs
of promoting IoT as the carriers can structure and deliver their own services
to clients. In fact, the projected increment in the number of devices from IoT
is over 20 billion in numbers. IoT related services like billing can transform
how the industry has been working in the past.
AI has
become an influencing factor in the Telecom sector towards the end of the last
decade. This trend will possibly grow stronger as AI-driven chatbots and
virtual assistants have replaced traditional methods of customer communication.
At the backend, AI continues to grow in importance with respect to predictive
maintenance as well as network optimization. AI will also play a major role in
addressing the anti-trust sentiment in user-data handling. The rising data
security issues are sufficient to fuel the need for an increased role of AI in
this industry.
As
per experts, we have just touched the tip of cloud computing. This technology is yet to be adopted and utilized
extensively to avail of all of its advantages. Like most other sectors, the
companies in the telecom industry will increase their focus on cloud computing
to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and to cater to a global
marketplace.
While
technology is certainly the driving force behind the future success of the
telecom industry, another possible trend marking this decade could be the separation of the telecom infrastructure
services from the core telephony offerings. This is based on the fact that
the 5G technology can run on a public utility, thereby, changing the rules of
the game altogether.
Top
Telecom players are pushing for growth organically as well as externally by combining
technology adaptation with effective
marketing strategies. With over 95% of Americans owning mobile phone
devices, the focus is to apply analytical marketing strategies to enhance the
customer experience and differentiate the core product offering. Telecom
service providers are creating their own content
hubs to appeal to the younger generation as 100% of clients in the age
group of 18 - 29 years of age own cell phones with over 90% having access to
smartphone devices. This offering of personalized
digital services to the customers is a trend most likely to be adopted by
all major players in the coming years.
Lastly,
telecoms are becoming increasingly vertical-centric,
a trend that was missing in the past. This can be seen with AT&T focusing
on smart homes and Verizon promoting telematics. In other words, large players
are creating a niche to develop a competitive edge.
Conclusion
Standing
at the dawn of a new decade, the telecom 3.0 is faced with challenges that were
unheard of even as recently as 15 years ago. The worldwide communication
industry is booming and the global spending on telecom services is scaling up.
As the demand continues to grow, the top telcos are gearing up to face newer
challenges. The next 5 years are likely to witness mushrooming growth and
increasing the reach of technology-driven communication networks to even the
remotest corners of the earth.
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