All research

Insight Highlights offer an opportunity to view some of the premium research and data offered by GSMA Intelligence to subscribers. This edition provides an overview of some of the relevant findings from our Global Digital Transformation Survey.

GSMA Intelligence surveyed nearly 4,200 enterprises across 21 countries and 10 vertical sectors to gain relevant insights into their digital transformation. This dashboard provides full survey data in a consistent and structured way, a valuable asset for technology suppliers looking to focus on specific vertical sectors, countries or customer size and for end users of digital transformation technologies, who can assess how they compare with their peers across multiple areas.

Digital transformation of enterprises across vertical sectors is accelerating. During 2024-2030, enterprises will spend 10% of their revenues on digital transformation, and this provides new B2B opportunities to technology suppliers, including operators. The rise of digital industries is not one size fits all though. As sectors have different needs and priorities, getting insights directly from enterprises is key to formulate the right B2B strategies and capitalise on the digital transformation opportunity.

Private 5G is growing at an impressive rate as enterprises are increasingly engaging ecosystem players, including telcos and systems integrators, to set up private wireless networks. Industry attention is increasingly focused on filling the gaps in the private wireless proposition, and in this sense, this is also a maturing industry segment. In 2024, the private network opportunity will become increasingly attractive while momentum continues to build, with multiple vendors further increasing their investments. But the value points are shifting away from radios and mobile cores, which are now table stakes, towards the distributed edge and seamless orchestration of workloads across enterprise IT/OT environments.

Setting aside dedicated spectrum for enterprises has been seen as a way of incentivising private network adoption and digitalisation. This research is the first of its kind to apply robust statistical analysis to the impact of spectrum set-asides. The results highlight the need to consider the unintended and undesired consequences of spectrum set-asides, particularly as there is no evidence of a clear benefit.

According to a GSMA Intelligence survey, almost all operators plan to have launched commerical private 5G network solutions by the end of 2026. However, at the moment, a significant portion of operators state they are facing challenges with the monetisation of private networks. In this report, we examine the possible paths of monetisation in private networks for operators and how they can overcome the associated challenges.

Operators are more focused than ever on serving the enterprise sector across various industry verticals. This report presents the latest findings of the Operators in Focus: Enterprise Opportunity Survey. The survey asked 100 operators globally about their enterprise strategies.

This dashboard presents the latest findings of the Operators in Focus: Enterprise Opportunity Survey. They survey asked 100 operators globally about their enterprise strategies, including how they are carrying out their plans and how they assess emerging opportunities.

Devices are critical to enabling private network use cases, particularly when it comes to connecting assets and operations for the first time, beyond just upgrading existing connectivity infrastructure. Understanding the new capabilities and innovation happening on the device and at the 'edge' level is important for articulating private networks' increasing value as 5G expands.

GSMA Intelligence's Chart of the Month is a visual way of telling an important story in the mobile and broader tech ecosystem. In this edition, we examine expectations among operators of the revenue split for private 5G by 2025, between connectivity, IoT, professional services, security, cloud and spectrum management.

Operator strategies continue to evolve in the digital era as the telecoms industry seeks to capture new growth opportunities in the consumer and enterprise markets. Assessing innovation and achievements is more important than ever before. GSMA Intelligence's operator case studies provide a concise and consistent way to shine a light on and analyse operators' strategies and business models, as well as how they are launching new services. In this edition, we explore China Unicom's strategy in the private wireless space.

Operator strategies continue to evolve in the digital era as the telecoms industry seeks to capture new growth opportunities in the consumer and enterprise markets. Assessing innovation and achievements is more important than ever before. GSMA Intelligence's operator case studies provide a concise and consistent way to shine a light on and analyse operators' strategies and business models, as well as how they are launching new services. In this edition, we look at Deutsche Telekom's approach to private wireless, including partnerships with hyperscalers.

