Developing Telecoms Global Forecast 2026 Part 2: Airtel Business, Ericsson, Liberty Latin America, ZTE

Details: James Barton; Category: Trends & Forecasts; 17 December 2025; 12803 views

In Part 2 of Developing Telecoms’ Global Forecast 2026, we share insight from vendors, including ZTE and Ericsson MFS, as well as the network & enterprise divisions of major operator groups, including Airtel Business and Liberty Networks.

Sharat Sinha, CEO, Airtel Business

2025 was more than just another year of digital progress and marked a decisive leap as technology continued to accelerate the creation of a borderless digital ecosystem, where breakthrough innovations fostered transformative cross-border collaborations, driving new models of growth for enterprises worldwide.

Today, seamless and secure connectivity has become the foundation enabling organizations to scale, compete, and lead on the global stage, powered by robust physical infrastructure such as fibre and subsea cables, as well as resilient cloud and edge technologies. Generative AI, real-time applications and cloud-native business models are turning connectivity into a strategic asset that shapes where data, capital and innovation flow and has to just always work.

For enterprises, this shift is fundamental. The question is no longer just “Is my network fast enough?” but “Is my digital infrastructure resilient, secure and future-ready?” Fragmented networks and siloed cloud deployments are therefore giving way to integrated digital infrastructure, where high-capacity connectivity, high-performing cloud, cybersecurity and data centres are architected as one stack rather than being separate line items, taking cost and complexity out of the system.

Enterprises entering emerging markets like India, on the other hand, will need to plan one more step ahead and collaborate with local partners to leverage the country’s extensive fibre networks and state-of-the-art data centres. This ensures data centralization, security, and scalability for businesses, allowing them to operate efficiently and meet the growing demands of the markets they enter.

Given this shift, the main challenge that the service providers across operators, vendors and partners alike need to address will be to execute large-scale digital transformation in emerging markets while keeping connectivity reliable, secure, affordable and fiercely efficient.

At the same time, they must also efficiently manage the subsea cables that are the vital backbone of global traffic today, mitigating cyber threats and congestion and addressing physical damage through diversified routes, hybrid architectures and stronger security controls.

Winning in fast‑growing markets like India or South-East Asia and others, therefore will belong to those who build resilient networks, invest deeply in digital and AI talent, and stay ahead of fast‑moving regulation and cyber risks.

Looking ahead, as AI, edge, and IoT converge with surging cloud adoption, intelligent and adaptive networks will become indispensable. Key trends like AI-powered networks and technology solutions along with zero-trust security will continue to redefine how global businesses future-proof their operations for agility, security, and scale.

In this journey, submarine cables with their next-generation fibre and network architecture will continue to serve as the backbone of global connectivity, carrying nearly all intercontinental data traffic. Advancing global fibre and cable investments to facilitate secure, high-performance connectivity, will therefore remain a core pillar enabling businesses worldwide to achieve agility, reach, and differentiated customer experiences in an era of fast-paced digital transformation. Upcoming subsea cable projects will unlock greater internet capacity and speed, benefiting not only local enterprises but also enhancing international data flows across continents.

The move toward diversified cable routes and advanced fibre investments is therefore vital for supporting high-performance data exchanges and future-proofing infrastructure against geopolitical and environmental risks.

Ultimately, reliable and secure connectivity, along with a complete suite of future-ready technology solutions will continue enabling businesses with agility, resilience, and scale to innovate rapidly and deliver differentiated experiences to customers and lead their markets.

As enterprises worldwide look to 2026 and beyond, they will need partners who can offer simple, integrated solutions that harness intelligent, secure, and sustainable digital infrastructure to power their always-on collaboration and innovation. An integrated digital foundation will be the much-needed backbone for a new era of borderless collaboration, enabling enterprises to innovate with confidence in a world where connectivity has become the foundation of competitiveness and trust.

Pavan Bachwal, Head of Mobile Financial Services, Ericsson

In many emerging markets from Africa to South Asia and the Middle East, the mobile phone already sits at the centre of everyday economic life. People use it to pay, receive income, run small businesses, and support family members across borders. By 2026, telecom operators will move into a much more central role in financial services.

Telecom operators become full digital financial platforms

Over the next few years, telecom operators will move well beyond simple mobile wallets and evolve into full digital financial platforms. Payments will remain the entry point, but savings, credit, merchant services, and government payments will increasingly live in the same mobile experience.

CSPs (Communication Service Providers) across several African markets already shows the early shape of this future, with services that extend far beyond basic transfers. In South Asia, a similar path is noticeable, where providers expanded from simple payments into a broader set of everyday financial tools for consumers and small businesses. As these platforms take on a more bank-like role, they will be expected to deliver real-time performance, near-constant availability, and bank-grade security. Transaction volumes will rise sharply, and tolerance for delays or outages will continue to fall.

Cross-border payments become a native mobile experience

By 2026, cross-border payments will increasingly become a native part of the mobile experience. Telecom networks with a regional footprint will act as rails for international remittances and small-value trade between neighbouring markets.

