In April 2022, twimbit, in partnership with F5 Networks and Kyndryl, organised the 2nd ‘Asia Pacific Telecom Summit, 2022: The Next Frontier.’
Here are the key takeaways from us at twimbit based on the conversation between speakers;
- Adam Judd – Senior Vice President of Sales Asia Pacific, Japan and China (APJC) at F5 networks,
- Susan Follis – Managing Director of Kyndryl ASEAN,
- and Manoj Menon, Managing Director and Founder of twimbit
#1 A demand for growing digital services demand puts pressure on building efficient networks for telecoms providers
- Overall, the industry has recorded a 6.4% revenue growth, the highest in the last five years. Not only this, 75% of the telcos in the region improved their EBITDA in 2021.
- Taiwan Mobile, Airtel, Globe, SK Telecom, and Softbank are some of the examples demonstrating the rapid transformation of telcos into becoming digital companies.
- As a result of increased digital services, the average data consumption per user has increased from 6GB per month pre-pandemic to 12GB per month today. Furthermore, hybrid work models will add to the increasing data consumption, increasing up to 60 GB for a single user per month by the end of the decade.
- APJC, a competitive market, is continuously under pressure to bring down the cost to serve. Because of this, there is an increased focus on network transformations enabled through software-defined architectures and open-source technology.
#2 Next-generation greenfield network infrastructure – A Rakuten Story
Open standards and automation are critical areas of the next-generation networks. Being new in the market, Rakuten had to compete and build its sustainability. However, when it came to building a modern network, Rakuten had an advantage over others since there was no legacy infrastructure present. It can build and scale services on the 4G networks within days with all the advanced network capabilities. In collaborating with F5 networks, Rakuten has moved various network functions into the container-native functions. Rakuten and its journey have made it the only one globally with an end-to-end cloud-native 5g network.
#3 Edge solutions is one of the biggest innovation opportunities for telcos heading forward
- The adoption of IoT (Internet of Things) puts heavy pressure on data volumes and network traffic. There is a demand for low latency processing and real-time automated decision-making solutions, which require data processing at the edge.
- An opportunity for telcos also exists beyond connectivity services, as telcos are able to drive managed services at the edge of the network, which would help them build a new revenue stream.
- Softbank is an example of how they plan to monetise 5G infrastructure and edge services in collaboration with F5 networks.
Amidst commoditisation, telcos are pressured to enter adjacencies and enterprise business. At the same time, increasing demand for data consumption simultaneously calls for investments into efficient networks to cater to this growing demand and improve customer experience.