Analysys Mason has released its predictions for telecoms, media and technology (TMT) markets in 2020, expecting revenue in the worldwide telecoms market to increase and some critical challenges for operators and vendors.
Analysys Mason predicts that much of the focus and hype in 2020 will remain on 5G across the telecoms, media and technology landscape. Analysys Mason's main predictions are as follows.
5G: Telecoms providers have upgraded networks to 5G more quickly than expected in 2019, but 'full 5G', which promises improved reliability and latency as well as speed, will be limited to pilot trials in 2020 and we are unlikely to see many radical new use cases. 5G will look more like a gradual evolution of 4G in 2020 rather than anything more revolutionary.
IoT: If government austerity programmes end, notably in the USA, UK and some other European countries, then Analysys Mason will look for signs of greater investment in widespread public sector IoT programmes that will give the technology a major boost. NB-IoT will have a make-or-break year in 2020. The networking technology should finally start to deliver, but if it does not gain traction in 2020, then operators and vendors may question whether demand will ever emerge.
Connectivity: The launch of Wi-Fi 6 will be taken as an opportunity for operators to revamp and enhance their smart/connected home services.
Gaming: 2020 will be a critical year for mobile cloud gaming, as the industry assesses whether casual gamers will want subscription-based services, and whether avid gamers will be convinced that the cloud offers the performance that they need for gameplay.
Video: New services (such as Disney+ and HBO Max) will launch in 2020, but the market is approaching saturation and consumers will start to rationalise the number of subscriptions they take. Operator strategies shift: Telecoms operators will adopt new operating models and automation technologies to cope with financial pressure and digital disruption.
Analysys Mason also anticipates that more service providers will offer software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) services. SD-WAN will move beyond early adopters to the mass market, but while operators have been in the best position to offer SD-WAN services, others (such as cyber-security and software vendors) are quickly muscling in on this area.
