Five Predictions about 2016 You Need To Know

It’s that time of year again. Let’s get out the crystal ball and see what peering into the fog of time will give us!

Before jumping into our review and predictions, let’s score the 2015 predictions from Right On, Mostly Right to Dead Wrong.

Predictions for IT and Telecom in 2015

1. The smartphone will be the communication hub for an increasing number of wearables and surfaces, including the car dashboard. Mostly right, but Android Wear, CarPlay and wearables are not taking the market by storm.
2. The Internet of Things trend will thrive in home automation and the “quantified self.” Mostly right, Fitbit is doing well, but wearables and the Apple Watch hasn’t met the expectations of 2014.
3. Medical sensors will be introduced to support telemedicine and home care. Dead wrong. There is a holdup at the FDA because the technology isn’t quite ready.
4. The FAA will crack down on aerial drones in the USA. Right On. Just announced new rules.
5. The FCC will come out with a “blended” approach to Net Neutrality that includes USF fees on Internet service, programs for Internet subsidies for US residents, and non-discrimination rules on packet delivery. Mostly Right. A major ruling by the FCC goes after packet delivery, but leaves the USF program untouched for now.
6. Windows Phone will recede from the USA market and go for the “next billion” in developing markets with the Lumia brand. Mostly right, but Microsoft just introduced a new flagship Windows Phone for the US market so they haven’t given up yet!
7. Zero-cost licensing for cheap Windows tablets and laptops will encroach on low-cost markets and push out Android tablets. Right On. Nailed this one. 
8. Every person in the world will have the ability to get a smartphone by 2020. Smartphone communication apps will supplant and then replace traditional voice and SMS networks. We shall see!!
9. Smart vehicle innovations will be disguised as “assist” features for a while. No autonomous car availability announcements until after 2015. Right On.
10. WiFi calling by the carriers will increase, as well as Voice Over LTE (VoLTe), resulting in (finally) higher quality calls for many USA smartphone users. Right On.

Highlights for Telnexus in 2015

1. Introduced fixed pricing with unlimited usage for Telnexus Cloud PBX
2. Created integral, original provisioning and deployment system for VoIP installations
3. Invested in Salesforce as our one database system to rule them all
   1. Developed our own Quote-to-Cash system for Telecom based on Salesforce
4. Expanded office space by moving from Downtown to Telegraph Ave.
5. Selected to present at KazooCon, September
6. Selected to present at Silicon Valley Telecom Council, December
7. Gained certifications on Google for Work and Microsoft Office 365
8. Signed wholesale agreement with Paxio for Fiber Internet service in the San Francisco Bay Area
9. Launched new marketing campaign, and upgraded Telnexus.com to worthy status.
10. Participated in Berkeley Chamber of Commerce Working Lunch series

Highlights for Telecom and IT in 2015

1. For Business Owners
   1. Windows 10 and Microsoft Surface Pro is a hit, and Microsoft has officially put the Ballmer/Sinofsky era of iPad Envy behind them. Office 365 has momentum, erasing any momentum advantage had by Google Apps.
   2. Small business have quickly adopted Cloud Computing services for email, file sharing and backup. The era of losing important business data due to hard drive failure may be over.
   3. Smartphone innovation has slowed, and the Apple iPhone is the clear winner in terms of ecosystem stability. Android is still the most dynamic market, offering most value for handsets and the most flexibility for developers, with the tradeoff of platform anarchy.
2. For Telecom Operators
   1. The USA still has the highest telecom end user charges, by far. With the highest ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) in wireless and broadband, the USA telecom industry the most profitable and richest by a large measure.
   2. Merger mania may have subsided in the USA after the FTC rejected the Comcast-TWC merger, but Verizon is eying assets at Yahoo which may be for sale soon.
   3. AT&T is once again the most valuable telecom in the USA after digesting Dish. China Mobile still ranks as the largest telecom in the world, worth over $230 billion in market capitalization.
   4. Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networks (SDN) are being hooked up with customer user interfaces for orchestration of new services. Among the first to deploy for customers is AT&T Enterprise.
   5. Converged services and BSS/OSS software and services integrations has made a difference for mobile operators. In India and Nigeria millions of consumers use their mobile phone for real-world payments handled by the telecoms, not banks.

Predictions for Telecom and IT in 2016

1. Augmented and Virtual Reality will join Wearables as intriguing new tech, but will continue to be seen as a flop or new technology looking for that “killer app.”
2. Aerial drone usage will get serious with deployments in EMS and other public safety applications. Surveillance and package delivery by drone will be in the news frequently.
   1. Amazon will launch beta-tests of their quadcopter delivery systems in select cities
   2. The FAA restrictions and registration program will likely be scaled up to include requiring flight time logs and expanded no-fly zones.
3. Cybersecurity incidents will continue to increase in prevalence, escalating to attacks on a nation’s infrastructure. Information will be disclosed about the USA’s cyber offensive capabilities.
4. For Business Owners
   1. Windows 10 upgrades will start to be planned and executed. A security incident will spark a rush to upgrade. Small businesses will make the leap first.
   2. The cloud landscape won’t change much in 2016, but users will lean into existing application and file storage strategies, causing small business server sales to slump.
5. For Telecom Operators
   1. 5G wireless rollouts will ignite an Internet of Things rush to instrument the world. Huge deployments in vehicles and logistics will start in 2017.
   2. As Google Fiber fades away, $100 to $200 gigabit service will become more common. A real dogfight will emerge as AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, CenturyLink, startups and other incumbents fight to “out gigabit” each other.
   3. Disruption in network equipment will spike as the “whitebox networking” technology in heavy use at Facebook and Google will percolate into telecom equipment. Cisco and Juniper will make merger and product moves.
   4. The search for new ways to connect customer systems with service orchestration capabilities will continue. Cloud Computing will be used by telecoms as a platform for Service Oriented Architecture system integration solutions.