2015 will be the year service providers truly identify - and begin filling - the engagement void that exists between them and their customers.

VimpelCom has sold its majority stake in Omnium Telecom Algeria – previously known as Djezzy – to the Algerian National Investment Fund (FNI) for US$2.6 billion.

A year ago, when I was asked which trends would have a significant impact on the ICT industry in 2014, I predicted that there would be an increasing interest in prefabricated modular data centres to cope with the expected data boom in developing countries.

Building on a sudden surge of activity last year, we expect a great deal of growth in fibre to the business premises (FTTP) and fibre to the home (FTTH) in 2015. 

There is a lot going on in the telecommunications industry right now, whether because of the threat from more agile and fas­ter OTT players, the fast changing dynamics in the industry or telco’s own mindset of not being a dumb pipe anymore.

Notwithstanding the success that mobile money (MM) services have had in Kenya and a handful of other countries, most MM providers in Africa are still trying to figure out how to monetise their businesses.

We see 2015 as being the year when CEM (Customer Experience Management) becomes a top priority for operators in developing markets, as they continue their quest for the retention of customers and improvements in ARPU.

The main battle between incumbent mobile operators in Africa over the next five years will be in mobile broadband.

A year ago we predicted that during 2014 there would be a significant increase in the number of operators in Africa rolling out VoIP services.

Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) require substantial data capacities for core and trunking services, much of which uses fibre/cable.

At the AfricaCom show last November, Ahmad Farroukh, CEO of MTN South Africa, said that his company is focused on NGN for both mobile and fixed access, with LTE already available in parts of the country.

In 2014, the roll-out of LTE has been a major focus for communications service providers (CSPs), with over 300 LTE networks now in operation globally. 

2015 is going to be the year of heightened engagement and activity around mobile financial services.

In 2015, we expect to see five major mobile backhaul trends in emerging markets. 

During 2015 we expect to see further evolution in the LTE radio access network, with a number of LTE-Advanced technologies moving from the lab into commercial deployment.

As mobile telecoms become more and more intertwined with the internet, we will continue to see new services and opportunities emerge, both in the B2B and B2C area, as a result of this growing interconnectivity.

 AT&T has announced that it will acquire Nextel from NII Holdings for $1.9 billion, minus the group’s unpaid debt.

Growing customer expectations and challenging network dynamics are putting pressure on the Radio AccessNetwork (RAN) in such a manner that almost 80% of quality impacting events occur in the RAN.

A significant shift has taken place in the telecom landscape as market dynamics bring together need and opportunity to create a major change.

The telecommunications sector in emerging markets will face both opportunities and challenges for the year 2015.

In developing markets network coverage is often a significant problem, with many people outside of major cities having trouble getting connections because of poor telecoms infrastructure in their area.

Developing the mobile data usage has become the main priorities of operators across developing countries.