Economically speaking, we’re still not out of the woods, Stateside, but telecoms has been (thankfully) stable. This year, our sizing and share analysis shows the total market for US telecoms voice and data revenue grew by approximately $2 billion – enough to nearly cover 2009’s declines. Here are some snippets from our trend analysis:
- Exuberance for Ethernet: Wholesale revenue growth will be driven by Ethernet backhaul demand.
- Offering everything “as a service”: As-a-service marketing will colour all business offerings, with cloud versions driving greater data sales.
- Domination by data: Demand for colo and data centre space with connectivity will continue to grow, but beware of overinvestment in some markets, as well as being wary of lower-cost alternatives.
- 4G is coming: A tight 4G definition has yet to emerge, suggesting potential overhype, but it falls squarely within a market hungry for ever faster connections.
- Enterprising tablets: New competition in tablet computers, such as iPad and Galaxy, will move deeper into the enterprise space, generating cloud and network opportunities.
- Emerging e-medicine: Looking for growing markets? E-medicine requires information, sometimes as desperately as the financial industry, with some of the same hunger for low latency.
- Soaring cable business revenue: Cox and Comcast joined Time Warner Cable in passing $1 billion in business services revenue for 2010. The growing share of cable companies will come at the expense of CLECs and traditional telcos.
- Social networking invasion: Seemingly endless social networking extensions are driving data demand and creating business models that could threaten even the likes of Google.
- Shifting equilibrium from heavy users: Wireless players will make use of tiered data plans to use available bandwidth.
- Peering and policy battles: Pervasive video will keep peering disputes ongoing. The FCC continues to search for middle ground on net neutrality and hopes to revamp regulations this year.
These trends make up the paradigm shift towards more data, more IP, more mobile and the behavioural ecosystem shifting with the technologies. The winning companies in the past decade were those ready to predict, prepare and respond to new realities. We wish the best to you all for success in the new realities of 2011.
Judy Reed Smith is CEO of Atlantic-ACM. She can be contacted at: judyrsmith@atlantic-acm.com
