How observability helps telcos deliver next-gen user experiences

As digital transformation continues to shape consumer expectations, telcos face new demands to deliver an outstanding digital customer experience (DCX) while keeping pace with next-gen infrastructures.

Industry association, the GSMA, anticipates that by the end of the decade, 45% of consumers in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region will be on the 5G network, with the sector as a whole set to be transformed by 5G, AI, and satellite technology.

The emergence of these new technologies is driving the transformation of how telcos approach and engage with customers. Beyond enhanced speed and connectivity, technology advances offer APAC telcos the chance to innovate and develop new digital products and services that cater to various industries and customer profiles.

With opportunity comes challenges

New Relic's recent State of Observability for IT and Telecommunications report identifies an increased focus on customer experience management (39%) as one of the top trends driving adoption of full-stack observability among providers. The rise of new technologies can contribute to a less than ideal customer experience due to the creation of large amounts of data contained in siloed environments. 
When combined with consumer expectations for a reliable, mobile-first experience, high levels of industry regulation, and user privacy requirements, it's clear that telcos require end-to-end visibility.

Observability offers a detailed view of the entire technology stack, enabling insights into performance and health. It includes real-time monitoring, tracking, and analysis of various components, such as servers, networks, applications, and user experiences, in real-time. An intelligent observability platform enables providers to access real-time insights, predictive analytics, and proactive issue resolution capabilities so that potential bottlenecks can be identified well before they become problematic.

High cost of outage and downtime

Organisations operating in increasingly complex IT environments face added pressure to keep everything up and running. New Relic found that the IT and telco sectors have higher outage frequencies compared to other industries, with 37% experiencing outages at least once a week compared to the industry average of 32%. This adds up to a median annual outage cost of US$12.71 million.

Given the relative frequency of outages, this mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to resolve (MTTR) adds up to considerable downtime. Telco organisations are grappling with high stakes, further emphasising the critical need for improved monitoring and rapid issue-resolution capabilities.

Advancing tool consolidation
Organisations included in the New Relic report were more likely than average to use multiple monitoring tools, with more than two-thirds (69%) using four or more tools for observability compared to 63% overall.

This indicates that telco engineering teams spend significant time and money tool-hopping to better understand the different aspects of their business and resolve the issues that lead to costly outages and poor customer experiences.

Encouragingly, the New Relic data suggests that organisations surveyed are beginning to consolidate tools, with over half (56%) indicating a preference for a single observability platform. There is also a growing appreciation of the business value of observability, with 55% of respondents noting that observability improves collaboration and decision-making.

Given their strong interest in deploying more capabilities in the next few years, signs point to more streamlining and consolidation amongst telco organisations, with an evident shift away from point solutions to more robust platforms that provide end-to-end visibility.

Tackling security in the AI era

The rise of advanced AI tools, especially generative AI applications, introduces new complexities to the threat landscape by potentially enabling novel types of attacks and making existing ones more difficult to detect. These attacks can significantly impact victims and undermine trust in digital platforms.

The New Relic report reveals that 96% of leaders in the telecommunications and telco industries plan to use security monitoring by mid-2026, which demonstrates that system security maintenance is a primary focus. These concerns place a focus on security adoption and compliance policies, data controls, and user privacy.

Due to the rapid progress of the telco industry creating increasingly complex technology stacks, these organisations require intelligent, modern observability practices. To minimise expensive outages and deliver the digital experience consumers expect, telcos must consolidate their monitoring tools and invest in a modern, intelligent observability platform. By doing so, they can eliminate interruptions to the digital experience and create best of breed customer experiences.