QoE regulations, IoT security challenges and the expansion of zero-rated data services set for 2017.
Editor’s Note: With 2017 now upon us, RCR Wireless News has gathered predictions from across the mobile telecommunications space on what they expect to see in the new year.
Telecom regulators will focus on network quality
Both the Federal Communications Commission in the U.S. and the Body of the European Regulators of Electronic Communications in Europe have issued guidance that asks telecommunication operators to detail the actual quality of experience delivered to subscribers on their networks – including throughput, latency and packet loss for all service plans.
Consumers are becoming more sophisticated in how they use broadband and more sensitive to network disruption as a result, especially if it leads to slow social networking, stuttering video streaming or laggy gaming. In 2017, as more and more consumers rely exclusively on their broadband connections for video and voice services, regulators will go a step further and be pulled into mandating quality measurements for operators.
IoT security issues will continue to steal headlines
In 2017, the well-publicized issues with security on “internet of things” devices will cause more problems on broadband networks. The Dyn attack that was primarily powered by hacked cameras is a sign of things to come. These attacks will continue to grow in size and the sheer number of IoT devices being used will amplify the attack power to terabits per second of capacity. It’s going to become essential for operators to mitigate with fine-grained filtering and rate limiting of attack traffic in order to differentiate their service offerings and keep subscribers happy.
Zero rate will proliferate
T-Mobile US delivered a blueprint for mobile differentiation that’s resulted in impressive subscriber growth in the U.S. In 2017, other disruptive mobile operators are likely to follow suit in an attempt to emulate this recipe for success – as long as local regulators don’t forbid it.
However, to make this a reality, operators also need to understand what applications would deliver the greatest perceived value to their subscribers and how their network would cope with increased volume for zero-rated application and content.
Virtualization will get some big deployment wins
Operators worldwide are working to virtualize their infrastructure. There are already some live virtual deployments, but they are not at the scale many operators hoped for.
In 2017, we will see high-profile deployments that begin to reap the benefits of virtualization as vendor solutions become more mature, deliver scalability and get “good enough” orchestration to roll out services.
Big data analytics will bolster strategic decision-making
As growth and revenue has flattened out, telecoms operators around the world are digging deeper to improve their bottom line and meet business goals. They’re beginning to learn how to leverage the vast sets of information they now have. This will impact every area of telecom business, including the network, where intelligence about subscriber behavior and network performance will be more heavily relied upon for network and operational goals and investment decisions.
