Why pay full price for inactive subscribers? Discover how Summa Networks' Pre-Activated model allows operators to align licensing costs with real usage—paying only for the genuinely active users on their network.
There's a persistent assumption in telecom that modernizing your core network means signing off on a fresh procurement cycle: new servers, new racks, new power and cooling budgets. For many operators, that assumption is the single biggest reason modernization keeps getting postponed. But it doesn't have to work that way.
As 2G and 3G switch off across remote and island networks, VoLTE and VoWiFi over IMS decide whether coverage actually turns into a working call.
New GSMA research puts the price of removing high-risk vendors from European networks higher than earlier projections. It's a number worth sitting with — and it points to something operators may want to weigh carefully: much of the cost depends less on taking the old equipment out than on how the new equipment goes back in.
For most of the mobile data era, operators have watched the same two lines on a chart drift toward each other: return on capital employed and the cost of capital. GSMA Intelligence's July 2026 report puts numbers on it. Across 24 major operator groups, pre-tax ROCE fell from around 13% in 2015 to roughly 9-10% today, while the cost of capital has barely moved. The gap that used to justify investment is narrowing — and in some markets it has vanished.
Two developments in the mobile industry, taken together, say something important about where networks are heading — and about the decisions operators will face sooner than they think. One is about how coverage will be delivered. The other is about how it will be paid for. Both point to the same conclusion about the network core.
