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Contact Center Country Focus, 2025: The United Kingdom — Key Factors to Succeed in the Market

Oru Mohiuddin — Tue, 05 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Presentation provides an overview of the U.K. contact center market and key factors to succeed in the market. The U.K. contact center market is distinct from the rest of Europe, pairing a strong appetite for advanced technology and AI with a uniquely high sensitivity to security driven by its role as a global business and services hub. Unlike many European markets where security concerns stem from a more conservative regulatory culture, U.K. security priorities are shaped by greater exposure to cross‑border threats and spillover risks, forcing organizations to balance speed and innovation with resilience and control. This creates a rare combination of high innovation potential and complex risk management, making the United Kingdom a critical market for vendors seeking growth — and a compelling reason to dive deeper into this document.

Navigating the UAE’s Digital Regulatory Landscape: Key Frameworks Shaping the Digital Economy

Tolga Yalcin — Tue, 05 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Perspective examines the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE’s) digital regulatory landscape through two connected pillars: enabling infrastructure regulations and digital regulations. It highlights recent policy and regulatory developments across connectivity, datacenters, cloud, artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, and data protection, with a focus on how federal and emirate-level authorities are shaping the country’s digital economy. The document shows that the UAE’s regulatory model is becoming more operational, more multilayered, and more consequential for how technology suppliers and service providers design, deploy, and scale digital and infrastructure solutions.

“The UAE’s digital regulatory environment is becoming broader, more operational, and more integrated across both enabling infrastructure and digital service regulation. For suppliers and service providers, this means regulation is increasingly shaping not only compliance but also product design, deployment models, and commercial strategy. The firms that build regulatory fluency into their go-to-market approach will be best placed to capture opportunities across the UAE’s evolving digital economy.” — Tolga Yalcin, research director, Telecoms, IoT, and Digital Regulations, IDC META

Next-Generation Fixed Network Evolution Paths for Fiber, DOCSIS, and Fixed Wireless Access in the META Region

Tolga Yalcin — Mon, 04 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Presentation examines how operators across the Middle East, Türkiye, and Africa (META) are balancing fiber, DOCSIS, and fixed wireless access to address uneven infrastructure maturity, coverage gaps, and monetization pressure. It shows how fiber is moving toward XGS-PON, FTTR, and premium connected-premises models; how DOCSIS remains relevant where cable assets still exist; and how fixed wireless access (FWA) is becoming a mainstream option for faster rollout, broader reach, and flexible residential and business monetization.

"Fixed access in the META region is entering a more strategic phase, where success depends less on one technology choice and more on aligning fiber, DOCSIS, and FWA with local market realities. Fiber remains the premium long-term path, DOCSIS the selective bridge, and FWA the fastest route to broader coverage and flexible monetization," says Research Director Tolga Yalcin, Telecoms, IoT, and Digital Regulations, IDC META.

AT&T 1Q26 Results: Record Internet Adds, Fiber Expansion, and OneConnect Launch

Jitesh Bhayani — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

AT&T opened 2026 with its best-ever first quarter for advanced internet customer growth, posting 584,000 total fiber and fixed wireless net additions — the sixth consecutive quarter exceeding 500,000 net adds — while beating consensus estimates on both revenue and adjusted EPS. The company's 1Q26 consolidated revenue of $31.5 billion, representing 2.9% year-over-year (YoY) growth, was driven primarily by strength in the company's newly reported Advanced Connectivity segment, which now accounts for more than 90% of consolidated revenue and nearly all adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted EPS of $0.57 surpassed analyst expectations of $0.55, rising nearly 12% year over year.

IDC Survey Spotlight: Are Enterprise AI Demands Rising Faster than Network Confidence?

Nikhil Batra — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey Spotlight examines enterprise confidence in network readiness across Asia/Pacific. It highlights that many organizations are uncertain whether their current network environments can support future digital demands. The document outlines what is driving that caution and where service providers can step in with stronger guidance and operational support.

