Telco cloud activity in 2024 is showing signs of growing momentum with 72 deployments in the year to date, in contrast to 90 for the whole of 2023. Even though many of these deployments are announced but yet to complete in 2024, there are improving prospects for vRAN and open RAN, alongside a positive outlook for 5G standalone.
Operators who neglect sustainability throughout their network automation journeys may miss out on synergistic energy saving opportunities. We explore five automation applications that reduce emissions and outline how operators can maximise sustainability outcomes in their network automation journeys.
STL Partners’ Research team present their observations from and analysis of the biggest mobile industry event of the year. There was a lot of buzz around AI and API but behind the tech jargon, we saw evidence that our industry continues to morph to become more open and customer-focused.
Edge computing presents unique challenges and limitations when compared to traditional data centres. This report provides practical guidance for edge operators aiming to achieve sustainability goals.
2023 concluded with 87 telco cloud deployments in our tracker. In this edition, we present the most popular vendor stacks for vRAN/open RAN and the main rationales behind the 11 5G SA launches last year.
Fixed operators see network disaggregation as a way to reduce deployment and operational costs, remove vendor lock-in, and combine residential, business and other types of access into a single infrastructure. This report examines progress and learnings from early movers.
As operators embark on their telco cloud journeys, what should they look out for and what lessons can they learn from others? This report analyses the strategies and progress of four operators leading the way in telco cloud transformation and sheds light on the lessons learned from their initial deployments.
The utilities sector is a promising opportunity area for private LTE and 5G networks. But it is not an easy one for telcos to address, as utility companies often deploy and manage networking technology in-house or via specialist service providers to satisfy service requirements. This report examines the sector realities.
The industry is still on track to deliver 5G Standalone and various types of virtualised RAN – but progress is a lot slower than originally expected. In this update of the Telco Cloud Deployment Tracker, we look beneath the hood of the numbers to assess what if anything will accelerate growth in 2024.
New players, technologies and business models are raising the prospect of valuable, new satellite connectivity services. But how credible are the new opportunities and what do operators need to do?
The first commercial deployments of open RAN networks have been announced. But operators are unsure whether to deploy quickly for first-mover advantage or play it safe and wait for more proof points. We explore the causes of open RAN inertia and how operators can get deployments back on track.
The use of A3 in open RAN will be an important part of the solution to specific open RAN challenges for telcos. This report reviews the significance of A3 in Open RAN, xAPP and rAPP market opportunities and identifies eleven A3 requirements in developing Open RAN capabilities for telcos.
In the rapidly evolving ecosystem of private networks, collaboration and partnerships are becoming critical for success. Our report examines the key elements shaping this dynamic market and how partnerships, verticalisation strategies, and wide-ranging channel approaches are reshaping the private networks landscape.
We found subtle but significant shifts at the GSMA’s Mobile World Congress 2023 that show how the market’s need is changing to ‘connecting technologies’ rather than ‘connectivity’. This has deep implications for the industry and telcos in particular.
In this update, we present a review of telco cloud deployments for the whole of 2022 and discuss trends that will shape the year ahead. Fewer deployments than expected were completed in 2022. The main reason for this was a delay in previously announced 5G Standalone (SA) core roll-outs, for reasons we have analysed elsewhere. However, we expect these deployments to be largely completed in 2023.
Co-operation with hyperscalers can reap rewards – but only if telcos complete the hard work of cloudification first.
In this update, we present data and analysis on progress with deployments of vRAN and open RAN. It is fair to say that open RAN (virtualised AND disaggregated RAN) deployments have not happened at the pace that STL Partners and many others had forecast. In parallel, some very significant deployments and developments are occurring with vRAN (virtualised NOT disaggregated RAN). Is open RAN a networking ideal that is not yet, or never will be, deployed in its purest form?