2025年的电信行业：值得关注的趋势

The telecoms industry in 2025: trends to watch INSIGHT SPOTLIGHT Are you ready for 2025? We recently published our 2025 Research Themes – the big topics that will shape the industry and driveour focus throughout the year. To complement these, and help the industry navigate the year ahead,below we share our views on the key trends to watch in 2025 and what they mean for ecosystem players Fixed and pay-TVmarkets Spectrum landscape For more details on our research themes, see2025 Research Themes 5G and network transformation:five trends to watch in 2025 INSIGHT SPOTLIGHT To help navigate the year ahead, we are releasing aseries of reports that highlight the key trends to watchin 2025 and the implications for ecosystem players.The analysis covers five key areas: 5G and networktransformation; spectrum; IoT and the wider enterprise Throughout 2024, we have analysed importantdevelopments and innovation spanning all areas of thetelecoms industry and wider digital ecosystem. How willthe industry evolve in 2025? Which trends will continue Analysis 5G-Advanced: balancing use cases and deploymentaspirations 5G-Advanced, network APIs, cloud technologies, automation andAI. This might seem like a contradiction, but nearly the samenumber of operators point to open RAN as ‘very’ or ‘extremely’important year on year. Going forward, then, the challenge foroperators will be balancing open RAN interest against other, morepressing priorities. 5G-Advanced should help, as most operators The availability of 5G-Advanced standards and solutions has led todeployment announcements, with an incredible share of operatorsplanning to launch 5G-Advanced in the near term: three quartersexpect to deploy within the next two years based on our latestnetwork transformation survey. Regardless of whether supplierscould even address that demand, planned use cases will ultimatelyplay a major role in justifying investment in the technology. Security: cross-cutting implications will make it an end-to-end imperative Security is more than just a concern for open RAN deployment.The telecoms threat landscape is getting increasingly complicated,as networks are relied upon to carry mission-critical data, high-profile hacks are becoming more frequent and AI democratisationthreatens to make network attacks and end-user fraud easier toimplement. This helps to explain why end-user and networksecurity were listed as the top network-related business priority by AI use cases: internal and external tensions will continue While operators have been employing AI in their networks foryears, recent generative AI (genAI) innovation has driven arenewed focus on how AI can be used in support of strategicbusiness objectives: improving customer experience, generatingnew revenues and delivering opex and capex efficiencies. Whileoperators prioritise revenue generation and customer experience User experience: coverage and capacity might beunexciting, but will continue to matter planning/optimisation and predictive maintenance, followed byinternal software development. More reliable networks and fastersoftware development will certainly support better user experience. User experience ranked as the top criterion by which networktransformation success is measured. As to how ‘experience’ isdefined, we can look to the top capabilities deemed necessary forexecuting B2B and B2C objectives: coverage (wide-area and in-building), data speeds and network performance visibility. Againstthe backdrop of new services seen as a telco growth vector, afocus on more fundamental capabilities does suggest less of an Open RAN: momentum will continue, with 5G-Advancedkeeping it top of mind There has been noticeable momentum building for open RAN in2024, including major operator commitments and supply-chaindiversification progress on the solution supplier (e.g. Ericsson) andsilicon (e.g. Qualcomm) fronts. And yet, while our network Implications Mobile operators Network infrastructure suppliers •Don’t forget standalone –Since 5G first launched, it wasunderstood that 5G standalone (SA) would be important fordelivering on the technology’s full promise, especially insupport of B2B use cases. Deployments, however, have notmatched early expectations. Today’s focus on 5G-Advancedis encouraging; it suggests that operators understand the •Make messaging about tech maturity and integrationcapabilities –Across all priority network technologies, themost common deployment obstacles are technology maturityand integration into existing networks. For technologysuppliers, the implication is clear. As new technologies are •Moderate 6G posturing –Current operator thinking about 6Gis seemingly contradictory. On one hand, operators have highhopes for the next network generation in terms of bothdeployment timing and what they expect the technology toachieve. On the other hand, many would rather that theindustry talk less about 6G visions while 5G monetisation is •Hone 5G-Advanced use cases –Cl