80% APAC service providers see better revenue opportunities from 5G: Amdocs

Around 80 per cent Communication Service Providers (CSPs) of the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region expect 5G technology to drive and expand revenue opportunities among enterprise customers in the coming years, software and communications service provider Amdocs said on Friday.

A survey conducted by market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC), on behalf of Amdocs suggests that about nine per cent of operators plan to offer 5G services commercially to the enterprise sector by the end of 2019 with 43 per cent expecting a 5-10 per cent growth in revenue.

The survey was conducted across various APAC countries including India, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Pakistan, Singapore and Sri Lanka amongst others.

According to the survey, CSPs in the APAC region are optimistic that 5G deployments would enhance existing enterprise services, such as fixed-mobile convergent (FMC) communications, fixed-mobile substitution (FMS), unified communications as a service (UCaaS), software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) and other government and public sectors.

"Operators of 5G networks can support mission-critical enterprise communications, with performance backed by service-level agreements," said John Delaney, Associate Vice President, Mobility Research, IDC.

Post the deployment of 5G, 77 per cent CSPs expect to achieve a greater than 10 per cent reduction in operational expenditure due to the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in the increasing automation of 5G operations and maintenance, the company said.

"5G technologies such as network slicing will allow them to tailor the performance, security level and characteristics appropriate to each business, opening up differentiating monetisation opportunities," said Matthieu Loreille, Vice President and Head of consumer, enterprise and technology marketing, Amdocs.

However, once 5G capabilities are rolled out, operators will need to upgrade their vertical-specific domain knowledge to convert interest into commercial services, the survey noted.

"5G, together with complementary technologies such as Cloud, network softwarisation, virtualisation and automation will make this service a reality for business customers by enabling them to build their own networks, aided by intuitive self-service portals that enhance the enterprise digital customer experience," Loreille added.

By leveraging AI, edge computing and Hybrid Cloud technologies, CSPs could support enterprises in their digital transformation effectively, allowing them to shift connectivity to their solutions with value-added services like cybersecurity and Cloud migration, the company mentioned.

--IANS

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