Network X 2026: Does Connectivity Have to Be So Complex?

Glen Farrell and Ciaran Treanor represented Sonalake at Network X in Vienna in October, joining operators, technology providers and industry colleagues from across the global telecommunications sector.

For us, Network X was an opportunity to explore some of the commercial and operational challenges facing connectivity providers. One theme that emerged from our conversations was the increasing complexity of the services operators are expected to deliver.

Enterprise connectivity is a good example. A customer might need services across dozens of locations, involving different infrastructure providers, access technologies and commercial arrangements. Pricing may be negotiated, resilience requirements may influence which suppliers can be used, and fulfilling an order can involve several organisations and systems. What appears to the customer as a single connectivity service can be considerably more complicated behind the scenes.

Many operators are still managing aspects of this complexity through a combination of legacy systems, supplier portals and manual workflows. These approaches can be perfectly workable for individual transactions, but become harder to sustain as the number of products, suppliers and commercial relationships grows. We also heard interest in making commercial changes easier to manage, particularly where bespoke pricing and agreements add another layer of complexity.

Something that struck us during these conversations was that operators don't necessarily lack technology. In many cases, they already have numerous systems doing different parts of the job. The difficulty is making those systems and processes work together, particularly when introducing new products, working with additional suppliers, or handling situations that don't follow the standard process.

These are challenges we are familiar with at Sonalake through our work on SwitchedOn Fibre. We help wholesale operators and aggregators manage complex commercial relationships and automate processes across qualification, ordering and billing. But conversations at Network X also highlighted how varied operators' requirements can be, particularly as they move beyond straightforward residential fibre services.

During the event, we demonstrated SwitchedOn Fibre and exchanged ideas with operators about how software can help them support more complex connectivity services without a corresponding increase in operational overhead.

Thanks to everyone who met with us in Vienna. We look forward to continuing the conversations and exploring how connectivity can become easier to deliver, even as the services themselves become more sophisticated.