3 Channel Trends for 2023

I’m Julien Parven, Director of Daisy Partner Business. In this article, I share the trends I predict will be especially significant in this new year. 2023 is set to be momentous for the telecoms industry and a pivotal one for the channel. As market forces collide and the industry continues to adapt and evolve, we’re set to see even more changes that will bring organic growth.

Partners becoming industry advocates

Come March, which is going to be upon us before we can blink, the Salisbury and Mildenhall PSTN exchanges will be switched off. Customers in those areas sitting on legacy technology will have to be migrated by that point to maintain continuity of service. By the end of September, the nationwide stop sell will be enforced and then we’re very much on the countdown to the full switch off at the end of 2025. The role of the partner community is set to shift to becoming one of advocates of the changes happening within the market. As a channel, we need to ensure that we’re doing the right thing for our customers, keeping them informed, connected and ultimately keeping Britain working. It gives us an opportunity to open conversations and really drive the hosted voice agenda within this significant time frame.

Full fibre opens up to SMEs

The recent decreasing costs of full fibre and dedicated connectivity is set to blow that market open. Previously, leased line ethernet was very much in the domain of large corporate organisations. Where the price point now sits will encourage exponential growth, particularly among the SME base. Customer desire for greater bandwidth and speed has also increased as more business applications are being served via a connectivity backbone. As the full fibre rollout accelerates, there will be widespread adoption of the technology.

The rise of intelligent mobile data

Another opportunity linked to the PSTN Switch Off and the sunsetting of 2G and 3G networks is the rise of intelligent mobile data. PSTN connectivity has long powered terminals where there’s never been an impetus to switch out that technology because of the costs involved in hardware replacement. There are also plenty of SIMs currently sitting in devices using legacy cellular networks. Now, we’re in a position where we have to start looking at replacements. It may be to basic switched packet data or to intelligent mobile data based on an IOT platform, which in a lot of instances is going to be the technology that moves us forward. All of this sits within the portfolio of the Daisy Anywhere proposition, our multi-network SIMs that provide a reliable data connection without the need for a hardwired solution. Over the course of the year, we’ll see a hockey stick growth trend where we’ll start to achieve that critical early adoption of IoT solutions leading into mass adoption.