Most telecom operators not ready to handle bandwidth growth: report

This article was published in SDX Central on August 25, 2025. You can read the original article here

Leaders not prepared for the AI surge

Research from Rtbrick has reported that most telecom leaders don’t believe their current architectures can handle future increases in bandwidth demand.

In a survey analyzing current and expected network performance, researchers found 81% of telecom operators are unprepared for the bandwidth demand being galvanized by AI and streaming traffic, while 84% reported that customer expectations for faster and more affordable broadband are already surpassing the capabilities of their networks.

The ambition towards network disaggregation is strong in the sector, with almost all operators (91%) willing to invest in disaggregation, and 94% planning to deploy within five years.

Benefits of disaggregation highlighted by those surveyed included operational automation, supply chain resilience (54%), energy efficiency, lower purchase and operational costs, and reduced vendor lock-in.

Rtbrick reported execution as lagging behind ambition, though, with one in twenty leaders confirming they were currently in deployment, while 49% remained in early-stage exploration, and 38% still in the planning phase.

A total of 90% noted that their organization needed to accelerate efforts sooner than originally scheduled. Hurdles, though, come in the form of three factors. Nearly all organizations (93%) said they need stronger leadership support to advance network disaggregation, while many pointed to operational complexity (42%) and a shortage of specialist skills (38%) as key obstacles.

Nearly all surveyed leaders admitted their organizations were either already using or planning to use AI in network operations, spanning areas such as planning, optimization, and fault resolution.

Yet nine in ten (93%) indicated they could not realize AI’s full potential without richer, real-time network data, as dependent on more open, modular, software-driven architectures made possible by network disaggregation.

Supporting views

The research reflects similar findings on the impact of AI on networking.

Recent Ciena research found only 16% of operators reported their optical networks as “very ready” for AI, while nearly one-third (29%) believe AI will contribute more than half of all long-haul traffic over the next three years.

A recent report by Dell’Oro Group, meanwhile, found that AI led to a 51% increase in global data center capex in 2024, hitting $455 billion in investment.

Real estate consulting firm JLL’s Data Center Project Development and Services, meanwhile, expects around 40% of total data center workloads to be AI-related by 2030.

650 Group argued this AI demand will push Ethernet, fueled by growing adoption of 800 Gb/s (800G) and eventually 1.6 Tb/s (1.6T) system capacity, past InfiniBand as “the dominant technology for scale-out” by the end of this year, generating more than $8 billion in revenues.