Operational efficiency and cost saving are increasingly pushed to the forefront as Communication Service Providers (CSPs) continue to grapple with increasing operational costs due to the growing energy crisis and the continued inflation.

Meanwhile, as the demand for future generation services and capacity continues to grow, so do the investments CSPs make in the next phase of 5G. To this end, network automation and AI play a key role in driving new revenue streams, enhancing go-to-market strategies, and ensuring network security.

As such, in February 2023 Telecoms.com Intelligence conducted a survey in collaboration with Resolve.io to review the top trends that will define the next 12 months in telecom operations. Aiming to discover what the industry is prioritising as they look ahead to the coming year, the survey investigated key business challenges, the role of automation in the most critical telco business areas, as well as the state of play on the journey towards implementing network automation.

Here are some of the key findings from the survey:

• 5G and network automation are the top priority investment areas for the respondents in 2023
• Service diversification and VAS come up as the top two trends respondents expect to see in telecom operations this year
• Lack of business agility to quickly adapt to macro-economic changes are holding telcos back from innovating their operations, according to more than half of respondents
• Around a third of respondents believe 5G core and leadership in network slicing are the most critical business area for telcos to automate this year
• Nearly four in five respondents have already attributed some degree of priority to network automation, including a fifth who have already implemented it.

Source: telecoms.com