TBR Insights Live session, TBR Telecom Principal Analyst Chris Antlitz shares an in-depth review of our 2026 Telecom Predictions special report, Telecom Industry Will Adapt to K-shaped Economy in 2026. This session examines what the K-shaped economy means for communication service provider (CSP) balance sheets, customer behavior and competitive strategy, and how scaled providers can adjust to protect growth and margins.
The mobile industry continues to beat the drum for more spectrum, but it should instead focus on fully utilizing the spectrum already allocated. TBR notes there are vast tranches of spectrum in the U.S. market that are broadly underutilized, either for technical or economic reasons. And challenges will only worsen as the industry aims to bring upper midband frequencies into the fray, which have greater propagation challenges and are less suited for macro coverage.
The U.S. needs to do a better job, guided by government institutions like the Federal Communications Commission, of utilizing Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS), C-Band, 6GHz and mmWave bands, which are woefully underutilized today. For example, only a relatively small portion of midband spectrum has been deployed in the U.S. market to date, implying that well over half of it has not yet been put to use. (CSPs are either sitting on it or hoarding it.)
Most 4G and 5G network traffic in the U.S. today runs over low bands, such as 600MHz to 800MHz, and the lower midband (1GHz to 2.6GHz, especially 2.5GHz), with C-Band increasing but still far from its full utilization potential. MmWave bands hold promise, but for economic and technical reasons, they were used only in very specific situations, mostly for LAN capacity.
Additionally, spectrum warehousing entities like EchoStar (which recently reluctantly agreed to sell a portion of its vast spectrum holdings to Starlink and AT&T) and private equities are still sitting on large tranches of unused spectrum. The government should redirect its efforts toward addressing these market dislocations rather than straining to bring new spectrum to a market that might not even be used (case in point, CBRS). This should be a mandatory government push because dislocations created by negative externalities of capitalism threaten to keep the U.S. behind China in key technological domains; specifically, corporations with a scarcity mindset are hoarding, but not necessarily using, the spectrum resources they have. The U.S. is already behind China across several key technologies (e.g., 5G, hypersonic missiles, electric batteries and vehicles, rare earth element processing). It is unacceptable for the U.S. to fall behind on 6G as well.
Explore TBR’s 2026 predictions for the telecom industry in our latest special report, Telecom Industry Will Adapt to K-shaped Economy in 2026.
2026 will be a transitional year defined by technology ecosystem expansions — multiparty alliances spanning IT, OT, devices, edge and silicon; industrial/physical AI acceleration, especially at the edge and in manufacturing; and strategic bottlenecks as skill shortages and infrastructure gaps slow sovereign AI adoption. TBR expects significant changes in how technology vendors collaborate and compete, which lays the groundwork for broader, more integrated AI ecosystems. This is an optimistic prediction. Multiparty alliances require exceptional leadership, shared understanding of commercial models and transparency among partners, and AI aids only the last of these. The human component remains the most significant roadblock. IT-OT convergence and a surge in connected everything have been a TBR (and broader market) prediction for years, and while “signs point to yes,” as the Magic 8 Ball says, 2026 could be another year of disappointing progress, as hype around physical AI could far outpace reality.
The smartest IT services companies and consultancies will act on managed services as an entrée to consulting, a complete reversal of the traditional consulting to implementation to managed services model. Everyone should benefit from the increased demand for consulting in 2026. Still, most of the top IT services companies and consultancies will leverage their managed services relationships to capture new opportunities and further cement their stickiness with clients.
Today, SaaS is far from dead, but it has reached an unmistakable inflection point. The model that reshaped enterprise software over the last 20 years has reached maturity just as a new layer of intelligence is forming above it. The result is a market that still depends on SaaS but no longer treats it as the strategic center of gravity. What once looked like a stable, compounding growth engine now looks more like baseline infrastructure supporting a different kind of workflow. As a result of this shift, the market is wondering whether SaaS applications will continue to define enterprise workflows or whether that role is shifting to AI-native platforms and agentic systems.
The K-shaped economy that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic will likely become more pronounced through 2026, and the telecom industry will need to adapt to this new economic reality. Based on balance-sheet strength, earnings power, and real, inflation-adjusted wage growth and revenue increases, as well as a host of other economic KPIs, the top 10% to 20% of households and businesses are doing exceptionally well financially (on average) while the bottom 80% to 90% of households and businesses are doing worse financially (on average) compared to historical metrics. In 2026 communication service providers (CSPs) will need to cater better to each arm of the “K” and better navigate the negative aspects of this ongoing economic situation.
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