Digital transformation was a strategic necessity for communications providers in 2022—but technology alone did not guarantee success. Telecom, cable, broadband and wireless companies faced higher customer expectations, more competition from technology companies, pressure on traditional connectivity revenue, and major investment requirements in 5G and broadband. The providers best positioned to compete were those that connected digital investment to measurable outcomes such as lower churn, faster service activation, lower operating costs and new, monetizable services.
This article treats the subject as a retrospective analysis of Salesforce’s 2022 Trends in the Communications Industry Report, supplemented by other 2022 industry research. Its statistics and forecasts describe that period, not the communications market in 2026.
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The 2022 communications market was no longer connectivity-only
Communications providers remained essential to households and businesses, but the basis of competition was changing. Customers could compare more providers, use digital services from technology companies and expect the same fast, convenient experiences they received from leading online businesses.
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At the same time, network demand was rising. CTIA reported that U.S. wireless-provider capital expenditure reached $35 billion in 2021, while mobile data use reached 53.4 trillion megabytes. CTIA also reported more than $121 billion in wireless-network investment from 2018 onward. These are historical figures from its 2022 survey, not current benchmarks. CTIA’s 2022 Annual Survey Highlights provides the underlying context.
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The commercial challenge was that greater traffic and network investment did not automatically produce profitable growth. Providers needed to improve the customer relationship, operate more efficiently and find ways to sell services beyond basic connectivity.
What Salesforce’s 2022 report found
Salesforce said its communications research surveyed 500 industry leaders and 6,000 customers. The report focused on how customer expectations, competition and digital capabilities were changing telecom and cable markets. Because these are survey findings, they should be read as directional evidence rather than a census of every provider or customer.
Its central customer-experience findings were striking:
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- 88% of surveyed customers said the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services.
- Roughly 78% said they would be at least somewhat likely to obtain wireless service from a nontraditional provider, such as a large technology company.
- About 76% said the same for cable services.
These results did not mean that technology companies were certain to replace telecom operators. They did show why established providers could no longer assume that network ownership alone would protect the customer relationship. Customers were increasingly willing to compare service quality, convenience, support and digital interactions—not just coverage or connection speed.
Read the Salesforce report summary for the original attribution and survey framing.
Why customer experience became a competitive issue
In communications, customer experience is not limited to a mobile app or a contact-center script. It includes every interaction surrounding the service:
- Searching for and ordering a plan.
- Verifying identity and completing onboarding.
- Scheduling installation or activation.
- Receiving an accurate bill.
- Reporting an outage and receiving timely updates.
- Changing a plan, device or service address.
- Moving between web, mobile, retail, call-center and field-service channels.
- Getting a human agent when automation cannot resolve the issue.
A provider can have an attractive app and still deliver a poor experience if the app displays inaccurate account information, forces customers to repeat verification or sends unresolved requests into a disconnected back-office process.
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Practical transformation meant linking front-end convenience to operational capability. Examples included:
- Self-service account management and digital payments.
- Faster digital sales and onboarding.
- Proactive outage and service notifications.
- Consistent customer data across channels.
- Automated support with clear human escalation.
- More accurate billing and order handling.
- Personalized offers based on properly governed and consented data.
- Journey analytics that identified where customers abandoned an order or contacted support repeatedly.
The objective was not to remove human service. It was to eliminate avoidable effort while preserving a reliable escalation path for complex, sensitive or high-value issues.
The main communications-industry trends in 2022
1. 5G and network modernization
5G was an important infrastructure foundation, but it was not automatically a revenue engine. A provider still needed a customer or enterprise problem that 5G solved well enough to justify payment.
Before funding a 5G use case, operators needed to ask:
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- Is standalone 5G necessary?
- Are coverage, devices, spectrum or backhaul the real constraint?
- Who is the paying customer?
- Can the provider measure a commercial benefit?
For consumers, 5G could support capacity and performance improvements. For enterprises, potential opportunities included private networks, connected operations and managed industrial services. But technical capability had to be matched with pricing, sales and support.
2. Cloud and cloud-native operations
Cloud platforms promised faster deployment, elastic capacity and better support for analytics and software-led network functions. They could also introduce vendor dependence, new security obligations, skills shortages and difficult-to-control consumption costs.
Cloud migration therefore required more than moving workloads. Providers needed cloud governance, financial controls, resilient architecture, identity management, observability and teams able to operate distributed systems. Poorly designed workloads could cost more in the cloud than in a controlled legacy environment.