"AI is making network uncertainty harder to ignore. Many organizations are still working out what is expected from their networks today, and what scaling those AI-augmented initiatives (and newer ones) will mean for their enterprise network over the next few years," says Nikhil Batra, senior research director, Telecom, IDC. He also adds, "This is creating an opportunity for service providers that can help customers plan and modernize their environments with greater confidence."

This document contains data from IDC's December 2025 Asia/Pacific Enterprise Connectivity and Telecom Services Survey, which included 700 respondents.

FutureNet World London 2026: APIs as the Execution Layer for AI-Driven Customer Journeys

Masarra Mohamed — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Note summarizes key insights and takeaways from FutureNet World London 2026, which highlighted the convergence of network APIs and AI as the execution layer for customer journeys in European telecom. Operators are moving from conceptual debates to practical deployment, focusing on packaging APIs within solutions, agent-ready architecture, and data foundations. The conference underscored execution discipline, trust, and regulatory alignment as key differentiators, with early movers setting market expectations. AI-driven customer journey redesign, pragmatic automation, and unified data pipelines are central to operational readiness and competitive advantage.

“APIs are no longer just endpoints; they have become the execution layer where AI, trust, and customer experience converge,” said Masarra Mohamed, Global CPaaS lead. “Will your network be the substrate for tomorrow’s agent-driven journeys?”

Comcast Business 2026 Analyst Event Highlights Accelerated AI-Driven Focus to Bolster Enterprise Growth

Paul Hughes, Ghassan Abdo, Jitesh Bhayani, Peter Chahal, Jason Leigh — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Comcast Business' 2026 Analyst Event highlighted that the company is at a pivotal and transformational moment, where its infrastructure, AI capabilities, and partner ecosystem products are now an integrated solution. This comes at a time when the enterprise digital transformation curve is peaking and businesses are looking for a strategic partner that can manage the pace of change and support long-term business outcomes.

Top 5 Trends in SMB UC&C, 2026: Predictions for the U.S. Market for 2026 and Beyond

Daniela Rao, Denise Lund — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Presentation summarizes the top 5 trends in the unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) market and provides recommendations to address midmarket organizations with innovative solutions.

The Amazon Globalstar Deal: Implications for Communications SPs

Simon Baker, Peter Chahal — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Link provides an overview of the implications of the purchase of LEO satellite operator Globalstar by Amazon. The deal brings Amazon into the direct smartphone to satellite (D2C) market and allies it with Apple, which controls the most important single-brand installed base of smartphones. Amazon will compete more widely against SpaceX, and cellular operators will have a third potential satellite operator partner in D2C.

AI-Driven Network Operations and Maintenance

Hyder Aftab — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Presentation discusses how telecom operators in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (META) are navigating a shift from legacy operations and maintenance (O&M) practices toward AI-driven and autonomous network operations. IDC survey data from META operators show that integration complexity and high operating costs are the top OSS/BSS pain points, while increasing AI and automation capabilities consistently emerge as a key investment driver across O&M domains. Opex reduction and service quality improvement top the list of operators' AI initiative goals. AIOps adoption reflects a market in transition; the majority of operators report partial adoption, with tools deployed at the domain level rather than as integrated cross-domain platforms. GenAI engagement is broad across all use cases surveyed, though production deployment rates remain modest, consistent with a market where POC and implementation activity is ahead of full-scale rollout.

Progress toward Level 4 autonomous operations varies by network domain. RAN shows the greatest advances, while core networks and datacenter environments are in the earlier stages — reflecting multi-vendor complexity and legacy dependencies. Deployments at STC, MTN, and China Mobile provide reference points for what autonomous O&M delivers at scale — including reduced fault resolution times, higher network reliability, and energy savings — with unified orchestration platforms as the common enabler in each case. OSS/BSS interoperability remains the most cited integration barrier, with implications for service assurance, GenAI, and agentic AI adoption timelines. Vendors that address cross-domain integration, align with open standards (e.g., TMF Open APIs and CAMARA), and adapt solution design to the maturity differences between markets in the Gulf and the broader MEA region are well-positioned for the next phase of operator investment.