2015 Trends

We live in a data-centric, wireless world, and no technology is better suited to address this reality than Wi-Fi.

2015 will be the year service providers truly identify - and begin filling - the engagement void that exists between them and their customers.

A year ago, when I was asked which trends would have a significant impact on the ICT industry in 2014, I predicted that there would be an increasing interest in prefabricated modular data centres to cope with the expected data boom in developing countries.

Building on a sudden surge of activity last year, we expect a great deal of growth in fibre to the business premises (FTTP) and fibre to the home (FTTH) in 2015. 

There is a lot going on in the telecommunications industry right now, whether because of the threat from more agile and fas­ter OTT players, the fast changing dynamics in the industry or telco’s own mindset of not being a dumb pipe anymore.

Notwithstanding the success that mobile money (MM) services have had in Kenya and a handful of other countries, most MM providers in Africa are still trying to figure out how to monetise their businesses.

We see 2015 as being the year when CEM (Customer Experience Management) becomes a top priority for operators in developing markets, as they continue their quest for the retention of customers and improvements in ARPU.

The main battle between incumbent mobile operators in Africa over the next five years will be in mobile broadband.

A year ago we predicted that during 2014 there would be a significant increase in the number of operators in Africa rolling out VoIP services.

Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) require substantial data capacities for core and trunking services, much of which uses fibre/cable.

At the AfricaCom show last November, Ahmad Farroukh, CEO of MTN South Africa, said that his company is focused on NGN for both mobile and fixed access, with LTE already available in parts of the country.

In 2014, the roll-out of LTE has been a major focus for communications service providers (CSPs), with over 300 LTE networks now in operation globally. 

2015 is going to be the year of heightened engagement and activity around mobile financial services.

In 2015, we expect to see five major mobile backhaul trends in emerging markets. 

During 2015 we expect to see further evolution in the LTE radio access network, with a number of LTE-Advanced technologies moving from the lab into commercial deployment.

As mobile telecoms become more and more intertwined with the internet, we will continue to see new services and opportunities emerge, both in the B2B and B2C area, as a result of this growing interconnectivity.

Growing customer expectations and challenging network dynamics are putting pressure on the Radio AccessNetwork (RAN) in such a manner that almost 80% of quality impacting events occur in the RAN.

A significant shift has taken place in the telecom landscape as market dynamics bring together need and opportunity to create a major change.

The telecommunications sector in emerging markets will face both opportunities and challenges for the year 2015.

In developing markets network coverage is often a significant problem, with many people outside of major cities having trouble getting connections because of poor telecoms infrastructure in their area.

Developing the mobile data usage has become the main priorities of operators across developing countries.

One of the major trends we observed in 2014 was cloud companies’ expansion from the US and into international markets.

The Central American telecom market is seeing a continued trend towards enabling connectivity, following similar technological and business model processes of other more developed economic regions such as its US neighbour and Europe.

The current market conditions in emerging markets for the telecom industry are somewhat unpredictable and influenced by the global macroeconomic developments.

At a recent next gen BSS conference that I attended, two of the best presentations were not from operators or BSS vendors but content providers.

In the wake of a volatile 2014, the repercussions in Russia and the CIS are continuing to be felt as we enter the New Year.

As 2015 begins to kick into high gear I thought I would share a few trends we see forming here at GENBAND in the expanding universe of Real Time Communications software and solutions.

Customers in emerging and developing markets will continue to benefit from competitive alternatives in the coming year and will gradually see lower prices and better service.

India’s mobile footprint has increased dramatically over the past decade, primarily taking place in urban centers with feature phones.

For a long time, mobile network operators (MNOs) have looked longingly at untapped global markets, wishing there were a business case to justify an expansion of their networks to the nearly two billion potential customers worldwide who are either not covered by any mobile network or currently have unsatisfactory coverage.

All around the world, the mobile landscape is changing. Mobile subscriptions are expected to reach nearly 7 billion by the end of 2014, whilst mobile broadband subscribers will reach 2.3 billion.

2015 is a year in which we’ll see micro-segmentation thrust into action in emerging markets, enabling the delivery of personalized experiences to address the wide diversity within and between markets.

From our perspective, through many recent engagements with Service Providers and Industry events it is clear that both Africa and Asia are really accelerating when it comes to the level of focus on digital-based services that complement their core telco offerings.