Telecom Industry News
Nothing in 2020 has been business as usual, and that goes for late-summer news. With some distance opening between the onset of the pandemic and the present, news on data insights and the market’s reaction to the crises is becoming more clear. New reports from Dell’Oro Group OpenVault, and Juniper Research revealed fresh research findings. Updates on Open RAN, FTTH networks, and 5G deployments rolled in from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. The FCC took new steps toward auction for mid-band 5G spectrum and in combatting robocalls.
The top telecom industry news stories from the month are summarized below. To view all the news as it breaks, check out Pipeline’s News Center or subscribe to receive our telecom industry news summary.
Data Agility, Analytics and Research News
Globally, consumers are continuing to increase reliance on upstream bandwidth and are opting for faster speeds to meet dramatically changed usage habits during the ongoing pandemic, according to the Q2 2020 OVBI (OpenVault Broadband Insights) report issued by OpenVault.
A new study from Juniper Research has found that total spend over direct carrier billing will reach $100 billion for the first time by 2025, rising from $37 billion in 2020. The study anticipates that the increasing shift to subscription-based monetization models for digital services such as games, video streaming and music is a main driver. Another new Juniper study found that operator revenue from SMS business traffic will reach $50 billion in 2025, increasing from $39.6 billion in 2020. This represents an overall growth of 26 percent, driven by the reduction in illegitimate traffic due to the implementation of SMS firewalls. And a final new study from Juniper Research has found that digital ticket transaction volumes will exceed pre-COVID levels by 2022, growing from 12.7 billion in 2020 to 32 billion in 2022. It anticipates that continued easing of global travel restrictions will drive increased demand for mobile ticketing in the rail, metro and bus sectors, as commuters return to work. Airplane travel will continue to lag into 2024, as this travel industry sector has been hit hardest by the pandemic.
Dell'Oro Group recently published an update to its Service Provider (SP) Router and Carrier Ethernet Switch (CES) five-year market forecast report. The COVID-19 pandemic led to a major reset of forecast assumptions and market growth profile for the next five years. For the short term through 2020, market growth will be suppressed due to supply and human resource constraints, as well as weakened macroeconomic conditions. Over the longer term, from 2021 through 2024, Dell’Oro Group expects the technology and use case drivers of prior forecasts to remain largely intact and drive annual growth.
Mobileum released the findings of an industry survey, which found that 75 percent of operators polled were experiencing new or emerging incidences of fraud and 61 percent said network security threats increased or significantly increased since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
Network Evolution News
Updates on global developments in network evolution news came in from all corners of the world. Vodafone has become the first UK mobile operator to switch on a live Open Radio Access Network (OpenRAN) 4G site, enabling the introduction of more suppliers for mobile networks. The first site connected Vodafone customers around the Royal Welsh Showground in Powys, Wales. Harmonic announced that Vodafone is actively rolling out its Gigabit Internet service across Germany using Harmonic's CableOS® virtualized access solution. Vodafone Germany is the largest cable operator in Europe, with over 25 million homes passed.
In Sri Lanka, Nokia and Sri Lanka Telecom have deployed a FTTH network to bring ultra-fast 10Gpbs broadband service to customers across the country using Nokia’s next-generation fiber technology.
In the Middle East, Ericsson will support Omantel in its ongoing 5G deployment in key locations across Oman, providing Advanced Antenna Systems and 5G New Radio as part of a new multiyear contract.
Infinera announced that Orange deployed spectrum capacity with Infinera’s submarine solution on its MainOne submarine cable, a new network built to provide large-scale international capacity to support the development of a digital ecosystem in West Africa. Infinera also stated that Vogel Telecom, a leading wholesale carrier in Brazil, deployed Infinera’s Groove (GX) Series G30 Compact Modular Platform to double capacity on its network, which includes Brazil’s route with the highest bandwidth demand, between São Paulo and Belo Horizonte.
