After a tumultuous 2020, in which the COVID-19 pandemic caused internet traffic patterns to shift and volumes to surge, network operators have returned to the business of adding bandwidth and engineering their traffic in a more measured manner.
The geographic coverage of carriers’ enterprise network services varies significantly. Not every carrier connects to every city in their customers’ networks, and not all services are available everywhere.
When narrowing down the universe of potential suppliers, enterprises must first consider how their geographic requirements overlap a potential service provider’s physical network. They then must determine if the specific data services they require are enabled at each of the service providers’ PoPs.
TeleGeography's WAN Services Coverage analysis—part of our Cloud and WAN Research Service—examines carrier network connectivity and service availability from a geographic perspective.
Here's a snippet of that analysis, followed by some handy definitions.
The international voice market's trajectory is down, and there's no reason to believe it's coming back.
Our recently updated TeleGeography Report and Database shows us exactly how fast traffic volumes are plummeting.
The combined effects of new internet-enabled devices, growing broadband penetration in developing markets, higher broadband access rates, and bandwidth-intensive applications will continue to fuel strong internet traffic growth.
While end-user traffic requirements will continue to rise, not all of this demand will translate directly into the need for new long-haul capacity.
A variety of factors shape how the global internet will develop in coming years.
If you want a single, simple number to identify the best-connected provider in the world, you may come away disappointed.
There are several ways to measure connectivity, and each highlights different strengths and weaknesses of a provider’s presence.
One basic metric is to count the number of unique Autonomous Systems (AS) to which a backbone provider connects, while filtering out internal company connections.
Here’s what we found.
The internet continues its return to normal—however one chooses to define this term—in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
With our newly updated Global Internet Geography Research Service,we conclude that the COVID-related expansion of internet traffic and bandwidth was largely a one-off phenomenon, and that the trends we had been observing in recent years have reasserted themselves.
International internet bandwidth and traffic growth have been gradually slowing in recent years, but they remain brisk.
Let's talk about that a bit.
Our newly updated Global Bandwidth Research Service shows that the global bandwidth market is still experiencing massive demand growth.
Between 2019 and 2021 alone, international bandwidth used by global networks doubled to reach nearly 2,900 Tbps.
So, who's driving all this demand growth for international capacity?
Not so long ago, tuning out a cacophony of ever-ringing desk phones was just part of the job for many office workers.
These days, that's no longer the norm. And it has nothing to do with the rise of wireless earbuds.
If you find yourself questioning the difference between traffic and bandwidth, here's an analogy that will help.
It's likely that you've read the news by now. Google is teaming up with Telecom Italia Sparkle and others to build and operate two submarine cable systems linking the Middle East with southern Europe and India.
The Blue cable will connect Italy, France, Greece, Israel and go terrestrially to Jordan; while the Raman cable will connect Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman, and India. Combined, they will form a major new high-capacity route linking Europe and India.
Another day, another cable announcement involving a major content provider?
Yes and no.
