Insight

5G is one of the most hyped technologies of recent times, so let’s start with a quote that fully captures that hype about just how massive 5G is going to be: “5G is the fundamental platform for the fourth industrial revolution and will become an integral part of societies and civil infrastructures, just like roads, energy and transportation.” So, if 5G really is going to be massive, there must be loads of use cases, right? Well, sort of, but the reality is much more complicated.

Since TNC started tracking network and telecoms price trends in 2005 we have seen a number of key constants across the majority of network and telecoms services: Declining cost, Increasing demand and Rapid replacement by new technology. TNC has a unique insight into the market as we are able to see a very broad range of pricing across multiple services, representing all major business sectors, differing scales and importantly numerous different service providers, including both the established dominant providers as well as niche or disruptive vendors.…

TNC's telecoms consultants and senior leaders discuss what 2020 holds for CX, 5G, SD-WAN & SASE and what we can expect regarding Price Trends. Tune in to hear expert insight from John Waterhouse, CEO, Adrian Joyce, Head of Consulting and Clare Tyndall, Principal Consultant.

Long before SD-WAN came into the market, replacing MPLS access circuits with locally-procured Internet access circuits has been a method used to reduce costs for international WAN networks. As we discussed in our last white paper A buyer’s guide to SD-WAN there has been much hype around SD-WAN cost benefits and our paper analysed the reality of this as well as setting out other expectations.

So there you go - deal done, shiny new competitive pricing obtained and whether it’s a WAN, voice or mobile, you can now relax safe in the knowledge that your provider will migrate you to your new tariff and the savings will roll in.Sadly, years of experience has taught us that this is very often not the case. Instead, what we have seen, for as long as I remember, is inaccurate telecoms billing, and don’t think that this is just a teething problem that needs correcting at the start of a contract and then remains correct – that definitely…

For those of us who have been in the network industry a long time, we can surely agree on one thing: deploying networks is easily the least sexy job, right? Right? Well, it might still not be very sexy, but it has definitely become ultra-critical - if you want to achieve excellence with your networks, you need to get great at transition, and quick. As with everything in our massively dynamic industry, the criticality of network transition is changing at a very rapid pace, and TNC’s latest research has identified four key reasons for this:

John Waterhouse, CEO, and Adrian Joyce, Head of Consulting, discuss the 'Market Reaction to 5G'.Below are videos Part 1 - 4, each answering specific questions. Please do watch them in order, or choose the video most closely related to your 5G and Enterprise Mobility interests.

As readers may well know, one of the core competencies of TNC’s business is helping customers procure new network and telecoms services. One important part of the procurement process is the bidder presentations. Although this can be a time-consuming process for all involved, it is a golden opportunity for both the customer and supplier to look beyond the RFP documentation, the pages of written responses, contract wording and commercial numbers, and get a real feel for each other, particularly the cultural fit, capability and approach to…

Over the final few weekends of summer, I painted my front door. Thanks for asking – it looks great. During the long hours of stripping and sanding, I got thinking about some interesting parallels with my day job of buying networks and telecoms. Bear with me – it wasn’t the fumes…The first parallel is one we get asked about a lot at TNC – when should you just throw on a quick lick of paint, and when is it time to do a proper job and strip the door back to the wood? Well, of course in TNC we get asked when a customer should negotiate a…

John Waterhouse, CEO, and Craig Northveth, CTO, discuss the 'Latest Trends in SD-WAN'.Below are videos Part 1 - 4, each answering specific questions. Please do watch them in order, or choose the video most closely related to your SD-WAN interests. 

MDM is an acronym for Mobile Device Management and is typically a software-based, central management and security platform for mobile devices, also known as EMM – Enterprise Mobility Management. MDM’s primary function is to control the risk profile of devices and to allow for remote management of a device such as the ability to wipe it should it be lost/stolen. For many organisations MDM is an essential product to ensure their mobile fleet is secure both from cyber threats as well as the devices and the data they contain/can access falling…

John Waterhouse, CEO, interviews Clare Tyndall, Principal Consultant, on the topic of The Changing Face of the Contact Centre. Below are videos Part 1 - 4, each answering specific questions. Please do watch them in order, or choose the video most closely related to your Contact Centre interests. 

Due to the changing demographic, proliferation of smart devices, social media, countless private messaging applications and enhanced online experiences, customers are always looking for smarter and easier ways to communicate and collaborate with organisations they buy or take services from. A current trend being widely observed across the market is the concept of “channel shift”. The trend primarily indicates a steady decline in the volume of interactions delivered through traditional telephony channels in favour of digital interactions. In…

Achieving good mobile coverage inside buildings (offices, factories, stores, warehouses etc), especially those buildings that act like Faraday cages with lots of metal, glass or concrete, has long been a challenge for many organisations. The traditional method has involved the deployment of in-building coverage solutions, whether relatively inexpensive home or small office femtocell solutions, right up to full-scale, mast-based solutions for very large buildings or campus locations. The costs of these large-scale solutions are often six figures…

At TNC, we love nothing more than bursting the hype bubble around a topic and helping our customers make evidence-based decisions that deliver value, without being swayed by marketing and oversell.One of the most persistent hype bubbles in the market at the moment is that “SD-WAN will replace MPLS”, and it’s a bubble we get to burst on a regular basis. Let’s be clear – SD-WAN is a very interesting technology that has lots of promise for the future, as well as having some valuable use cases today.However, the idea that SD-WAN must…

Network transformation involves change across every aspect of the network – technology, provider, service and operating model, commercials, and contracts. Add to this that the network is increasingly becoming a fundamental component of the business operation; it is clear that the development of a network transformation strategy is an important initiative now being considered at the board level.

So it’s finally happened - the UK has its first 5G network up and running. EE launched its 5G network in 6 cities on 30th May. First out of the blocks and thus receiving a lot of media attention, even making the main TV news programmes and with ongoing governmental uncertainty around Huawei, mobile is receiving more mainstream media attention than it has for a long time. But, beneath these headlines, what has TNC witnessed as a first reaction to 5G?Well, it’s fast and fast – both throughput and latency are materially better than 4G but are…

With significant global growth predicted over the next three years, UCaaS and SD-WAN are two of the hottest and most interesting technologies in the telecoms market right now. Through our many customer engagements and vendor interactions, The Network Collective has developed excellent market insight in relation to the key strategic considerations when designing an SD-WAN to support UCaaS. The objective of this whitepaper is to present an overview of the key strategic considerations for organisations when designing and sourcing SD-WAN to support…