To be in the telecommunication industry is to ever be following the media consumption habits and inclinations of your target customers, and now more than ever those habits are on the verge of some big changes. Between the vast revenue awaiting in the metaverse and the ongoing development of 5G capabilities, customers will soon have far more available on far more platforms. And telco companies need to be at the forefront of how those customers access it all. 

We kicked off 2023 with a series of trend-predicting and target focus areas for every industry. In the telecom space, these trends included advertisers and consumers flocking to the metaverse, the advent of a decentralized internet, and the convergence of broadband and wireless markets. Let’s check in on what’s developed halfway through the year in each area:

Advertising and consumers moving to the metaverse

As we said at the start of this year, the metaverse is still in its infancy, but excitement and high expectations for how it will fundamentally change business as we know it is building constantly. Target telecom consumers and, thus, advertisers to those consumers will gradually begin flocking to the metaverse, their eyeballs literally glued to whatever businesses get to the empty metaverse ad space first. Estimates currently suggest that anywhere from five to twenty percent of telco and consumer good revenue could come from the metaverse by 2030, a short seven years from now. The telco and media companies that can first master and prepare a strategy for this new revenue stream will be the best equipped to reign supreme when competing in this new space. 

There will be new ways to monetize content and generate revenue for telco and media companies in the metaverse, so preparing the content strategies best fit for the all-encompassing experience consumers have in the metaverse is a top priority while we remain in beta mode. Simulations of real-world experiences, placing the consumer IN the content to interact in new ways with their favorite media, and more prototypes are blossoming. Is your organization prepared to compete?

Decentralized internet

The democratization of the internet is a huge event for telco companies to care about. Driven by an infrastructure of blockchain and token-based economics, web3 promises to bring about a major power transformation in how users create, access, and interact with web content. 

Telecom companies must prepare for the small, elite few companies controlling the internet in a few major hands to have far more competition. There will be more players, more connection points, and even more networks to serve customers according to web3. That means more integration points, more nuances in the typical customer’s telco needs, and more customized experiences that must be delivered to every individual to keep business booming. 

Broadband and wireless markets converging

Finally, telco companies are already in the midst of the third main trend for 2023: convergence. Broadband and wireless providers are no longer the distinct entities they so often were, and instead, these companies are acquiring or merging together to form more comprehensive coverage offerings for their customers. The latest in 5G standards is also speeding up convergence as it allows operators more flexibility and options when it comes to making use of existing network assets as well as opening new ones. With this extended toolkit in hand, telcos can get excited about the wider breadth of possibilities in the future, but they must also be prepared to potentially merge their services with other companies if their capabilities simply aren’t comprehensive enough to compete in this changing space. 

Simplus has worked with leading telecommunications companies to manage trends, separate the fads from the real impacts, and strategize on cloud-based technical architectures primed for a scalable future. We’d love to work with you next. Reach out today to learn more about our service offerings and industry-focused capabilities.