Telecoms.com Intelligence Annual Industry Survey 2015

Building on the industry insight we’ve been growing since 2013, the 2015 Telecoms.com Intelligence Annual Industry Survey garnered responses from 2,066 professionals from all parts of the telecoms sector. This is a substantial representation of today’s industry, with more than half of all responses coming directly from service providers, and represents one of the industry’s broadest and most comprehensive analysis pieces available today. 

Surprises and contradictions are what one tends to look for when examining the results of surveys such as this and there were several that stood out. Take multiplay, for example, where the trend’s early movements came from fixed-line and internet service providers adding TV offerings to its portfolio. Surprisingly, the majority of respondents (60%) believe it will indeed by mobile operators who are in the strongest competitive position to move towards multiplay.

But clearly identified by operator respondents as the biggest challenge facing operators over the next five years was competitive pressure between operators (64%), swiftly followed up by competitive pressure faced by OTT content providers. Compared to last year, when the majority of respondents saw regulatory pressure on pricing as the biggest challenge facing the industry, this marks a substantial shift in mind-set sweeping across the industry.

The survey was wide-ranging in scope. We asked the industry about operators’ BSS strategies, the ongoing mission of deploying and expanding LTE networks, the move towards NFV and SDN-based network management, and telco network security among other issues. The benefits and challenges associated with each of these areas of operator focus emerged clearly, with network performance and quality of service for customers among the dominant concerns throughout.