10 Cable, Telco Predictions for 2022: NFV, 5G, SASE, M&A and More

Carriers and channel partners will evolve the way they build and sell connectivity solutions in the new year.

2021 gave the telecom and cableco channels plenty of news, as well as questions. Telcos and cloud hyperscalers partnered closer than ever as 5G came of age, landing consistent enterprise use cases. Lumen signaled a move out of the ILEC space to focus on digital services. Moreover, the commoditization of broadband continued to present challenges for partners.

Jed Kenzy, co-founder of Innovative Business Solutions and CableFinder, said the pandemic validated the importance of connectivity. Demand rose and continues to rise for good bandwidth.

Innovative Business Solutions/CableFinder’s Jed Kenzy

“As we tend to get on less airplanes, we tend to get on more video calls. And the more video calls that you have more people on, more consistent, symmetrical bandwidth is important,” Kenzy told Channel Futures earlier this year.

But despite overwhelming demand, the connectivity market is struggling to find profitability. Brian Washburn, Omdia‘s research director of service provider enterprise and wholesale, said the rapid influx of new traffic and solutions is only helping the industry keep pace.

Omdia’s Brian Washburn

“If we’re doing so great, why are we all under so much revenue pressure and margin pressure? We’re seeing all this new opportunity, disruption and changes that are driving communications demand, and then we look at the revenues. It’s like, ‘Where’s all the money we’re supposed to be getting for this? Where’s all the high margin we deserve for the changes that are coming into our industry?’ And in the end, this is all just work the operators continue to need to do to tread water,” Washburn said.

Scroll through the 10 images above to see 10 connectivity predictions for 2022.