Entries by Michael Soper, Senior Analyst

5G will drive CSPs to adopt a new network architecture, with NFV and SDN as critical aspects

According to TBR’s 3Q19 NFV/SDN Telecom Market Landscape, 5G will push CSPs to accelerate and broaden their NFV/SDN initiatives. As such, TBR expects NFV/SDN-related spend growth will correlate with 5G deployments. Since CSPs will need to upgrade their networks from an end-to-end perspective to realize the full potential of 5G, this will naturally drive CSPs […]

Telecom vendor partners and CSP customers have nothing to fear from an IBM-owned Red Hat

TBR perspective Red Hat emphasized that its culture and approach to product development will not change with its acquisition by IBM. Red Hat underscored that it operates independently and continues to stress an open-source approach to management, application development and the strategic direction of the company. The open-source community, to which Red Hat and its […]

5G-readiness spend and webscale investment drove strong growth in deployment and professional services

5G spend was pulled forward in key markets, supporting deployment and professional services markets According to Technology Business Research, Inc.’s (TBR) 4Q18 Telecom Infrastructure Services Benchmark, operators in lead markets (U.S., China, Japan and South Korea) as well as a growing list of key operators in other developed markets have accelerated their 5G deployment timetables […]

5G-related investment fuels vendor growth; greenfield 5G and Industry 4.0 opportunities emerge

U.S. cable operators and Dish Network are exploring building out their own 5G networks Rakuten’s mobile broadband network deployment demonstrates that vendors must be aware of new opportunities to deploy 5G networks for customers that do not currently own mobile broadband networks. In November Dish Network selected Ericsson to supply a radio access and core […]

Webscale capex growth will decelerate, though dollar volume will continue to climb, as data center builds slow

According to Technology Business Research, Inc.’s (TBR) 1Q19 Webscale ICT Market Landscape, webscale ICT capex for the Super 7 will grow at an 8.1% CAGR to nearly $58 billion in 2023. Most U.S.- and China-based webscales began pulling forward significant investment in data center and network capacity in 2018, which will lead to moderating — […]

CSPs accelerate NFV and SDN investments ahead of the 5G era

Communication service providers (CSPs) are ramping up NFV- and SDN-related investments to realize greater cost savings and efficiencies, according to Technology Business Research Inc.’s (TBR) 2H18 Telecom Software Mediated Networks (NFV/SDN) Customer Adoption Study. This increase in investment will be driven by two underlying factors: CSPs under pressure to realize cost savings as their connectivity […]

5G-readiness spend and migration to new network architectures spur the TIS market to growth in 3Q18

According to Technology Business Research, Inc.’s (TBR) 3Q18 Telecom Infrastructure Services (TIS) Benchmark, the TIS market grew as communication service provider (CSP) investment in areas tied to 5G-readiness increased. CSPs are rearchitecting their networks leveraging NFV, SDN and the cloud as well as implementing new business models, which requires growing spend across a broad range […]

U.S. 5G investment supports non-China-based vendors as Huawei and ZTE face increasing headwinds

Nokia and Huawei are well-positioned to win as operators overhaul architectures in the 5G era, but most of the spend to date is on 5G radios, with Ericsson at an advantage due to market perception of its software-upgradeable Ericsson Radio System RAN. The network must ultimately be overhauled to fully realize 5G’s potential, but it […]

Red Hat can save CSPs from themselves

TBR perspective Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) is inarguably the leading open source company, with revenues far outpacing those of open source-centric competitors, such as Canonical, which only recently began taking monetization seriously. Red Hat’s solutions are pervasive in the market, with the company counting over 90% of the Fortune 500 as customers. Red Hat executives […]

Telecom vendor revenues trend upward as operators pull forward 5G investment

According to Technology Business Research, Inc.’s (TBR) 2Q18 Telecom Vendor Benchmark, revenue growth improved for the largest vendors as they capitalized on early 5G investment but saw reduced spend in China. Operators, particularly those in the United States, are pulling forward investment in 5G and deploying small cells to densify networks. However, the RAN market […]