How will the new year change the telco and data center industry?

The locomotive of network progress is not slowing down, though rising energy prices, volatile exchange rates and slower economic development grind under its wheels. What challenges can we expect in 2023? Which network solutions will grow? What to invest in to save energy? Salumanus experts share their knowledge and experience, which allows them to sketch forecasts for 2023.

Marcin Bala
CEO Salumanus

2023 will be the year of investments branded with the word “Savings.” Data Center, Telecom and ISP operators are experiencing significant increases in operating costs. This makes operational costs, such as maintenance, energy costs, space occupancy, heat dissipation, etc., much more important at the stage of investment in a new solution.

I see in the market of large operators testing not only solutions that are less energy intensive, but also looking for solutions that, through changes in network architecture, allow to reduce operating costs much more.

Lukasz Sukiennik
Director of Transmission Systems Salumanus

The year 2023 for the network industry will be marked by a multiplication in O-band. The solution is gaining market interest because of its huge potential to reduce the cost of building a network.

At Salumanus, we have been developing a portfolio of devices for several months that allow significant transmission multiplication only in the “O” band. As one of the first companies in the world, we proposed a complete solution for optical networks based on this, hitherto underappreciated, transmission band. These are QSFP28 optical modules and multiplexers of the GBC Photonics brand.

Andrzej Wojnar
Director of Optical Modules Salumanus

100G modules will become standard in many areas of the network. We saw a huge increase in sales last year. However, 2023 could be a turning point in this regard. The sales value of 100G modules will significantly exceed that of 10G modules.

In 2023, in my opinion, there will be even more visible actions to reduce the power consumption of components of network systems. On the one hand, this will be driven by drastically rising energy costs, and on the other hand, pressures to build climate-neutral infrastructure. For example, a coherent 100G solution in the form of a QSFP28 module fits perfectly into this trend.‍

‍In many telecommunications networks, they are still operating legacy services, which are very expensive to maintain due to their age-old infrastructure, consuming huge amounts of energy and occupying large areas. Many operators have announced the shutdown of legacy infrastructure until the end of 2025. This means that you will need to migrate services that are still running.

For this purpose, we have prepared an offer of GBC Photonics SFP modules that allow aggregation of E1 or SDH transmissions and “let” them into the packet network. This allows you to keep customers attached to these old services, while at the same time huge savings in terms of their service, space occupancy and energy consumption.

Maciej Kotowicz
Commercial Director Salumanus

Crisis — this word is changed today by all possible cases. The ongoing Covid 19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, galloping energy and fuel prices significantly shape our ideas about what awaits us in 2023. Do these worrisome factors also portend problems for the IT industry? Well, not necessarily! According to Gartner's forecasts, global IT spending will increase by more than 5% from 2022.

The two most important market trends that will clearly affect our industry are further changes in the way work is done (instead of specifying the place and time of work — setting goals and measuring efficiency) and the evolution of relationships with customers and suppliers (even closer integration and optimization of supply chains).

If you look at these trends from the technology side, Gartner points to wireless, artificial intelligence combined with superapplications and sustainability as the most sought after. From the point of view of the network and transmission solutions we deal with, we see great opportunities for us in popularizing 5G systems Operators, and WiFi 6 and 7 among commercial customers.

The business use of artificial intelligence means the need to collect and process huge amounts of data and transmit it over long distances in a short time (multicloud environment). Optics come to the rescue xWDM transmission systems, which are increasingly sought after not only by operators and service providers, but also by public institutions and commercial customers. Importantly, our solutions are not only efficient and scalable, but also energy-optimized, allowing our customers to reduce their carbon footprint.

So we look ahead to next year with moderate optimism, believing that by helping our clients keep up with their changing business environment, we will also achieve market success ourselves.

Magdalena Podgorska
HR Director
Member of the Board of Salumanus

The ICT industry has always attracted people interested in acquiring new knowledge. Due to the pandemic, for more than 2 years we have been able to deepen this knowledge almost exclusively through online training or industry literature, and therefore away from others, unable to confront our thoughts and conclusions in real time.

Today we can return to traditional workshops or participation in stationary scientific conferences, during which it is easier to assimilate knowledge and share it. The year 2023 will be, in my opinion, the year increased educational activity, exchange of experiences and ideas, which will result in the emergence of new ICT solutions having a strategic impact on the current geopolitical situation.