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.
Telecoms is too important to leave up to traditional fixed and mobile operators. Thanks to the “democratisation” of shared spectrum, virtualised networks, fibre and cloud – plus the demands of industry, government and local communities – a plethora of new service providers are emerging to fill the gaps. This report is intended as a “spotter’s guide” to the categories of network owners and operators.
As telecoms operations become increasingly softwarised, network functions are getting broken down into their individual parts, and reassembled as an essential part of the IT stack for industry-specific applications and services. In this disaggregated telco value chain, is there anything left that is distinctively ‘telco’?