Research

Defining the future telco — and what it means for operators and their partners


Understanding Fintech: Why Interest and Investment Has Exploded

Investment in fintech has increased by 500% in the last 3 years. Interest and investment has spiked as fintech companies seek to leverage new sources of data to develop disruptive offerings across a broad range of financial service areas (e.g. payments, lending & funding). The scale and scope of investment and activity represents a potential paradigm shift within financial services. Telcos, who have a long history developing financial services (e.g. mobile money), need to understand this changing landscape. This report explores why fintech is happening now and maps where and how it is disrupting established financial services.

Executive Briefing Service, Consumer — October 2016

Regulation: A Good Case for Change (at last)

For the past 30 years, telecoms regulation has largely been designed to keep the market power of incumbent telcos in check. Now, the growing maturity of the market, the massive power of global digital players, and the pressing need for more investment are combining to prompt a regulatory rethink. How should telcos and regulators change their approaches to accelerate the cycle of growth and innovation?

Executive Briefing Service, Consumer — September 2016

Digital Health: How Can Telcos Compete with Google, Apple and Microsoft?

Digital solutions supporting consumer health and wellness are proliferating, driven by the take-up of wearables and a growing supply of data from consumers, advertisers, insurers and healthcare providers. In this report we explore the ecosystem, and discuss the key players and opportunities, the likeliest areas for disruption, and the potential opportunities for telcos, as well as presenting case studies of the digital health strategies of Google, Apple and Microsoft.

Consumer — September 2016

Telco NFV & SDN Deployment Strategies: Six Emerging Segments

STL Partners explores in detail how thirteen leading operators are addressing NFV and SDN. By exploring each management team’s vision for the technology and the current implementation activities, we have been able to identify six segments – from dynamic ‘NFV Business Model Transformation Pioneers’ to more prosaic ‘Utilitarian Adopters’. The report also outlines three major ‘best-practice’ recommendations for other players.

Executive Briefing Service, Network Innovation — July 2016

Net Neutrality 2021: IoT, NFV and 5G ready?

This report explores how Net Neutrality legislation has evolved significantly, looking at the general shape and specifics in the EU, US, India, Brazil and other territories. In general telcos can differentiate some aspects of broadband access with pricing or “specialized services”, but Internet app-blocking or paid-priority are disallowed. While legal challenges are ongoing, the way ahead seems much clearer, and we explore how telcos should focus on and enable interesting non-Internet connectivity opportunities around 5G, NFV and IoT.

Network Innovation — July 2016
M&A Database cover

Digital M&A and Investment Strategies

M&A and majority investment are key tools in building digital businesses. But are telcos actively investing? We look in detail at SingTel, Telstra and Verizon, which have committed significantly to digital investment to extend their businesses. We also discuss why most European operators lag their Asia-Pac and North American peers. Our analysis is based on the newly-developed STL Partners Digital Investment Database, which tracks investments by 22 leading service providers.

Executive Briefing Service — July 2016

Google/Telcos’ RCS: Dark Horse or Dead Horse?

Mobile messaging is fast becoming a key platform for digital commerce, mounting a challenge to Google Search, Amazon’s Marketplace and other two-sided platforms. As Facebook gears up to take advantage of this opportunity, some of the world’s largest telcos are working with Google to develop and deploy multimedia communications services that will work across networks and will replace SMS. But will it be too little, too late?

Consumer — June 2016

US Wireless Market: Early Warning Signs of Change

We see early-warning signs of new changes afoot in the influential US mobile market in both growth and competitive market dynamics. Verizon Wireless was the biggest winner from the market’s recent growth. But now things are slowing and challenger T-Mobile is breaking into the premium segment. What are the lessons?

Executive Briefing Service — June 2016

SD-WAN: New Enterprise Opportunity for Telcos, or a Threat to MPLS, SDN & NFV?

Software-Defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WANs) have catapulted to prominence in the enterprise networking world in the last 12 months, driven by the growth of demand for access to cloud applications, and businesses’ desire to control WAN costs and complexity. SD-WAN may be a new “intermediary” layer in the network which has the potential to disrupt telcos’ enterprise aspirations, particularly given that it is dominated by vendors and specialist providers rather than telcos. SD-WAN may reduce operators’ MPLS and WAN services revenues and could potentially restrict future NFV/SDN opportunities. But SD-WAN also offers opportunities, where it is embraced – tactically – as part of operators’ enterprise portfolios.

Enterprise Platforms, Network Innovation — May 2016

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