The carrier guide to 2024

This article was originally published by SubTel Forum Magazine (issue 134)

According to the Chinese Zodiac, 2024 is the Year of the Dragon. In Chinese culture, dragons are considered powerful, endlessly energetic, and full of vitality. They are goal-oriented yet idealistic and romantic at the same time. In everything that they do, they strive for the highest standards and always do their best.

In many ways, I can’t help thinking that these are the characteristics of most telecom companies in our industry. If you do not perform to the best of your ability, you risk falling behind and someone else will take your place. There are few signs that the current climate of high inflation, geopolitical tension, and war in Europe is going to change anytime soon. To navigate these choppy waters, this means everyone must remain on their toes and be at the top of their game. Despite the challenges, traffic continues to grow, and some promising new technologies are starting to mature.

In keeping with our traditional ‘Top 3’ predictions for the year ahead, here are a few thoughts for 2024.

Top 3 global carrier industry trends

• The global Internet is more important than ever. Greater geopolitical tension means that we’ll need to work harder than ever to preserve the global Internet as the universal platform it was originally intended – where anything, anywhere is connected to everything, everywhere. More than ever and in a period of war and political turmoil, we need to protect the flow of reliable and honest information. Despite many challenges and threats to its integrity, the public Internet still provides a platform where information is freely available. And as the ‘splinternet’ and other restrictive mechanisms for controlling traffic threaten the integrity of an open Internet, it is ultimately still the best platform for global communication – and will be for many years to come. Keeping a free and open global Internet up and running will be priority #1 in 2024.
• The fine balance between security and transparency. 2023 saw several acts of sabotage on telecom infrastructure and it is unlikely this won’t happen again in 2024. The telecom sector has previously been very generous with sharing maps of its infrastructure and providing information about important connections points between networks. While this transparency has generally been in everyone’s best interests, we need to take a long hard look to see whether there are other, more secure ways of sharing this information. To limit outages and damage to critical infrastructure, fishermen will still need to know where communication cables are, but not at the expense of national security.
• Ongoing economic challenges. The telecom industry will continue to face some tough economic challenges in 2024 – fueled by high interest rates, sustained inflation and ongoing geopolitical tensions. Most carriers will need to speed up their automation journeys, find new ways of running their networks and of course better ways to take care of their customers. Off-shoring, near-shoring, outsourcing, and insourcing are just examples of strategies that need to be given further consideration in 2024. In short, a lot more automation and closer collaboration will be the keys to success in 2024.

Top 3 technology and traffic trends

• Further optical innovation despite Shannon’s limitations. Historically, some carriers have resisted the move towards open optical networking, while others have welcomed it with open arms. This reluctance is understandable because transforming network infrastructure is seldom difficult, but often necessary. Shannon’s limit dictates the absolute limit on how much traffic can be transmitted across a fiberoptic cable. Although we have essentially reached this point already, optical vendors are still striving to find new ways to get the most out of every strand of fiber; Using both the C-band and L-bands, developing new types of fiber, and decreasing the power draw of every component are just a few ways hardware vendors can help carriers run their networks as efficiently as possible. 2024 will only bring further progress…
• AI for everything. The automation of provisioning and everything else in the service assurance wrap is nothing new. Operators have been working on this for many, many years. However, the telecom industry is still far too reliant on manual work. With recent developments In Artificial Intelligence, hopefully this will now finally change. Repetitive tasks can be replaced by AI applications such as ChatGPT – to both speed up the workflows and increase service accuracy, by limiting the scope for human error. When there is enough data, AI can do miracles and 2024 will be the year when AI enters the main telecom stage.
• Internet traffic patterns will be redefined. Looking at the 24-hour traffic curve, public Internet traffic distribution has remained largely unchanged for many years. The largest traffic peak is in the evening when people return home from work to play online games or stream videos. However, with the emergence of AI this is set to change. Model training and generative AI have the potential to generate enormous traffic peaks between datacenters at any given time of the day. Much of this traffic will be carried across private lines within operator networks, but inevitably, some will reach the public Internet. Exactly how this will evolve in 2024 is up for debate, but AI will certainly bring new traffic peaks at times we don’t expect it today.

Top 3 telecom dreams

• Teleported technicians. Finding and retaining good field service technicians is not an easy feat. As networks grow, the sheer number of components increases the potential for failure in the network. At the same time, customers are becoming less tolerant of outages and they expect maximum service uptime. More gear in more sites, combined with a shrinking workforce of field technicians is a recipe for trouble. Teleportation would immediately solve this problem. A single technician could repair a fiber cable in the mountains, change a transponder in the harbor and then repair a router in a major city within the space of a couple of hours. And still have time to read homework with the kids the same evening. It might just be a dream, but carriers will continue to do their best to shorten repair times in 2024.
• Indestructible fiber cables. For some reason it seems that knowing exactly where fiber cables lie is one of the few things the telecom industry cannot fully control. Every week, there are cables cuts for a whole variety of reasons, and unbreakable fiber cable would spare us a lot of unnecessary downtime – and billions of dollars as well. The digger driver who unwittingly hits a cable with his bucket would see it, carefully move it away, and continue with the task at hand, without the NOC turning red. Everyone would be happy. Unfortunately, this is merely a pipedream, and we will be forced to repair many more fiber cables during 2024, simply because those that need to know don’t know where they are. As an industry we just need to get better at this.
• Telecom equipment without external power. With energy supplies still volatile and pricing still comparatively high, one big telecom dream would be network equipment that could operate indefinitely, without the need for external power. While the industry is good at finding new ways of reducing the power draw in legacy networks and new installations, this is still one of the biggest operator challenges. Energy costs still represent a fair share of carrier OPEX and until we have gear that runs on air alone, this will continue to be a challenge throughout 2024.

