Expertise

Bringing our clients deep industry knowledge

STL Partners has deep industry knowledge across a range of emerging growth areas for the telecoms industry. We work across a host of emerging technologies and customer verticals, including 5G, IoT, and artificial intelligence and how they drive growth within the Consumer and Enterprise segments.

Across our Research and Consulting businesses, STL Partners has also developed unparalleled expertise in four industry domains – Edge computing, Network Innovation (Including Telco cloud), Sustainability and Private Networks. We bring years of tangible experience, coupled with a forward thinking mentality, to define how the industry can be successful and drive growth in these areas.

Edge computing

New technologies and demand for new applications means the time is ripe for edge. Consumers want low latency for content-driven experiences and enterprises require local processing for security and resilient operations.

Those who want to add value in this space need to understand the business models, the use cases and define a clear go-to-market plan, including operators who can use edge computing to grow revenues outside connectivity.

Private networks

Private networks are expected to play a significant role in future wireless technologies for enterprise on-premise connectivity. By tailoring to customers’ specific needs, they offer users greater control, scalability, security and a combination of other key capabilities that is difficult to achieve with other traditional solutions.

As demand for private networks grows, stakeholders will need to successfully navigate the opportunities and threats, as well as the potential business models, to secure their place in the ecosystem.

Sustainability

Tackling climate change has moved to the top of everyone’s agenda. This includes the telecoms industry. Operators and their partners are committing to reduce their carbon footprints over the next decade: in many cases to net zero. Furthermore, operators are increasing their carbon ‘hand-print’ by supporting their customers to transition to low-carbon business and society.

Network Innovation

The networking business is marked by ever more rapid cycles of technological innovation, at every layer: transformation of legacy, physical network elements into disaggregated cloud software and hardware components; and new physical network technologies in both wireless (e.g. 5G/6G, WiFi6/7, satellite) and wireline (e.g. fibre access and optics).

These developments create opportunities for non-telco players to address a growing breadth of customer needs, challenging telcos’ traditional dominance. But they are also a major potential source of new value for telcos, beyond simple connectivity. Our reports and consulting services help telcos, vendors and others navigate the new, shifting landscape, and plot a course to growth through partnerships, new skills and modes of operation, and innovation

Consumer

For many operators the consumer segment still accounts for the lion share of telco revenues. Globally, telcos are pursuing a wide variety of strategies in the consumer market, ranging from broad competition with the major Internet platforms to a narrow focus on delivering connectivity.

STL Partners’ consumer research ensures operators stay relevant as consumer lifestyles react and change with ongoing technology innovation. We identify where new revenue opportunities can be delivered independently or through partnerships utilising, where necessary, marketplaces and platforms and outline best practices in customer engagement – ensuring the best customer experience across physical and digital touch points.

Enterprise

Like telcos, most enterprises are going through seismic change as they become more connected and data-driven organisations. As providers of the connectivity enabling this evolution, telecoms operators have an opportunity to leverage their unique expertise and assets to help enterprises take full advantage of the possibilities of connected technologies. But to be trusted partners for enterprises, their services must be easy to integrate into enterprises’ processes and deliver tangible outcomes.

Our research provides insights into how enterprises in different verticals are leveraging new technologies such as 5G, AI, IoT and cloud to solve critical operational needs, as well as key strategies and partnership models telecoms operators are leveraging to address these needs.