By: Sylvain Quartier, SVP, Product Management & Markets, Infovista
2014 is officially underway, and many are no doubt wondering how the year will pan out for the telco industry. One year ago, for instance, industry analysts predicted that LTE would take the telco industry by storm, and unsurprisingly, about 12 months later, we found that 63 percent of Mobile Europe readers named 4G/LTE as a leading disruptor in 2013.
And, it looks like this trend is going to carry over from last year into 2014, with 82 percent saying they view LTE deployments as a continuing priority for mobile operators in the year ahead. What else do you think will make waves throughout 2014 and beyond? Infovista clearly sees performance-aware wireless network planning and design and subscriber-centric network optimization as critical to mobile operators' success over the next 12 months–what else do you think they should be on the lookout for to make, and not break, their businesses?
At our User Conference this past October, we asked Analysys Mason Principal Analyst Mark Mortensen and Cisco Senior Business Development Manager Bob Krentler these very questions. M2M has been buzzing for a while now, noted Mark, but he believes that 2014 will be the year mobile operators really turn a profit with the technology. Some mobile operators will even go one step further, using their core competencies as a foundation, as they branch out into new business segments, such as M2M, mobile money or security services. These specialized offerings will fuel mobile operators' growth throughout 2014, set them apart from the competition and help them penetrate new verticals.
Bob's 2014 predictions were more focused on the network itself. According to Bob, 70 percent of CIOs have no idea what's going on in their network. Luckily, in 2014, he thinks that this percentage will fall, in part, because of the rising number of communications service providers (CSPs) and enterprises leveraging real-time application and network performance data to create a more holistic view of their networks. Bob went on to say that, in 2014, businesses will increasingly operate in the cloud, making the remainder of the year an exciting time for CSPs, as operations become more efficient, and ROI is impacted as a result.
