Monetisation of telco data has been an area of heightened activity for the last couple of years, and an aspiration for far longer. Our recent research looked at the opportunity for telcos to create new revenue streams from their data and sale of associated products such as analytics and data platforms to their enterprise customers. Underpinning this research is a …
In the Coordination Age, smart glasses could play a major role in boosting productivity. They would enable people to access information (hands-free) exactly when and where they need it. Over time, white-collar workers could benefit from being able to see 3D images of everything from architectural plans to colleagues on the other side of the world. Smart glasses could also …
As connectivity has become commoditised, launching new network technology can no longer be relied upon to generate operator growth. This report outlines eight guiding principles for operators seeking to move beyond connectivity into tailored vertical solutions.
To understand what edge computing developers need from telcos in order to develop the market, STL Partners interviewed seven start-ups from four key domains about their experience exploring edge computing. Each application developer was at a different stage of exploring edge computing and had been working with different types of edges. Our research focus was primarily on telecom edge (compute …
Reliance’s standalone IoT business Unlimit exhibits much of what it takes to be a successful ecosystem play, although it’s too early to signal it a full-grown success. How has it achieved this, what’s to come, and what should others learn?
What should telcos do to bridge the gaps between current hype, actual performance, and future promises on 5G? We argue that a data-driven and forensic approach to roll-out and marketing will be the key, particularly in the uncertain economic environment driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, and review the timelines for future applications.
The 4-yearly ITU World Radio Congress (WRC’19) which sets world policy on radio spectrum, most critically 5G this time, has just ended. What agreements were reached, and what do they mean for traditional telcos, new telcos, telco-sector vendors and regulators?
How telcos should be preparing for the seismic shift in the video games market signposted by Google’s new Stadia cloud gaming service.
An introduction to digital twins, an approach to managing assets that is gaining increasing traction across many business sectors, and that will ultimately disrupt many industry business models.
Our predictions for 5G, based on our assessment of the opportunities and barriers it faces, including how and when it will impact different markets. Combined with other technologies and industry trends, 5G will change the shape of the industry, but not in the way that many expect.
There is a lot of market speculation about blockchain and its use-cases, especially in the area of IoT. This report outlines five use-cases for blockchain in IoT security and interoperability, and identifies how blockchain can enable new IoT business models for telcos.
With Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC), telcos can move workloads and applications closer to customers, potentially enhancing experiences and enabling a plethora of new use cases. But with competition looming from other players, telcos need to start commercialising MEC. We have identified and modelled five viable telco business models.
The music industry was one of the first sectors to be fundamentally disrupted by the Internet. Facing an epic and almost existential battle with piracy, coupled with expectations that music should be free, the record labels have tested many different business and distribution models. With sales of recorded music finally growing again, telcos and their partners can learn a lot from the music industry’s hits and misses.
With iPhone sales apparently peaking, Apple is looking to double its revenue from services over the next four years to approximately US$50 billion, taking it deeper into adjacent markets, such as entertainment, financial services and communications. However, Apple trails behind Google in developing artificial intelligence and needs to extend the reach of its services to capture more behavioural data. If Apple decides to decouple more of its key services from its hardware, that would have major ramifications for Google, Amazon, Facebook and many of the world’s leading telcos.
To find new revenues, some telcos are competing head-on with the major internet players in the digital communications, content and commerce markets. Although telcos’ track record in digital services is poor, some are gaining traction. AT&T, Axiata, Reliance Jio and Turkcell are each pursuing very different digital services strategies, and we believe these potentially disruptive moves offer valuable lessons for other telcos and their partners.
Our latest adjacent market case study analyses Axel Springer’s successful 10 year digital transformation from print to online publisher, and holds many lessons for telcos, not least of which are the pitfalls of under commitment, and the required level of investment in M&A.
We outline three potential roles for telcos in the IoT, describing twelve potential application areas and forty use cases, as well as the structure and trends driving change. Looking beyond this we ask which market areas are most attractive, and what should telcos do within them?
Our research focuses on how telcos and their partners can embrace industry disruption.
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