REDWOOD CITY, Calif.—A new report from Dell’Oro Group provides mixed news for equipment manufacturers with a forecast that sees telecom capital expenditures declining by 2% in 2026 while increasing by a 1% cumulative average growth rate through 2030.

“We’re seeing an interesting dynamic between long-term optimism and near-term visibility, “said Stefan Pongratz, vice president at Dell’Oro Group.

“Operators remain optimistic about the long-term network vision, particularly as AI drives new demand, but in the short term they are taking a more cautious stance, with many planning to moderate capex,” Pongratz added.

The report found that worldwide telecom investments were stable in 2025 with telecom capex for the approximately 50 service providers covered in the Telecom Capex Report—representing roughly 80 percent of global capex—was flat in nominal US dollar (USD) terms.

The researchers indicated that the relationship between capex and telecom equipment revenue across the six programs tracked by Dell’Oro Group—Broadband Access, Microwave & Optical Transport, Mobile Core Network (MCN), Radio Access Network (RAN), and Service Provider Router & Switch—remained stable.

As previously reported, equipment manufacturer revenue increased 4 percent year-over-year in 2025. The slightly stronger equipment vs. capex growth can, to some degree, be explained by the boost from the cloud providers. We estimate they accounted for around half of the growth in equipment revenue.

Additional highlights from the March 2026 Telecom Capex report:

• Worldwide telecom capex is projected to decline 2 percent in 2026 and grow at a 1 percent CAGR through 2030.
• With carrier revenues on track to increase modestly (~2 percent CAGR), the capex-to-revenue ratio is projected to approach 14 percent by 2029.
• Wireless capital intensity is projected to approach 11 percent in 2029, down seven percentage points from the 5G peak.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Federal Communications Commission chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel is calling on the FCC to take action to improve customer service for consumers with broadband, phone and cable services. 

Rosenworcel has shared with her fellow commissioners a Notice of Inquiry that, if adopted, would seek information on ways to ensure that consumers have appropriate and efficient access to customer service resources when working with their phone, cable and broadband providers.  

“Consumers deserve the ability to resolve problems quickly and easily, in a way that works for them, not just what benefits the company’s bottom line,” said Chairwoman Rosenworcel.  “That’s why we are seeking information on how to promote efficiency in customer service in the telecommunications industry.  Through this effort, we want to explore solutions to take some of the pain out of routine customer service problems and pass along cost savings to consumers.”

The Notice of Inquiry would seek comment on a number of related topics including, but not limited to: 

• Simple cancellation; 
• Access to live representatives;
• Establishing uniform requirements regarding installations, outages, and service calls; 
• Automatic renewal of service or price increases; 
• Special considerations for people with disabilities, and more.

PARIS—Globecast has developed and launched what it is billing as the first video public cloud video headend, powered by AWS, for a major European Telco. 

The unnamed telco was a returning Globecast customer. It wanted to optimize its video headend capabilities for its IPTV and OTT services, with an initial scope of 380 channels and 1,400 streams and a key objective to move to an OPEX environment, alongside greatly increased flexibility in terms of adding and removing services, Globecast explained. 

“We had extensive discussions with the customer and explained the benefits of moving to the cloud to satisfy its requirements,” Sylvain Merle, CTO and COO, Globecast, said. “With our market-leading understanding of public cloud use, working with AWS, supplying our cloud playout solutions for Hallmark Media and horse racing channel Equidia, who’s using our Managed Cloud Network service, the customer could see the level of our expertise and the benefits. Additionally, we understood that there were some functions it wanted to remain on-premise and Globecast could easily satisfy that requirement as well.”

“This project is an operational and technological paradigm shift, brought about by the combined capabilities of AWS and Globecast MediaHub, enabling the inception and worldwide delivery of new services such as video processing in this case, but also FAST, pop-up, playout channels, and supporting the highest levels of quality,” added Jean-Christophe Perier, CMO, Globecast.

In the new platform, all video processing functions are carried out in the cloud, with redundancy provided using different zones. 

Globecast has built a MediaHub allowing the interconnection of its points of presence with the cloud to be able to provide specific add-ons and any type of output for worldwide distribution with the strength of a fully managed network. Connections are secured using innovative Gateways and AWS Direct Connect over a private network. These gateways also provide additional operational and technical functions, including monitoring and the remapping of signals, the company reported. 

By using AWS Media Services, and AWS Elemental MediaLive as the core component, to build this video headend, Globecast said it was providing the telco with the capacity to scale resources up and down, as required and the video quality needed in today’s highly competitive market. 

DURHAM, N.H.—Leichtman Research Group (LRG) has issued a new report showing that the largest cable and wireline phone providers in the U.S. – representing about 96% of the market – acquired about 2,950,000 net additional broadband Internet subscribers in 2021, compared to a pro forma gain of about 4,860,000 subscribers in 2020, and about 2,550,000 in 2019.   

While the new subscribers were down substantially from 2020, LRG noted that the sub gains in 2021 were in fact higher than those in the pre-pandemic years of 2016 to 2919. 

As usual in recent years, cable dominated market, accounting for 95% of the new subscribers. 

These top broadband providers now account for about 108.4 million subscribers, with top cable companies having about 75.7 million broadband subscribers, and top wireline phone companies having about 32.7 million subscribers.

