The Big Changes in Store for Telecom in the Year Ahead
Discover how cloud-based UC, 5G, and AI will shape the telecom industry.
Cloud collaboration services, AIOps, and 5G-based services are all on the upswing. Still, the industry needs to modernize its communications networks and middle-mile backbone to improve performance and profits while protecting itself from increasingly sophisticated attacks from bad actors, says Greg Zweig, senior director of solutions marketing of Ribbon Communications.
The telecommunications industry is in a transitional period. Service providers have invested billions into 5G spectrum and new radio access networks, placing a strategic bet on 5G’s potential to unlock new revenue. Funding that unprecedented investment, without a commensurate boost in near-term revenue, has forced providers to look elsewhere for ways to reduce costs. At the same time, they are dealing with a graying workforce and a shortage of skilled workers to replace them.
Of course, business customers are changing, too. Organizations are transitioning from PBXs on-premises to Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) delivered by major cloud providers, both the service providers’ partners and competitors.
How will all this play out in 2024? To find out what we can expect, I asked several Ribbon Communications thought leaders to offer their key predictions for this year and summarized them below.
The Fight for UC Supremacy Heats Up in the Cloud
The growth of cloud-based collaboration tools to replace traditional office phone systems continues to accelerate. Microsoft Teams Phone has over 17 million users, while Webex Calling has 13 million.
Webex focuses on selling seats via service providers, announcing that it has sold 5 million seats. Microsoft is expanding its Operator Connect services, offering service providers API-based integration with Teams, so it’s easier to give business customers an automated process to add telecom services to Teams Phone.
Most recently, Microsoft, Webex, and Zoom have all announced AI assistants for their calling offers, enabling users to get summaries and action items from their business calls. This further differentiates the large collaboration providers from legacy premises offers and even more straightforward cloud-based UC providers.
We expect Cisco and Microsoft’s account reach to grow throughout the year, and they won’t be alone. Recently, Avaya, one of the last big premises PBX makers, announced a partnership with Zoom, and all the major contact center providers are focused exclusively on their cloud offers.
DDoS Attacks Will Be More Frequent and More Disruptive
Telecom organizations were besieged by Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks in 2023, with 314% more attacks in the first quarter of 2023 compared with the same period the year before. Unfortunately, in 2024, there will be no stopping the continued growth in the frequency and sophistication of these attacks.
DDoS attacks will increasingly be multi-vector, consisting of concurrent attacks on the same target using multiple protocols and techniques. Using multiple vectors increases the effectiveness of the attack and complicates the ability to identify and mitigate them. Telecom providers and enterprises must implement advanced detection and mitigation strategies, including Session Border Controllers, to thwart these hacks over the next several months.
See More: Future Trends of AI-driven Network Optimization
5G Spectrum Demand Drives Cloud-native IMS in Mobile Networks
Mobile Network Operators (MNO) have aggressively deployed 5G data services for years. However, many mid-size and smaller providers still rely on legacy 3G-based voice services. That’s becoming a problematic strategy as larger mobile providers re-farm their 3G spectrum to 5G and shut down their 3G services. As 3G-based voice services go away, users who try to roam between providers with different generations of infrastructure may find that their phone services don’t work. The pressure is on all providers to move their voice services to IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) voice cores that support native Voice over LTE (4G) and Voice over New Radio (5G) services.
IMS voice cores that support native 4G/5G voice require cloud-native architectures (Cloud-Native Functions – CNF), driving mobile providers to learn cloud-native design and implementation models. Cloud-native environments provide substantial long-term benefits such as dynamic resource allocation and optimal high-availability options. While we expect most of these cloud-native IMS core deployments to be on Mobile Network Operator (MNO) private clouds, a few MNOs will begin to adopt public cloud.
AIOps Will Break Into Service Provider Networks
As communications service providers move to cloud-native architectures, we expect to see cloud-native deployments of analytics applications to provide better visibility and actionable insights across more decentralized cloud environments. Beyond analytics, 2024 will usher in a greater adoption of AIOps, which brings AI, analytics, and automation to service providers’ production networks. The adoption will be gradual, but given the potential cost savings of test and deployment automation and the need to find ways to supplement a shrinking workforce, AIOps’ benefits will likely outweigh service providers’ fears or uncertainty about aggressively adopting new technology.
Expect AIOps to see early adoption in the form of Test Automation, which directly addresses multiple pain points that every service provider faces in accelerating new software deployments and upgrades. Test Automation has a clear ROI based on reducing test cycle times and costs while simultaneously improving test coverage, all while offloading work from understaffed resources. Even better, Test Automation ensures more timely deployment of software patches and new releases so that network security vulnerabilities are addressed sooner and new features or capabilities are delivered faster.
The Year of the Middle Mile
In addition to mobile service providers investing in 5G, fixed service providers invest heavily in fiber to the home/business. The increased bandwidth customers get (both fixed and mobile) offers many new services, but, unfortunately for providers, customers typically don’t pay more for all this extra bandwidth. Both fixed and mobile providers need to find ways to monetize their fiber/radio investments with premium services that customers are willing to pay for.
Standing in the way is that existing backbone networks are inadequate to unlock this revenue potential, and simple “dumb” higher capacity backbone architectures do not give service providers the instrumentation and intelligence they need to address the revenue-generating services. Therefore, providers must upgrade the middle mile, which connects the core network with local access. That’s the only way providers can create new high-quality, high-value end-to-end services that can garner a premium price.
Migrating From TDM to IP
When discussing telecom service providers, the migration away from legacy TDM networks is a topic that never seems to go away, and 2024 is no exception. Service providers still have tens of thousands of TDM-based switches deployed. Most are one or even two decades past their expected lifespans. Their power consumption, real estate footprint, and the employee skill set required make them an increasing liability. However, the sheer scale of the problem also makes wholesale replacements daunting.
2024 is shaping to be a year where we see tangible signs of change. Regulators are forcing service providers globally to sunset older networks or have recognized on their own that they must find alternatives. We expect some significant providers to lead the way with significant network transformation targets.
The Year Ahead in Telecommunications
From cloud-based UC and cloud-native deployment models, both with new AI/AIOps services, to the middle mile and TDM transformation, 2024 will be a busy year in telecom. Of course, all these enhancements will be against a backdrop of ever-expanding security threats. It’s always exciting to see how the industry will evolve in the year ahead.
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