In Africa, operators with presence in multiple countries are enabling wallet-to-wallet transfers across borders, supporting small traders and regional commerce. In the Middle East, multiple CSP-led financial services support both domestic payments and international transfers for large expatriate communities. Growth in this area will depend on platforms that can handle compliance, currency conversion, and settlement instantly and at scale. When money moves across borders on a phone, trust becomes critical.

AI and digital identity redefine trust and access

Looking ahead to 2026, digital identity will sit at the heart of the next wave of inclusion. AI will play a growing role in identity verification, fraud detection, and ongoing KYC across mobile financial platforms.

For people who lack formal documentation, AI will help combine network data with transaction behaviour to build trusted digital identities over time. This will make it easier to open accounts remotely, access credit safely, and use regulated services without heavy paperwork, while placing greater responsibility on operators to protect privacy and govern data carefully.

Looking toward 2026

By 2026, digital finance in emerging markets will be defined not only by access to payments, but by the depth of services, the ease of cross-border activity, and the strength of digital identity. Telecom operators will sit at the centre of this ecosystem. If this evolution is built on fast, secure, and scalable platforms, the coming years could mark a real shift from basic digital access to true economic participation.

Ray Collins, SVP, Infrastructure and Corporate Strategy, Liberty Latin America

We see a set of converging technology shifts in the telecoms market of emerging markets across the Caribbean and Latin America in 2026, with the core themes continuing to be Cloud and AI, Latency, Data Center integration, Capacity expansion, and SLTE (submarine line terminal equipment) evolution. Cybersecurity will be critical to successful delivery.

We see these themes structurally favoring regional carriers that already own deep subsea assets, dense terrestrial fiber, and a mesh of points of presence close to major economic and digital hubs.

Latency is being improved on multiple fronts. Modernized subsea systems and new regional routes shorten physical paths between the US, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, bringing round-trip times into ranges suitable for real-time collaboration, trading, interactive content, and low-latency SaaS. When these cables are integrated into a mesh, operators can select or engineer the lowest‑latency path per application while still preserving diverse backup options.

Cloud and Data Center connectivity sit on top of this low-latency fabric. As more Points-of-Presence (POPs) are placed inside or near key carrier-neutral data centers and cloud zones, network operators can offer direct, high-capacity on‑ramps into hyperscale clouds and regional data platforms. This proximity turns the network into a strategic enabler for financial institutions, content platforms, and enterprises needing predictable performance across borders.

SLTE advances multiply these benefits. New terminal platforms support flexible spectrum, 100G/400G interfaces, and roadmaps toward higher bit rates, dramatically increasing capacity on existing wet plant while enabling finer control over how that capacity is allocated per customer or route. Paired with modern optical gear on land, this reduces cost per bit and allows granular service tiers.

Finally, POP density and cybersecurity reinforce the value proposition. An expanded grid of POPs allows operators to deliver IP transit, Ethernet, MPLS, and cloud connectivity closer to end customers, while embedding DDoS mitigation and other security functions at the edge.

Jason Tu,Chief Strategy and Ecosystem Expert, ZTE

In 2026, 5G will be rolled out in emerging markets on a large scale: Indonesia, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka in the Asia-Pacific region will complete spectrum auctions, 5G construction in northern Africa and southern Africa will enter the 5G-A pilot program, and Latin America is balancing 4G modernization with the orderly deployment of 5G.

Additionally, there will be a major surge in the fibre optic transition; currently, the penetration rate in Central/South Asia is less than 20%, and the "copper to fibre" transition will continue in 2026. Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand are upgrading to 10G PON+Wi-Fi 7; and fibre optics are accelerating their replacement of copper coaxial cables in Latin America.

Computing power and AI are being deployed at the edge, while modular data centres, integrated training and push machines are moving towards the edge. Operators are building their own GPU clouds to form a second growth curve.

The increasing prevalence of data centres will see a push towards energy integration, with technologies such as photovoltaics, liquid cooling, microgrids and site/DC integration helping to achieve "Token-managed watts".

The rise of AI will fuel the concept of network self-intelligence. Based on LLMs and AI, this creates an intelligent brain, providing digital and intelligent operation and maintenance capabilities, accelerating the overall network towards higher-level network self-intelligence, and helping operators achieve cost reduction, intelligence enhancement, and efficiency improvement.

In terms of the challenges facing operators, unstable power supply and remote locations will drive up operating costs; additionally, 5G SA has a long payback period. With mobile penetration exceeding 100%, CAPEX needs to shift towards "precise investment and construction + OPEX savings".

Inconsistent policies and regulations, data sovereignty, and AI governance standards will all require further clarification, while the shift from "selling connectivity" to "selling computing power + platform + services" requires a rapid transition in talent and business models.

That concludes Developing Telecoms’ Global Forecast for 2026, but next week (24^th December) we’ll be offering an expert appraisal of the year just gone from our in-house analyst Julian Bright, followed by his thoughts on the year to come on 31^st December. Make sure to check in with Developing Telecoms for top-tier telecoms insight, strictly focused on emerging markets – through 2026 and beyond.