Pricing

Global Pricing Trends in a New Era

At this year’s Pacific Telecommunications Council conference, I spent some time talking through TeleGeography’s latest pricing research findings and tackling the most common questions we've received over the past year.

In case you missed it, here's a recap of my Taylor Swift-themed presentation: Global Pricing Trends in a New Era.

The State of the Network in 2024

Another lap around the sun, a new TeleGeography State of the Network Report—a tradition we’ve kept since 2017.

No seven-year itch for us, though; we’re just getting started. As the world of telecommunications continues to turn, each edition brings even more to report on than the last.

Colocation Pricing Trends To Watch

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.

Beware of Deep Fake TeleGeography

The age of generative AI is certainly exciting. The ability to quickly access answers to complex questions is poised to revolutionize the world. However, with great power comes great responsibility.  

When using these tools, it’s important to be mindful of some of the risks. Deep fakes are a growing concern for society at large and may have found their way to market research.

As we mentioned earlier this year, when it comes to submarine cable facts, AI may get some stuff right, but not everything.

In fact, you may be wondering, “does this mean there’s no need to subscribe to TeleGeography research anymore?” After all, can’t you just ask your favorite AI tool—whether it’s ChatGPT, Bard, etc.—to provide you with TeleGeography data?

I thought I’d ask Bard to show me some TeleGeography data. Are the results real or deep fakes? 

Africa Update: More Cables, Less Dependency on Europe

When Senior Research Manager Patrick Christian returned to the African Peering and Interconnection Forum this year, he did not come empty-handed.

Tucked into his suitcase—or, more accurately, safely stored in the cloud—was Patrick’s keynote presentation, a brand new African Network Geography Update.

Watch the recording below to explore global network trends, African bandwidth trends, localized content growth, and end-user demand.

You’ll also hear a bit about 2Africa and what we can expect when the cable system comes online.

How the Cost of Network Ownership Can Change Over Time, Part 2

In case you missed it, we’re looking back at some previous hypothetical network scenarios to see how the cost of network ownership can change over time.

In last week’s blog, Senior Research Manager Brianna Boudreau explored our first tiered scenario, which takes a conservative approach to integrating internet services and SD-WAN into the WAN.

If you haven’t read it yet, I encourage you to start there. Brianna’s post also provides important context about our hypothetical network and baseline dual MPLS network.

For Part 2 of this analysis, I'll map out a second, less conservative tiered approach, then switch gears to our Remote Hybrid Network.

Let’s dive in.

How the Cost of Network Ownership Can Change Over Time

Enterprise customers have embraced hybrid networks that employ multiple underlay technologies combined with an SD-WAN overlay. And for good reason.

Many SaaS applications and cloud services have been optimized to work over local internet connections rather than through central internet breakouts. The integration of an SD-WAN overlay addresses many of the concerns about network performance and security that come along with incorporating internet into the WAN.

And as we detailed in our recent blog series, the DIA and broadband services included in these hybrid networks are often cheaper than MPLS–sometimes considerably so. This allows WAN managers to reduce network spend or increase their capacity while staying within the same budget.

But even after enterprise customers have undergone a network transformation, it is still imperative for them to keep tabs on the market and assess what their network should cost. Particularly if their network contract includes a benchmarking clause.

With the latest update of our enterprise port pricing, we looked back at some previous hypothetical network scenarios to see how the cost of network ownership can change over time.

Latin American Pricing Takeaways From ITW

Last month, the TeleGeography team joined scores of ICT infrastructure professionals in National Harbor, Maryland for International Telecommunications Week.

One of the many topics discussed was price erosion in Latin America. The main trend likely comes as no surprise: prices keep falling. But there is nuance to how price erosion is occurring in different markets.

Let’s explore the context in more detail.

State of the Network: Piecing Together Telecom Trends in 2023

The wait is over. The 2023 State of the Network Report is finally here and it's our sixth annual check-in on all things telecom, if you can believe it.

We again extract major global bandwidth headlines, take a snapshot of the global internet, peruse the latest in data centers, check in on the cloud, and finish with an update from the voice market.

But what’s new and different? What’s the data telling us in 2023? 

Global Pricing in Uncharted Territory

Historically, the two most predictable trends in the bandwidth market have been consistent demand growth and price erosion. But those trends have been challenged over the past few years.

Recent supply chain issues and geopolitical challenges have dramatically slowed price erosion globally. For the first time, we're asking ourselves, are prices actually increasing?