1. Data and analytics take center stage as cloud gains prominence for both infrastructure support and service delivery.
Customer, usage and network data all increase in relevance and importance as a way to monetize new services at the appropriate price points, deliver a better user experience and keep customers loyal throughout the entire service lifecycle.

2. Today’s television user interfaces will evolve even faster thanks to the cloud.
As increasing volumes of web content and premium content join together, user interfaces must be dynamic. Many platforms have already implemented a crossover between web content and premium content and use dedicated apps to deliver specific content via the television interface, such as the Spectrum app on Apple TV.

3. Amazon, Microsoft and other public clouds coexist with cable to deliver more than just XaaS.
Cable providers now have the ability to utilize public clouds for back-office infrastructure functions (e.g. revenue management, open digital marketplace, VNFs), making it faster and cheaper to launch new virtual services like SD-WAN.

4. The cloud is “decentralizing” with cable MSOs seeking greater power at the edge.
As both residential and business services demand greater bandwidth, pushing more capabilities to the local level with help guarantees performance and quality of service.

5. CMTS should soon be “cloudified.”
The CMTS should move from a hardware-based platform into one that is broken into cloud-based microservices for greater reliability and scalability. This will increase operational efficiency and reduce maintenance costs, as core functions can be managed from the cloud.

6. SD-WAN is the low-hanging fruit for cable business services as MSOs explore virtualization.
Re-engineering the WAN to deliver services to enterprise customers is the initial growth engine for virtualized business services. This will lead to a broader portfolio in the coming years.

7. Virtual CPE in the home (a.k.a. cloud DVR) will help MSOs reduce service delivery costs and create a significant revenue opportunity.
ABI Research shows that annual consumer spending of cloud DVR services is expected reach nearly $700 million by 2023, up from a projected $400 million in 2018. This is a significant increase in consumer revenues, which to date are flat or slightly down.

8. Cloud DVR’s cloud storage portability will be a strong customer retention tool.
Consumers increasingly want access to content from any device on any network and expect ultimate flexibility of service delivery at a competitive price. Creating a virtual inventory of chosen content that can be accessed based on account login will increase customer satisfaction and longevity.

9, Cloud-based BSS will help transform the MSO’s ability to enable much greater service flexibility at a time when competitive threats from wireless are ever increasing.
The transformation of traditional cable BSS to the cloud is a logical step towards greater scale, service flexibility and a stronger competitive position against wireless providers that offer potential cable displacement services with their fixed-wireless access offerings. With the majority of cable providers in the U.S. already outsourcing BSS-related functions, the move to cloud BSS is the logical next step.

10. Video surveillance as a service and cloud-based backup and recovery services represent two high-value B2B services that will increase business revenue percentages for cable MSOs.
Both services require little to no storage/compute hardware, provide a lower cost of ownership and provide more scale and flexibility than dedicated hardware-based solutions. Both are in high demand.