COVID-19 Impact Updates

The ACG blog, The Mobile Network Response to COVID-19, is available at https://acgcc.com/blogs/2020/03/28/mobile-network-response-covid-19/.

COVID-19 Impact on Telecom

COVID-19 will have only short-term impacts on telecoms software and services vendors, according to a recent report by Analysys Mason.

Communications service provider (CSP) spending on telecoms software and related services will grow by 3.6% in 2020 as compared with our prior expectation of 6.7%.

The global shutdown had a severe impact in 2Q 2020, we expect a recovery in 3Q 2020, with close-to-normal spending levels returning in 4Q 2020. We expect CSP software and services spending to rebound in 2021 to 7.9% growth. The telecoms industry will be more robust than almost any other industry during this crisis.

Telecoms industry vendors will suffer short-term setbacks from COVID-19 as general shutdowns impede work and decision-making in 2Q 2020. However, the longer-term outlook for investment in the telecoms industry is positive, particularly in areas such as automation, virtualization and cloud enablement.

Key milestones in COVID-related telecoms software spending.

Source: https://www.analysysmason.com/Research/Content/Comments/covid-19-impacts-vendors/

Help! We Need Somebody!

Parks Associates forecasts total professional monitoring revenue for the US residential security sector will total $15.74 billion in 2020, with smart home services accounting for $1.2 billion.

Parks Associates notes the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic fallout create a more challenging landscape in 2020, specifically as consumers will look to reduce household spending. This exclusive survey revealed the following data:

• 29% of US broadband households own at least one smart home device, based on a comprehensive list tested in Parks Associates’ surveys.

• 33% of consumers who canceled their professional monitoring service did so because the monthly fee was too expensive.

• 70% of smart smoke/CO detector owners indicate interest in having their smoke detector connected to a professional monitoring service.

Source: IoT: Extending Professional Monitoring for New Revenue.  www.parksassociates.com

City Governments Getting Smarter on the Fly

City governments are adjusting to a new reality, with COVID-19 driving urban resilience and digital transformation strategy agendas, finds global tech market advisory firm, ABI Research.

This is reflected in the deployment of a range of technologies for new use cases during the current emergency:

• Drones – Communication and enforcement of social distancing rules; delivery of medical supplies

• New types of surveillance – AI-based remote temperature sensing (Kogniz Health).

• Autonomous Freight – Autonomous Last Mile delivery (Beep, Navya, Nuro, Waymo, Postmates).

• Digital Twins – Holistic, transversal, real-time visibility for resources, assets, and services (Siradel).

• Real-time dashboards (City of Boston) and data sharing — including the use of smartphone data crowdsourcing for location tracking

"While many of the measures taken by city governments during COVID-19 are decided on the fly requiring high levels of improvisation, it has resulted in a rich laboratory type learning experience in terms of how to take advantage of the inherent flexibility of technologies to address emergency situations and challenges linked to demand-response management of assets and services," says Dominique Bonte, Vice President End Markets at ABI Research.

At the same time cities are reaping the benefits of a digital-only lifestyle in the form of the sudden adoption of e-Government services, e-Health and teleconsultation, remote work, online education, and e-Commerce, resulting in huge drops in traffic levels. These, in turn, are dramatically decreasing congestion, fatalities, and air pollution.

Importantly, post-COVID-19 traffic levels are expected to reach only between 80% and 90% of the pre-COVID-19 levels, as digital lifestyles take hold more permanently, driven by both public and private initiatives and incentives. The result will have lasting positive effects on the environment.

Source:  Smart Cities and Smart Spaces Quarterly Update report.  www.abiresearch.com

Tech Sector Stressor

COVID-19 is by far the most significant theme to affect the technology industry in 2020. It is effectively a stress test on companies’ abilities to cope with extreme shocks.

• COVID-19 will test the financial robustness of companies.

• There will be many consequences for the IT industry, some sectors of which will perform better than others.

• Some will fare relatively well in the short term, for example, collaboration software vendors and cloud services providers.

• Others — particularly IT infrastructure companies — may suffer short-term problems with their supply chains, but fare well in the future.

Source: https://store.globaldata.com/report/gdtmt-tr-m250–tech-media-telecom-trends-2020-thematic-research/

COVID-19 Congestion

Internet connectivity is crucial to successfully working and learning from home.

As COVID-19 spread across the world, use of video conferencing solutions and online collaboration tools have skyrocketed. 

Nearly 40% of respondents said they noticed an uptick in Internet and/or cellular connectivity issues now that they and other relatives are sheltering in place. Before the coronavirus, 35% of people said they had networking issues, according to the report.

More than 82% of people said they don’t have a solution for fixing their Internet or connectivity issues, the report found.

Sources: www.techrepublic and https://digitalbridgek12.org

We’re Using Telehealth, and Want to Help With Contact Tracing

Parks Associates’ new research, COVID-19: Impact on Telehealth Use and Perspectives, finds over 50% of US broadband households are willing to share smartphone data to aid in COVID-19 contact tracing, while another 20% could be convinced provided privacy protections are in place.

The research tracks changes in consumer attitudes and adoption of telehealth services as a result of COVID-19, and measures future interest in telehealth services beyond the pandemic.

Additional data:
• Nearly half of consumers who used telehealth in the past 12 months report using a service offered by their local physicians’ practice.

• ~One-third of US broadband households used or attempted to use a telehealth service during the COVID-19 outbreak.

• Over half of US broadband households are willing to share smartphone data to aid in gathering information on COVID-19.

Source: Parks Associates’ research, COVID-19: Impact on Telehealth Use and Perspectives   www.parksassociates.com