Well attended opening sessions
The event covers the entire market sector, from large providers such as Vodafone and VirginMediaO2, through the Altnet sector and also to local government. After many conversations and presentations, in the commercial sector at least, two clear themes emerged.
The industry is getting desperate to find ways to grow. There is growth, but the wrong type! Customer data is increasing ~20% YoY, which of course leads to cost growth. The vendor community is continually trying to improve the cost profile of its solutions, but the industry as a whole is suffering.
Unsurprisingly, the event lacked presence from any of the large traffic generators such as TikTok, Meta, Netflix and Google. These are increasingly seen as unfairly benefiting from a free ride on the Service Providers networks, which is unsustainable.
Private conversations revealed some active plans to try to correct this imbalance, but also an acknowledgement that any changes are going to be hard won.
Stock price trends: EU-based service providers v US-based content providers.
For the industry as a whole, fair share is seen as the critical issue to help better balance the commercial landscape.
Adjacent discussions were centred around the impact of social media on the mental health of young minds. Recent developments, such as the Australian government’s restrictions are provoking discussions. Expect to see more restrictions or consumer offers in this area.
Further down the market scale, much of the Altnet community is starting to shift focus from network build out, to subscriber onboarding. The higher interest rate environment means increased borrowing costs and a greater need for cash flow.
Many Altnets are urgently looking at building new consumer and business offerings, to add value and improve retention. Overall, there appears to be a much greater focus on subscribers and revenue growth than recent years.
The second major theme can be summarised as being the acknowledgement that most people don’t understand what a “Mbps” is. Moreover, they don’t really care. Again and again, we heard people stating that their focus will shift to a better understanding and delivery of the user experience.
Altnets in particular understand that they are well placed, due to a lack of legacy infrastructure, to put in place tools and offers that will help them win market share. The legacy KPIs of packetloss, latency and jitter are not cutting it anymore. What is expected are more advanced, user experience focused KPIs. These should enable service-based subscriber plans.
Expect to see some innovative Service quality focused subscriber plans, rather than the “arms race” of ever higher speed-based plans.
Of course there was much more besides these two mega themes, but there was a general agreement that without growth and a focus on the User Experience, the industry sector as a whole will continue to struggle.
See you at Connected Britain 2025!