Operator strategies continue to evolve in the digital era as the telecoms industry seeks to capture new growth opportunities in the consumer and enterprise markets. Assessing innovation and achievements is more important than ever before. GSMA Intelligence's operator case studies provide a concise and consistent way to shine a light on and analyse operators' strategies and business models, as well as how they are launching new services. In this edition, we analyse Bharti Airtel's strategy of jointly developing private wireless solutions with system integrators.

In this report, we present the state of play of private networks (4G and 5G) in terms of commercial activity, how relationships with other ecosystem players are developing and the revenue expectations for private networks. Going forward, operators need to pin down their private network strategies as soon as possible, and this report provides a guide for crafting such strategies, good practices to follow and pitfalls to avoid.

This piece takes a deeper look into the potential synergy between IoT and private wireless, highlighting that IoT is in fact a key value enabler of private networks, which is why it will likely see uptake wherever private networks are adopted.

Private 5G is gaining traction as verticals accelerate their digital transformation plans. Private 5G activity in Asia Pacific has so far been concentrated in the region's most advanced countries. But momentum is beginning to grow elsewhere too, as evidenced by developments in India and Thailand. The changing competitive landscape means that operators will need to develop new expertise and commercial relationships to realise the private 5G opportunity. This report identifies five main considerations for operators.

Operator strategies continue to evolve in the digital era as the telecoms industry seeks to capture new growth opportunities in the consumer and enterprise markets. Assessing innovation and achievements is more important than ever before. GSMA Intelligence's operator case studies provide a concise and consistent way to shine a light on and analyse operators' strategies and business models, as well as how they are launching new services. In this edition, we highlight how AT&T is commercialising private 5G networks for live events and immersive experiences.

Private networks using LTE technology have existed for some time but on a relatively small scale. Private 5G, though, represents a significant market opportunity; a range of ecosystem players, not just telecoms operators, are aiming to take advantage. Leading cloud infrastructure and application providers (so-called hyperscalers) are launching private 5G enterprise solutions, reflecting their appetite to take a growing share of this expanding market.

This report aims to strip away shorter-term effects from economic and political instability and focus on the longer-term implications from digitisation and the technology enablers that will power it: private 5G, eSIM and advanced IoT, and edge cloud. This applies to business and operating models of vertical sector companies and, just as importantly, to telecoms operators, vendors and cloud groups competing to enable and service this business.

The pandemic has accelerated the shift to digital as enterprises have adjusted to a new normal to ensure business continuity. This has resulted in changes to supply chains and business models. In this report we examine the implications of the newfound demand for security services. We also reveal what operators market as their primary 5G value proposition and consider operators' role in private networks in terms of their product offerings and strategies. Additionally, we consider why all eyes are on IT and cloud vendors.

The combination of cloud, data and IoT security threats means security risks are greater in the 5G era. A key challenge for operators offering 5G-based services is ensuring that they have sufficient knowledge or tools to tackle upcoming security vulnerabilities. Having a strategy for building up security credentials will be crucial in supporting these plans.

While the cancellation of MWC 2020 removed a major showcase for the latest and greatest industry developments, several events happened in the run-up or were converted to alternative formats. In the third entry of our Unwrapped series, we analyse early deployments of enterprise private networks, a nascent but growing form of high-grade connectivity provision for companies in a range of industries, such as manufacturing and healthcare.

In September, the FCC approved the first commercial deployments of the Citizens Radio Broadband Service (CBRS). CBRS, which introduces a flexible model for spectrum sharing in the 3.5 GHz band, reduces entry barriers and drives new models of network ownership, bringing opportunities for operators. However, the shared nature of CBRS means it is as much a culture shift as it is a technical advance, and the mobile industry will need to work closely with adjacent sectors to avoid disintermediation in the network value chain.

While NB-IoT and LTE-M address the need for massive IoT in the 5G era, standards for the critical (low latency, high bandwidth, network slicing) aspect of 5G IoT are yet to be fully defined. Our survey shows that, overall, 24% of enterprises expressed a requirement for a network covering a specific location (e.g. a mine or factory) for their IoT deployments, with the manufacturing sector leading the way (32%).