2021 Telecom Industry Development Forecast

Lain Morris, editor of Light Reading, went the other way, analyzing what will not happen in the telecommunications industry in 2021.

Keywords: Open RAN

Open RAN has climbed the high expectations of Mount Everest in 2020. This year, it will inevitably fall into the Grand Canyon of disillusionment. This politicized technology is loved by trade protectionists and Huawei attackers. It sprinkles the panacea of interoperability on the radio access network (RAN), allowing operators to combine products from different vendors. (This was impossible before), and use general-purpose equipment.

But various problems mean that it will not take off as fast as some analysts expected. These problems include performance defects (outside the rural areas where 3G is still considered the most advanced technology, it’s rubbish), intellectual property issues (possibly infringing patents owned by companies that do not belong to the organization), and cost issues (it is Is it really cheaper than traditional Internet?).

However, Three UK CEO Robert Finnegan pointed out in a conference call with Zoom reporters before Christmas that the biggest obstacle to open RAN is that most operators have already decided on their own 5G providers, and some operators (including Three UK ) Already had to spend a lot of money to give up Huawei. In a few years, they will not experience an expensive replacement again, and may have to wait until the arrival of 6G.

Keywords: 5G

In 2021, 5G still cannot justify its existence, even if its investment is soaring. In the recent spectrum auction, US operators may spend more than $90 billion on new IF spectrum licenses. Although Ericsson predicts that there will be more than 500 million 5G connections by the end of this year (expected to be 220 million in 2020), no consumers really need 5G, and there are not many companies that have a high-speed, super-reliable, and low-latency sales promotion. interest. Yes, in the next few years, 5G will generate billions of dollars in economic value, but if 5G does not exist, 4G may generate almost as much economic value.

To make matters worse, the telecommunications industry may not even become the main beneficiary of 5G. Operators are facing the prospect of huge investment and difficulty in obtaining additional revenue, and equipment suppliers outside of China expect that their main target market-sales from service providers will not increase. This year will be a year when operators are increasingly worried about survival. Although they have invested a lot of money in new connectivity standards, they are also worried that their role in the ecosystem will be weakened.

Keywords: COVID-19

The decline in roaming revenue and other pandemic-related financial pressures experienced by service providers in 2020 will not ease in the first quarter of this year. In recent weeks, as new strains of the virus have spread among the population, new lock downs and restrictions have been initiated across Europe. In the worst case, vaccine resistance mutations will eventually appear. Although most scientists think this is unlikely, the slow implementation of the vaccination program has allowed governments that are unwilling to take risks to maintain a full or partial lockdown much longer than liberals hope. If immunity is lost a few months after vaccination, the initial vaccinators may become vulnerable again soon after the project ends, requiring the authorities to restart vaccination. If this medical “Forth Bridge” approach prolongs people’s reliance on Zoom and makes it an alternative to open face-to-face meetings, then financially tight consumers and under-privileged businesses will It is very likely to further reduce consumption.

Keywords: Huawei

Huawei will not go bankrupt, but it will not disappear from the US ban list. The new President Joe Biden will not deliberately soften the United States' stance on this Chinese equipment supplier, because opponents view this supplier as a potential channel for Chinese spies and hackers. He will not be as unsophisticated and unslicked as his predecessor, but will try to reach agreement with other democracies on a constructive and coordinated China policy. With foreign governments and operators boycotting Chinese equipment, Chinese operators' huge investment in 5G will support Huawei and ZTE.

Keywords: European operators

European operators will not prevent American technology giants from entering their territories, nor will they even try to boycott them. Their "cooperative relationship" with Amazon, Google, and Microsoft is more and more like the relationship between landlords and tenants in the Middle Ages, because operators place their IT systems in the public cloud and are only satisfied with the ongoing "edge" drama Play a supporting role in. Supporters of telecommunications companies and cloud computing will use efficiency as a reason to justify these arrangements and insist that edge cooperation is symbiotic. Skeptics will notice this out-of-control situation and wonder why operators are content with the monopoly of public clouds, and operating clouds are so annoying. As a result, by the end of this year, telecommunications companies will look more like utility companies.

In order to intensify this development, in 2021, some European operators will sell base stations and other infrastructure assets to investment companies to reduce debt and accelerate 5G deployment. So far, Iliad and Three are the most typical examples of this trend. The consolidation of the tower market and the emergence of several powerful players will put tenants at risk of higher rents, although this will not happen in 2021.

Keywords: Automation and Artificial Intelligence

Although technology defenders might say that automation and artificial intelligence will not create as many jobs in the telecommunications industry as they destroy. According to data collected by Light Reading, in 2019, the collective labor force of 20 major service providers headquartered in Europe and North America decreased by more than 48,000, accounting for about 3% of the total labor force. Compared with the data in December 2019, many companies are still laying off staff in the first nine months of 2020. AT&T and Telecom Italia have laid off 5%, CenturyLink has laid off 8%, and Dutch KPN has laid off more than 9%.