Key data points from the report include:  

• Overall, broadband additions in 2021 were 61% of the total in 2020, and 115% of the total in 2019.
• The top cable companies had about 2.8 million net adds in 2021, 58% of the cable broadband additions in 2020, and 89% of additions in 2019.
• The top wireline phone companies added about 150,000 subscribers in 2021 – compared to a gain of about 30,000 subscribers in 2020, and a net loss of about 590,000 subscribers in 2019.
• Telcos had about 1.8 million net adds via fiber in 2021 – compared to about 1.64 million fiber net adds in 2020.
• Among these top providers, cable companies accounted for 95% of the net broadband adds in 2021 – compared to 99% in 2020, and 123% in 2019.
• The two largest broadband providers were Comcast, with 31,901,000 subs, up by 1,327,000 from 2020 and Charter, with 30,089,000 subs, up 1,210,000 subs from 2020. 

“Broadband additions proved to be resilient in 2021 following 2020’s pandemic-related surge in subscribers,” said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group, Inc.  “The top broadband providers added significantly fewer subscribers in 2021 than in 2020, but the net adds in 2021 were higher than in each year from 2016-2019.”

More information including sub counts for individual companies can be found at www.LeichtmanResearch.com.

Over the last 20 years or so, fixed telecoms service providers have undergone fundamental changes in the way they operate. Late into the 20th century, they were still focused on delivering one thing and one thing only to customers: telephone services for voice communication. You only need to take a look at the names of many of these companies — Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) in Japan, American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) in the United States and Telefónica in Spain — to understand their singular focus.

The current telco landscape looks vastly different and there are numerous reasons why. Firstly, deregulation measures were introduced across several countries, which meant that the providers who previously enjoyed a monopoly within the voice industry began to face fierce competition. Next there was the growth of mobile communications, which slowly came to dominate the market and resulted in consumers using their home landline telephones less frequently.

Last but not least, there was the mainstream popularization of the Internet, which enabled OTT voice services such as Skype, for example. Unencumbered by having to create and maintain a network infrastructure and by regulatory overheads of the traditional telcos, these new players won over consumers through the simple fact that they were cheaper to use — and often completely free.

In a relatively short space of time the telecom industry was turned on its head, and the traditional companies within it had to reconsider their business models and cost structures. They did this by focusing their efforts on data transport (for both consumers and businesses) and the provision of content (for consumers), while rebuilding their networks using IP technology to provide the versatility and cost-effectiveness necessary. The move proved an overwhelming success, with many telcos now formidable forces across various industries and mediums. IP was a real enabler of this transformation.

Strangely enough, the broadcast industry is currently faced with almost very similar challenges to those that the telcos overcame at the turn of the century. With new entrants to the market threatening to disrupt the revenue models that traditional broadcasters have relied on for so long, broadcasters are now choosing to adopt IP technology in order to stay relevant and continue thriving.

The adoption of IP has already largely happened in the wide area network (WAN) contribution field — the long-distance transport of video/audio signals from a sports stadium to a main broadcasting center, for example — but that is largely because that part is typically handled by telcos. However, broadcasters are now looking to also utilize IP for data transport across their local area networks (LAN) within the production facilities, for cost and flexibility reasons, including the need to support ever greater picture quality (including UHD/4K and HDR).

However, unless there are already individuals within these companies that have expert knowledge of IP, many will struggle to leverage the technology effectively. This is why, when considering how to leverage IP, there are many lessons to be learned from looking back at the telecoms journey and analysing how these companies embraced the change.

CONSIDER TELCOS AS PARTNERS IN THE JOURNEY TO IP

Telcos have gained a wealth of experience and knowledge in running carrier-class networks and data centres over IP — the kind of things that used to be considered strictly IT expertise. This is exactly the kind of knowledge that will prove essential to broadcasters as they begin their journey towards an IP-based future. So it could make a lot of sense for broadcasters to partner up with telcos to leverage their expertise and learn from them directly.

Most broadcasters have already outsourced all their IP WANs requirement to telcos. As we see IP slowly being used to transport signals across LANs, we will no doubt see these outsourced for the very same reason.

BE FEARLESS IN TAKING RISKS

Broadcasters have been slower to adopt IP than telcos, and this is largely due to the industry’s conservative outlook towards technology, as well as a tendency to consider their own requirements as superior. Many are concerned that a move towards IP could inadvertently result in a huge loss of revenue if their networks were to ever fail, both during and after implementation. However, it is foolish to assume this is a problem exclusive to broadcasting — banks, telcos and plenty of other industries face similar risks.

These concerns should not stand in the way of IP adoption. The ability of the technology to transport huge amounts of data across long distances with minimal latency has been proven many times over by now, and the broadcast specific layer that sits on top of IP to make it work in facilities (e.g. the SMPTE 2110 standard) is also quickly coming on stream.

SEE IP AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO EVOLVE

Just as we witnessed with telcos, IP technology can often prove to be the catalyst that allows businesses to evolve and expand. There’s no better example of this than British Telecom. Around 20 years ago, like many other telecom companies, it focused solely on delivering telephone services to its customers, but it now encompasses broadband network connections and original broadcast content via its BT Sport channels. Broadcasters now have this same opportunity, and so they must reconsider who they are, what they do and how they can expand their services to the public.

UNDENIABLE OPPORTUNITIES

Despite the continued hesitancy from some broadcasters towards IP, the opportunities available through the technology are undeniable. For a better chance of leveraging IP to the best of its abilities, broadcasters could do far worse than learn from the telcos that have been on this journey before, and learn how to reap all the rewards that lie at the end.

Olivier Suard is vice president of marketing for Nevion.