3. Automation
Automation was relevant across provisioning, service assurance, billing, customer support and field operations. In an effective model, an order could move from customer request to eligibility check, provisioning, confirmation and monitoring with limited manual intervention.
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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchLegacy systems often blocked that outcome. If customer, product, order and network data remained in separate silos, automating one step could simply move manual work to another department. The Telecoms.com Annual Industry Survey 2022 identified legacy infrastructure as a barrier to automated zero-touch services, along with skills and resource constraints in areas such as IoT and Open RAN.
4. IoT and connected services
IoT was not merely a matter of selling connectivity to more devices. A workable IoT proposition generally required device management, secure connectivity, cloud or edge processing, industry-specific applications, integration and ongoing support.
Providers also needed a defined buyer and business outcome. A logistics company might pay to reduce vehicle downtime; a manufacturer might pay for monitoring and predictive maintenance. “IoT” without a customer problem, implementation model and measurable benefit was unlikely to become a durable business.
5. Open RAN
Open Radio Access Network architectures offered the potential for greater vendor diversity, interoperability and software-led network evolution. They also increased integration and testing demands.
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Multi-vendor deployments could create additional operational, performance and security responsibilities. Skills, lifecycle management and supplier accountability mattered as much as the architecture’s theoretical flexibility. Open RAN was therefore an option with potential strategic benefits, not a guaranteed shortcut to lower costs.
6. Video and content
Video remained important for traffic, engagement and bundling. Yet content could also be margin-intensive. Providers needed to determine whether a video offering increased retention, raised revenue or strengthened a broader bundle enough to justify its licensing, support and network costs.
7. Business-support and operations-support modernization
Modern digital experiences depended on the less visible systems behind them. Business-support systems handled products, orders, customers, billing and charging. Operations-support systems handled provisioning, assurance and network operations.
Replacing every legacy platform at once was risky, particularly where billing, emergency services or core connectivity were involved. A modular approach—common APIs, shared identity, better data governance and targeted replacement of bottlenecks—could reduce risk while improving the capabilities customers actually noticed.
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A complete transformation agenda had at least five connected layers.
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Customer layer
- Digital acquisition and onboarding.
- Omnichannel service.
- Personalization and retention interventions.
- Digital billing and payments.
- Customer-journey analytics.
Product and commercial layer
- Flexible product configuration.
- Real-time or usage-based charging.
- Enterprise connectivity and managed services.
- Private networks and IoT platforms.
- Cloud and edge partnerships.
- APIs and platform services.
- Bundled digital products.
Network layer
- 5G modernization.
- Cloud-native network functions.
- Network automation and zero-touch provisioning.
- Software-defined infrastructure.
- Open and interoperable architectures.
- Observability and service assurance.
Operations layer
- Modernized BSS and OSS.
- Automated fulfillment and provisioning.
- Predictive maintenance.
- Unified data platforms.
- Agile and DevOps delivery practices.
Governance and workforce layer
- Clear executive and business ownership.
- Reskilling and frontline adoption.
- Outcome measurement.
- Cybersecurity, privacy and consent controls.
- Vendor and ecosystem management.
Transformation failed when these layers were treated as independent technology projects. A new digital sales channel could not deliver its promise if product catalogs, eligibility rules, billing and provisioning remained incompatible.
Why transformation succeeded for some providers and failed for others
BCG’s telecom-focused analysis identified six dimensions associated with successful digital transformation:
- An integrated strategy: The provider defined clear transformation goals rather than collecting disconnected projects.
- Leadership commitment: Support extended from the chief executive through middle management.
- High-caliber talent: The organization had the skills to redesign processes, operate modern platforms and manage change.
- Agile governance: Decision-making and funding supported adoption and iteration.
- Progress monitoring: Teams tracked defined outcomes rather than activity alone.
- A business-led modular technology and data platform: New capabilities could be added without replacing the entire estate.
These principles are more useful than the broad claim that digital transformation is simply “key to success.” The relevant question is what the transformation improves and how the organization will prove it.
For further detail, see BCG’s What Data Tells Us About Digital Transformation in Telecommunications.
How transformation could create revenue
Digital investment needed a credible monetization mechanism. Potential routes included:
- Premium connectivity and service tiers.
- Managed Wi-Fi and cybersecurity.
- Business connectivity and SD-WAN.
- Private 5G networks.
- IoT platforms and industry solutions.
- Cloud and edge partnerships.
- Network APIs.
- Privacy-compliant data and analytics services.
- Digital wallets and payment services.
