Telecom 2025 Looks Like…

We can all to some extent predict the future; some predictions are a hit while most are a miss with lots in the “sort of” category. And when it comes to telecommunication predictions add the N-dimensional perfect storm of innovations, market disruptions, new business models, disintermediation, mega-mergers, etc.

The global telecom market (fixed and wireless) has unique characteristics which make it so fascinating to study. It’s critical to a city and to a country for economic prosperity, it impacts billions of people’s lives, it’s cross border and it’s a trillion dollar market to name just a few. It has also emerged as a key battle space for asymmetric warfare, leveling the battlefield which closes the gap of U.S. global dominance. If you add to the discussion the importance and outright dependence on satellites for an array of commercial and military applications and the deployment of anti-satellite weapons the global telecommunication market gets even more interesting.

That said here are my easy predictions that I think most people will agree with for what telecom 2025 will look like:

1. There will be less and larger global service providers.
    a. Mega mergers are inevitable as traditional carriers need economies of scale.

2. There will be a wider range of service provider business models.
    a. New “service providers” will arise
    b.There will be an Uber or AirBnB carrier, for example, large and successful without owning any network
    c. Intelligence interconnections and federations will be paramount.

3. Security will continue to be a constant and ever increasing challenge.
    a. Akin to 1920 leapfrogging between bank safe companies and back robbers.

4. Access will be thought of as … people and things accessing the cloud and each other.
    a. It will be a near real-time decision of what network

These are the easy predictions. Yet, the implications of them are vast and substantial and will impact billions of people and affect billions of dollars of investments. It’s truly an interesting time to be in this industry.

Send me (gwhelan@acgcc.com) your easy or innovative ideas of what the global telecom market will look like in 10 years and I will aggregate the replies and send them out to all who participated.

Click for more information about Greg Whelan.

Greg Whelan
gwhelan@acgcc.com
acgcc.com