Many of the telecoms trends that were making headlines in 2016 have continued to cause a stir in the first half of 2017. From the Internet of things (IoT) and security to 5G and machine learning – the industry is only set to get more interesting. And competitive. While these trends do present a multitude of opportunities, they also present a number of challenges. What we do know for sure is this: businesses that successfully leverage and tap into the latest trends are the ones that will stay ahead of their competitors.
As such, we’ve compiled a short list of the top telecoms trends you should be watching in the latter half of the year:
Fibre, fibre everywhere
A 2016 article from SEACOM outlined that South African telecoms industry is on the brink of the next wave of growth and that wave is all about fibre. To illustrate the extent of the difference between fibre and traditional copper cabling, according to the Federal Communications Commission a single copper pair conductor can carry about six phone calls, while a single fibre pair can carry more than 2.5 million phone calls. At the same time. Modern businesses can’t afford to be held back by inadequate connectivity and fibre offers the speed and reliability they need. For businesses fibre means offsite and data storage and continuous access to SaaS and IaaS offerings that truly unleash the power of the Cloud.
VOIP, SIP and Cloud PBX
When talking about Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP), it’s easy to feel like you’re drowning in confusing sea of acronyms. Here’s a quick breakdown of what SIP trunking and Cloud PBX, two telecoms trends to watch, are all about:
- SIP Trunking has emerged as a popular method of facilitating voice communications over the Internet; reducing costs and offering scalable architecture and enhanced reliability. This service requires an on-premise PBX and a gateway to connect your service provider to the PBX.
- With a hosted private branch exchange (PBX) businesses don’t have to own or maintain equipment onsite. By routing calls to extensions, using a PBX means that your VoIP service provider is in charge of maintaining all necessary equipment and software.
SD WAN and the Internet as the Network
One of the greatest challenges facing network professionals is figuring out how to provision Internet services in a secure and manageable way, guaranteeing that everyone has the best possible user experience. For many enterprises, this is problematic because their legacy networks lack the efficiency and agility to support this level of use. What SD-WAN does is deliver improved network intelligence allowing an increasingly mobile workforce to connect to Cloud-based apps and data without disruption.
Fixed Mobile Convergence
Fixed mobile convergence (FMC) has been a hot topic for sometime and is set to be the “next big thing” in communications. Basically, it refers to providing smooth connectivity between fixed and wireless networks so that a person can use one phone, moving between your house or office and everywhere else. For the enterprise, the goal of FMC is to provide employees with a single phone number for business calls, while being able to access corporate applications and data in a variety of ways, via different networks. Making it easier for staff to work without disruption, from anywhere.
Usage based Services linked with Cloud
Most companies will be paying for something via a subscription model, which offers a service for a fixed fee. While this does make it easier for a business to budget accurately, the growing popularity of usage or consumption based pricing sees telcos bill customers only for what they actually use.Not only does this reduce barriers to use and offer benefits for users with unpredictable usage habits but it also makes it easier for an enterprise to manage per-user costs, ensuring that heavy users pay for the resources they consume.
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