U.S. wireless companies — AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., T-Mobile US Inc. and DISH Network Corp. — collectively spent nearly $100 billion on new spectrum for 5G, according to S&P Global. Around the world, the number surely grows much higher. And then there’s the debt. AT&T’s total current liabilities and long-term debt grew from $217 billion at the end of 2020 to $238 billion by the end of 2021. Verizon’s total debt grew nearly $30 billion during the same time period.
Now What?
Nokia commissioned Analysys Mason to survey 100 communication service providers (CSPs) around the world that raised some red flags. “The Path to Success 5G Monetization” found that only 11 percent of CSPs have sufficient Business Support Systems (BSS) in place for effective 5G monetization. “Most Service Providers are ill-prepared to effectively engage and monetize emerging 5G-enabled use cases and need to urgently transform their BSS,” John Abraham, Principal Analyst at Analysys Mason said.
Now to Monetize
To generate returns beyond the traditional 3G/4G data plans, CSPs and enterprises need to modernize their legacy monetization systems, with new service offerings and application development ecosystems, according to the report.
“New monetization systems that enable operators to deliver new services, like slicing, faster and at scale are a critical enabler of helping CSPs and enterprises realize faster returns on their network investments,” the report said.
Nearly 70 percent of CSPs are looking at cloud-based monetization, according to the Analysis Mason, allowing limitless scalability for launching AI, analytics, and edge computing capabilities for ultra-low latency use cases, as well as Network-as-a-Service (NaaS).
“We found that enterprise services will be key revenue growth areas going forward with the top two 5G services being enterprise IoT services and NaaS slicing services,” the report said. “This is followed by media and entertainment to form a consistent top four across regions and tiers.”
By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
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