By any measure, the global bandwidth market is thriving. International bandwidth demand has nearly doubled from 2020 to 2022, and has now reached 3.8 Pbps.
Meanwhile, the lit capacity on major submarine cable routes continues to soar, keeping pace with demand.
How? Is the network getting faster?
Not quite. Think bigger highway, not faster cars.
The year 2014 represents the peak for international voice traffic. International call minutes declined the following year, for the first time since the Great Depression—and it's been downhill ever since.
French telco group Iliad has submitted a proposal to UK-based Vodafone Group regarding the potential merger of their respective operations in Italy.
If successful, the merger will have a big impact on the Italian mobile market, reducing it from five players to four, while also combining the fixed broadband operations of the two companies.
The deal is by no means guaranteed to go through, however. Even if Vodafone’s response is positive, regulatory authorities must then study its effects on competition.
As another eventful year draws to a close, we’re looking back at the telecom stories that captured our readers’ attention throughout 2023.
With 5G rollouts, satellite broadband, SIM card registration and mega-mergers all on the agenda, the CommsUpdate team left no stone unturned in their quest to bring you the biggest daily news stories from around the world.
Read on for our most popular stories of 2023.
The pressures of supply chain disruptions, electricity price volatility, and government intervention are impacting prices in the global colocation market.
As we continue to move through 2023, here are a couple of trends to keep an eye on.
If you’ve checked out our International Voice Report, you probably noticed that the data carefully distinguishes between retail and wholesale traffic, and between wholesale and direct traffic.
What's the difference?
By our 2023 estimates, the Washington metropolitan area—or more specifically Northern Virginia (NoVA)—dominates as the world's largest data center market.
With more than 22 million square feet of operational capacity, NoVA is 30% larger than the next-biggest data center hub, Tokyo.
What else does the most recent update to our Data Center Research Service tell us?
Recently, we’ve been closely monitoring the intensifying pressures of insatiable demand and supply constraints in key data center markets.
Supply constraints have come in the form of both short-term and long-term challenges.
In the short term, supply chain disruptions have hindered development timelines. On the long-term side, regulators and utility providers have begun taking a hard look at the data center sector and how to grow it sustainably going forward. In some cases, these entities have severely disrupted development during the interim period.
None of these challenges have been resolved. And as we move through 2023, another major disruptive component has been added to the mix—the accelerated growth of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Wouldn't it be great to be fully retired before your 30th birthday?
Because they are engineered with a minimum design life of 25 years, it's common for the submarine cables that keep our world connected to experience this luxury.
Let’s talk about why, and what happens to cables after they reach retirement age.
Brazil’s multi-band 5G spectrum auction drew to a close in November 2021, generating total commitments of BRL47.2 billion ($8.5 billion).
The auction process attracted bids from a mixture of major players like Telefonica Brasil (Vivo), Claro Brasil, and TIM Brasil, established regional players such as Algar Telecom and Sercomtel, and a number of lesser-known participants.
Two years later, we examine the respective progress of Brazil’s 5G licensees.