Top 3 disruptive technologies

• ZRx. IPoDWDM has really changed the way carriers approach network design – both in long-haul and metro/regional segments. By removing the entire transport layer (DWDM) between routers, the future cost of operating an IP-based network is drastically reduced. Both in terms of CAPEX investment, and lower running costs. Of course, mixing boxes that previously worked happily on their increases operational complexity and new management system challenges, but this will forever change the way networks are built and operated. Pluggable optics are the biggest game-changer we’ve seen in a very long time.
• FWA. When it comes to throughput and reliability, there is no doubt that fiber technology is superior to wireless, but it is also no secret that fiber installation is often a very costly and time-consuming exercise. This is where Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) Technology comes into play. 50% of the world’s population is still waiting for reliable broadband access, and with 5G now being widelyrolled out, this technology will be the first (and perhaps only) choice in many parts of the world during 2024.
• Quantum Networking. While general adoption of this technology is still at least 10 years away, there are already small signs of its promise. It is debatable whether quantum networking would really work for transporting 1s and 0s in fiber cables like we do today, but the hype around this will only increase during 2024. Quantum Key Distribution and a few other services are already here, but it is not until we can transport quantum traffic over longer distances that the real paradigm shift will take place. It will not happen in 2024, but we will certainly see some exciting developments in the coming year. Watch this space!

Top 3 things your employees need to deliver a total customer experience

• A common system for customer quotes. Consider an enterprise customer who would like to connect their HQ with their branch offices, their manufacturing plant and the 3 data centers they use for data storage. They are not really sure about what they need but want to see offers for different bandwidth and traffic routing options. In addition, their Finance department would like to consider different contractual terms. An initial proposal would probably be a combination of 15 different local operator quotes, 60 different routing scenarios, 3 different bandwidth options and 4 different contracts. For most carriers this is still handled manually. The carriers that handle this the best will come out on top.
• A universal trouble-ticketing system. Most carriers still manage their platforms separately, whether it is fiber, DWDM or IP. At the same time, they provide multiple customer services on these platforms in parallel. A fiber outage will in most cases affect all customers, and as such, there is a need for an intelligent trouble-ticketing tool that can provide relevant and accurate information to all affected customers – on an individual basis, quickly and with the greatest possible transparency. Unfortunately, most Carriers still cut and paste between different management systems simply to provide basic outage information to their customers. The carriers that get this under control will be well-placed to provide the best customer experience in 2024.
• An online portal that just works. Whilst our industry has put in a lot of effort to reduce manual workloads, some things still need the human touch. There is of course much that a carrier could replace with a great online experience using the latest API features. We all have data pouring out of our systems, and by sharing more with our customers, they benefit from greater transparency and gain more trust in us. However, relationships are important and we should of course intervene when necessary, but for everything else, the data should be at the customer’s fingertips.

Top 3 unsung heroes

• The Service Migrator. From time to time, there is a need to move a box from one site to another – for many reasons. Sometimes, an entire PoP needs to be moved to a new location and thousands of services with live customers might need migrating on many dark nights. And with a network that never sleeps, and customers who suffer from every service interruption, the Service Migrator needs to strike a fine balance between time, cost, and customer expectations. In an ever-changing environment, where networks grow larger by the day, these tasks will become more important than ever.
• The ocean controller. With Governments around the world waking up to the vital importance of underwater infrastructure, we have seen some new protective initiatives in different parts of the world – including navy patrols in areas where subsea cables carry critical traffic. Incredibly long cables and a myriad of slow-moving ships make for an extremely complex environment to monitor. The people who look tirelessly in all directions for anomalies on the ocean surface deserve our respect and admiration. Let’s hope the odd whale or two brightens up their day.
• The office mover. After the pandemic, most companies in the telecom industry quickly realized that hybrid working is the way forward: some time in the office and some time working from home. This led to half-empty offices most days and the need for most companies to find smaller offices for their staff. While moving is nothing new, we need to recognize the people who spend their time choosing new furniture, designing new meeting rooms and installing new coffee machines in the hope that more people want to spend at least some of their time back in the office.

Predictions are, of course, just predictions, and we wish everyone in the telecom ecosystem – from our business partners in the network, to end-users and everyone in between, a brighter year ahead, with health and prosperity. One thing is certain, 2024 will be a year filled with excitement and change, but as we always say here at Arelion, “You can’t predict the future, but you can be ready!”

Mattias Fridström, Chief Evangelist