Until 2015, international carrier voice traffic had increased in each of the previous 60 years.
In each of the past four years, paid call volumes have slumped, with no end in sight. International carriers had already suffered from revenue stagnation due to slow traffic growth and falling prices.
The unprecedented occasion of outright traffic decline, however, marked a new and depressing turning point. In reviewing developments from the past year, three major trends stand out.
More so than normal, our team is thrilled to usher in a new year.
Sure, that’s in part because a new year signals the release of our fourth State of the Network Report—and with it a new batch of data and analysis on the way the world is connecting. But mostly because 2020 presented a unique set of challenges to the world, our industry, and our team.
Global infrastructure company Telxius wants to sell its subsea cable business.
The announcement comes as Telxius majority shareholder Telefónica continues to restructure.
Telefónica has moved out of Central American markets en masse, created new technology and infrastructure units, and, in November 2019, announced an action plan outlining priorities for the changing company.
As network requirements balloon, global IP transit prices continue to decline. Even in the face of a global pandemic.
But the pace of price erosion over the past three years and the factors driving it vary throughout the world. Declines have been greatest in emerging markets, where prices are highest. Increases in volume, local traffic exchange, and number of suppliers can improve economy of scale, underlying transport cost, and competition, respectively. In established global hubs, prices continue to fall at a significant pace, largely a result of escalating volume and declining unit cost.
Welcome back to the third installment of our mythbusting series, where we break down legends in telecom pricing and see if they hold water. (Don’t miss our investigations on tall tales in local access budgeting and MPLS/DIA pricing lore.)
With the update of data and analysis within our Global Bandwidth Research Service comes a refreshed look at our network pricing intel.
Yes, operators are racing to keep revenue margins ahead of eroding prices, while bandwidth demand and supply continue to grow across global routes. Abundant supply and increasing competition have led to this robust price erosion throughout the global bandwidth market.
New 100 Gbps-equipped submarine cable systems and upgrades to existing networks have further lowered unit costs. And this has driven down both 10 Gbps and 100 Gbps wavelength prices. Across critical global routes, weighted median 10 Gbps and 100 Gbps prices fell an average of 14% and 23% compounded annually since 2016.
In case you missed my previous post, we here at TeleGeography love busting telecom myths. But we haven’t turned our analytical tools toward common WAN pricing myths—until now!
In this second installment, I’m going to investigate whether MPLS IP VPN and dedicated internet access (DIA) prices have become one and the same.
We have a years-long tradition of Mythbusting here at TeleGeography. But it occurred to me that we’ve never tackled any of the WAN pricing myths floating around out there. That’s why I decided to do a series addressing some of the things I hear from WAN-sourcing and WAN-selling professionals.
Let’s see if these WAN pricing myths stack up against the data.
First up: is it true that, particularly for traditional MPLS networks, local access can account for upwards of 50% of the total cost of ownership (TCO) of WAN components?
Yes, we do know where to find good pricing data around here. (Great pricing data, actually.)
TeleGeography's Pricing Suite is a portal to all of our network pricing data and related analysis. It's fueled stories like this and this and even this.
Today we're answering a handful of quick questions about how we maintain our databases—and how you can get access.
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