- Content and entertainment bundles.
- Solutions for healthcare, manufacturing, logistics and connected vehicles.
The Telecoms.com survey reported that roughly one in three respondents had multiple service concepts to monetize but found service configuration and testing difficult. It also described planned BSS and charging upgrades for enterprise and B2B2X use cases. The lesson was clear: having a promising concept was not enough. Providers needed a product catalog, charging model, fulfillment process, sales channel and support model.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Consumer and enterprise transformation were different
Combining the two markets into one generic transformation program created avoidable confusion.
Consumer priorities typically included acquisition, digital self-service, billing accuracy, support, churn reduction and bundling. The relevant measures might include digital onboarding completion, first-contact resolution, avoidable contacts, complaint rates and churn.
Enterprise priorities more often included reliability, service-level agreements, security, integration, managed services, APIs, private networks and industry-specific solutions. Measures might include activation time, SLA performance, attach rates, renewal rates, enterprise revenue and margin.
The same platform could support both segments, but the product design, sales process, risk tolerance and success metrics were not identical.
A practical transformation roadmap
Phase 1: Diagnose
- Map the highest-value customer journeys.
- Identify legacy bottlenecks in billing, ordering, provisioning and support.
- Establish baseline customer, operational and financial metrics.
- Separate consumer, small-business and enterprise requirements.
Phase 2: Prioritize
Select two or three use cases tied to measurable outcomes, such as reducing onboarding abandonment, lowering churn, cutting truck rolls, improving first-contact resolution, shortening service activation or launching an enterprise product faster.
Phase 3: Build foundations
- Common identity and access management.
- API and integration capabilities.
- Reliable product, customer and order data.
- Data governance, consent and security controls.
- Event, monitoring and observability architecture.
- Modern billing and charging capabilities where needed.
Phase 4: Pilot and scale
Run controlled pilots, measure adoption and financial results, fix process failures, and scale only after reliability is demonstrated. Retire duplicated systems as new capabilities become dependable. A staged migration is generally safer than replacing every core platform simultaneously.
Decision criteria for a transformation investment
Before approving a project, communications leaders should ask:
- What customer friction does it remove?
- Who will pay, or which measurable cost will it reduce?
- Can benefits be observed within quarters rather than only after a multiyear migration?
- How will it integrate with BSS, OSS, identity, billing and network systems?
- Are the required data accurate, accessible, governed and properly consented?
- What does it do to security, resilience, fraud and privacy risk?
- Can the provider replace or exit the vendor?
- Will the capability scale across consumer and enterprise segments?
- Can employees operate and support it?
Trade-offs and common failure modes
Transformation involved real trade-offs:
- Best-of-breed versus suite consolidation: Specialized tools may perform better in one function but increase integration and support costs.
- Cloud speed versus operational control: Cloud can accelerate releases while adding dependency, governance and cost-management requirements.
- Automation versus trust: Automation can lower costs but frustrate customers when escalation is unclear.
- Personalization versus privacy: More data can improve relevance while increasing consent and regulatory exposure.
- Open architecture versus integration effort: Interoperability can reduce lock-in but demands testing and operational maturity.
- 5G investment versus uncertain monetization: Network capability may arrive before a profitable use case.
Common failures included treating transformation as procurement, launching an app without fixing back-office processes, measuring cloud migration instead of outcomes, maintaining separate customer identities across channels, automating broken processes, underestimating legacy dependencies, and assuming that 5G, IoT or APIs would create revenue without a buyer and pricing model.
What the 2022 outlook got right—and what needs updating
The 2022 research correctly emphasized that customer experience, digital competition and operating-model change were becoming strategic issues. It was also right to highlight the difficulty of turning network capabilities into new commercial value.
But the findings should not be presented as current 2026 market facts. The Salesforce customer percentages, CTIA investment and traffic figures, and Telecoms.com expectations describe a particular research period. Surveys also measure respondent sentiment, not causality: they cannot prove that a particular cloud platform, 5G deployment or automation program caused commercial success.
TM Forum’s 2022 digital-operations research likewise provided a useful framework for linking transformation to business value, but it was sponsored research and its conclusions should be read with that context. Its emphasis on moving beyond operational efficiency toward measurable commercial outcomes remains useful, but current market conditions would require updated evidence. See the TM Forum report.
The enduring lesson is narrower and more defensible than “digital transformation guarantees success”: digital capabilities become strategically valuable when they improve customer experience, reduce operating friction, accelerate product creation or support a service that customers will actually pay for.
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