RAN autonomy will not deliver impact unless technical progress and value creation advance in parallel. Our dual-axis framework will help operators to assess where they are today, identify constraints across the lifecycle and the investments most likely to scale.
The RAN is evolving towards greater openness and disaggregation, but the path is hybrid and incremental. This report explores the challenges operators face, early lessons from deployments, and why embedding openness and flexibility early is critical to long-term competitiveness.
This report analyses the positioning of four hyperscalers – Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Huawei Cloud – in the telco vertical. We evaluate how successful they have been at convincing telcos to migrate their workloads (from IT to the network) to the hyperscalers’ respective cloud platforms and we ultimately consider what the future role of hyperscalers in telecom will look like.
AI-RAN is emerging as a critical area of innovation for telcos. While early pilots confirm technical feasibility, the path to commercialisation remains less clear. We explore the practical pathways for telcos to capture near-term value and prepare for long-term opportunities.
This research note presents STL Partners’ forecast for the number of active private network sites over a 7-year period. It details site numbers across seven regions and acts as a complement to our Private network market forecast 2024–2030.
As CSPs transition into the Coordination Age, they face critical challenges in adopting cloud-native architectures and transforming operational models to meet the demands of enhanced connectivity and resource optimisation. This report provides practical strategies to navigate these challenges, with a focus on simplifying RAN transformation, enabling agility and unlocking new opportunities for innovation and growth.
This report presents quantitative analysis of the global demand for private networks over a 7-year period. We explore the revenue trends across the value chain and provide insights into different deployment models and technologies across 14 verticals.
As AI’s energy consumption rises, so do sustainability concerns. This report explores why this technology is so power-intensive, how to mitigate its impact and whether it can help reduce emissions. It also examines four possible scenarios for future energy consumption – from unchecked growth to greater efficiency – and their sustainability implications.
This report analyses the positioning of each of the three hyperscalers – AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure – in the telco vertical (outside of China). We assess how successful they have been at convincing telcos to migrate their business to the public cloud.
In this report we update our model of the financial value of adding AI, analytics and automation (A3) into a telco’s processes. The focus of this update is the network and OSS. In these domains, our bottom-up assessment shows that telcos can achieve financial benefits amounting to 5% of annual revenues.
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.
This report presents quantitative analysis of the global demand for private networks over a 7-year period. We explore the revenue trends across the value chain and provide insights into different deployment models and technologies across 14 verticals.
The maturity of telco automations in the network OSS and BSS varies significantly. Some telcos are reporting significant headcount reductions from mature automations while others are still in the early stages of simple automation deployments. There are important steps telcos must consider if they are to reach maximum automation.
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.
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.
Deployment of digital twins by telcos runs significantly behind some verticals as they have less compelling use cases. However, they are now going live in multiple network-related areas. What are the key drivers and barriers of digital twin adoption in telecoms?
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.