5 trends that are shaping the telco industry in 2023

While communication service providers (CSPs) are all set to embrace 2023 in full swing, they may not be entirely insulated from the volatility that’s taking over the world. To counteract this, telco service providers are stepping up their game by cultivating digital transformation and innovation at the core. 

When it comes to the global telecom landscape, technologies like the metaverse and 5G are fostering greater attraction, setting up the future of telecom for exponential growth. Valued at $4.17 billion in 2022, the global telecom analytics market is estimated to reach a staggering $13.76 by 2031. This is the amount of trust and investment global telco companies will be putting into technology in the next few years. Given that, let’s discuss 5 emerging telecom industry trends that will be highly anticipated in the next decade.  

Metaverse  

If you don’t know yet what the metaverse is, it is a network of 3D virtual entities that represents a universal, augmented, and hyper-immersive space including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the internet. Gartner experts speculate that 25% of people by 2026 will spend at least one hour in the metaverse each day for work, education, shopping, and entertainment purposes. That’s a bold statement if you ask us. But with the exponential rate at which consumers are engaging with virtual reality, this might seem in the sights.  

In the telecommunications industry, companies in the metaverse have the potential to serve as a platform for a wide range of applications and services and create new business models and revenue streams for telecom companies. For instance, telecom companies could use it to: 

• Enable remote collaboration and communication among dispersed teams and offer training and education programs to employees  
• Create immersive and personalized experiences for customers by engaging them in virtual events 
• Extend existing sales channels and services into the virtual reality world 
• Launch existing partner products into the metaverse  

Edge Orchestration  

Simply put, edge orchestration is the management and coordination of resources and services at the edge of a telecommunications network. In a traditional telecom network, most processing and storage takes place in central, datacenter-based servers. However, with the burgeoning demand for low latency and high bandwidth applications, such as virtual and augmented reality, more processing and storage are being shifted to the edge of the network, closer to the end users. 

Edge orchestration use cases involve managing and coordinating the resources and services at these edge locations, including things like computing, storage, networking, and security. This can involve managing the allocation of resources to different users and applications, as well as optimizing the performance of the edge network to meet the needs of different users and applications. 

Moving forward in 2023, edge computing companies will be more important than ever to help ensure that users have a high-quality and consistent experience, regardless of their location or the type of device they are using. This enables telecom companies to benefit from the increasing demand by bringing the necessary resources and services closer to the end users. 

Smart Contracts  

Smart contracts are self-functioning computer programs or transaction protocols that contain the contact or agreement terms incorporated in its codebase. The agreement present on the codebase is replicated on the distributed ledger of the blockchain network as-is which acts as digital contact between the agreeing parties.  

Global telco providers can utilize smart contracts in a variety of ways such as automating the process of purchasing and activating new phone plans or services for customers and streamlining billing and payment procedures for telecom services by smartly executing payments based on set industry standards.

Nearly 50% of all global CSPs are already implementing blockchain or are discussing the use of distributed ledger technology (DLT). 

– Greyhound Research –

Blockchain-based smart contracts could also potentially be used to manage network access to leverage effective utilization of telecom resources, such as spectrum licenses. Another way a smart contract could be used is by automatically allocating spectrum usage to different users based on predetermined rules, such as the highest bidder or the nature of the service being provided.  

Given this, telco service providers can use smart contracts to offer great provisioning and real-time charging by incorporating subscriber data management and mobile broadband data policies in their contracts with customers, automating experiences, reducing errors and disputes, and enhancing efficiency.  

Also Read : Automation through bots – Process optimization through RPA

Rapid Access Connectivity  

Rapid access connectivity refers to the ability to quickly and effortlessly establish a connection to a telecommunications network, enabling customers to access on-demand services and applications on the go.

Providing broad access connectivity is essential for telco service providers to maintain high standards when providing high-impact communication services, particularly on a global scale to enterprises. This ensures customers have access to telecommunication products and services when they need it the most to drive digital adoption and foster rapid growth.  

Containerization  

When discussing telco trends in 2023, containerization is a big one. Containers are lightweight, executable packages of code that can be used to deploy and manage applications and services at scale, enabling the execution of applications and services in distributed and edge computing environments, where traditional virtualization may not be feasible. 

A fine example of this is telecom companies using containers to operate and integrate enterprise applications used to process and analyze data from IoT devices. Containers could also be used to deploy applications that are used to manage and optimize the performance of telecom networks. 

In addition to this, containerization can also be used to introduce microservices in the telecom industry, greatly improving the extensibility, agility, scalability, and on-demand capabilities of service providers operating in the telecom industry.  

Now that you 5 know popular trends that are taking over the telco industry in 2023, you are all set to embrace telco transformation in full swing. Want to know more? Get in touch with us today or have a look at our enterprise-grade telecommunication services.