Demand for effective telecom service assurance to increase

Pandemic's effect on telecom industry

The telecommunications industry has managed to stand out as one of the few sectors that has economically benefited from the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, the pandemic has highlighted the critical role telecom plays in keeping governments, businesses and societies running and connected.

The socioeconomic disruption caused by the pandemic has pushed people to rely on technology -- especially telecom services -- to social distance, gather information, work remotely and automate tasks.

Per the 2020 World Economic Forum "The Future of Jobs Report," the pandemic sped up the rate of automation across a plethora of industry verticals. Approximately 43% of businesses said they will reduce their workforce following technology integration. This trend will open a trove of opportunities for the telecom service assurance market for the long term.

5G: A look toward future avenues

As businesses embark on their digital transformation journeys, the demand for 5G telecommunication services will become more apparent than ever. However, the goal of delivering ubiquitous ultra-high-speed wireless broadband stays unfulfilled for much of the globe.

Cellular service providers are aware that the only thing worse than not delivering 5G is delivering poor-quality 5G. Offering poor service essentially leads to broken contracts, loss of customers and irreversible damage to their brands.

Low latency and a reliance of 5G on edge devices mean cellular networks are much less fault-tolerant than legacy wireless networks. Service providers must ensure appropriate presence of personnel, platforms and processes to respond to outages quickly and maintain high service quality.

Many industry players are now focusing on the rollout of innovative plans. For example, in 2020, Nokia introduced cloud-native software that helps cellular service providers run their respective networks more effectively and efficiently, all while driving novel revenue opportunities.

Today, smart homes and buildings, factories, stadiums, vehicles, cities and many other compelling use cases are all awaiting the arrival of the substantial bandwidth increases that only 5G can deliver.

IoT: A future realized through 5G

Market projections indicate that 5G applications within the field of manufacturing will add $134 billion to the world's gross domestic product by the end of 2030. Experts also predicted the overall number of IoT devices, connected through 5G, will increase to more than 70 billion by the end of 2025, primarily by industrial applications.

5G delivers a host of benefits to IoT that are not available with legacy 4G or any other previous generation of cellular technology. These benefits include the ability for 5G to support an immense number of mobile and static IoT devices with a varied range of bandwidth, speed and quality of service requirements. With more industries looking toward digitalization and process automation in places like factory floors, the telecom service assurance market is looking at a lucrative revenue stream when facing the budding IoT sector.

Mobile: A vast revenue source

A significant and continued expansion of the global mobile broadband network has developed over the last decade, with the coverage gap falling from 10% to 7% of the global population. That percentage represents approximately under 600 million individuals.

While it may seem that mobile services reached their limits with advancements in mobile broadband adoption and deployment, the appearance is far from reality. Industry projections estimated that billions of people across the globe still face considerable difficulties getting online.

In fact, GSMA reported more than 3.4 billion people are still not using the internet, despite living in an area that is covered by a mobile broadband network. This number makes up almost 50% of the world's population, creating a phenomenon known as the usage gap.

Experts predicted the pursuit to close this usage gap will become one of the strongest driving factors for telecommunications service assurance industry growth. Service providers are investing heavily in initiatives to overcome the barriers hampering internet adoption.

Service assurance market growth

The telecom service assurance market is expected to experience transformative growth in the years to come. As the technologies shaping the market continue to evolve, the sector is likely to become an integral part of everyday connected life.

Akshay Kedari

About the author
Akshay Kedari is team lead of content at Global Market Insights Inc. He is a computer engineering graduate with experience in web development and a passion for content creation. He writes pieces that focus on technology and business industries.