026 brings risk of operator irrelevance: 3 strategies to fight back
By Geoff Hollingworth Chief Marketing Officer Rakuten Symphony
January 6, 2026
One of the many challenges MNOs face is irrelevance. Because it has never been easier to change carriers. And it will never be as hard as today. If all telecom operators are to thrive in the future, which we at Rakuten Symphony believe all can, then the hard work of transformation needs to be accomplished as quickly as possible. People need more reasons to stay with an MNO because they increasingly have no challenges in leaving.
The industry is facing many forces of change that MNOs must respond to. These include network upgrades according to the traditional industry G cadence, and AI that is rapidly changing the technology landscape of all businesses and industries. These forces will make traditional survival increasingly hard. Now is the time to change the game.
Will MNOs Become Irrelevant?
What do actor Ryan Reynolds and I have in common? We’re both contributing to the growing irrelevance of the telecom industry.
Let me explain.
2025 has been a difficult year for the telecom industry; a year defined by stalled growth, employment losses, financial setbacks, and a renewed corporate emphasis on building mega-networks while struggling to demonstrate the meaningful impact of AI.
But beneath the surface a deeper concern is taking shape: the risk that MNOs will gradually become irrelevant as technology innovators.
Today, it’s possible for consumers to switch carriers in minutes with no hassle right on their phone. This ability to churn seamlessly gives MVNOs unprecedented competitive power. MNOs then risk becoming little more than the utility-like wholesale providers behind those MVNO brands, carrying the same volume of traffic but receiving far lower revenue per user. The infrastructure remains expensive; the return on that investment dwindles.
Which brings me back to Ryan Reynolds and me.
We’re both taking advantage of this shift, albeit in very different ways. I switched to an MVNO earlier this year and immediately saved hundreds of dollars a year, while receiving the same, if not better, service quality and dramatically better customer support. Ryan did something similar on a much grander scale with Mint Mobile, building a successful MVNO atop T-Mobile’s network and ultimately selling it back to T-Mobile.
That transaction was notable not only for its financial outcome, but for its symbolism: the celebrity-driven MVNO innovated more quickly and resonated more deeply with consumers than the underlying operator, which also laid off more than 4,000 people in 2025.
In other words, we both benefited—but at the operator’s expense. And unless things change, millions more customers will follow the same path.
2026 Keys to Telecom Success
The question for operators now is simple but urgent: how can the industry begin turning this situation around? The challenges are structural and multi-layered, but they are not insurmountable.
However, doing nothing is no longer an option. Below are several areas where operators can meaningfully influence their trajectory in 2026 and reclaim relevance in the broader digital ecosystem.
Rethink Emerging Markets
One area where operators still have room to lead is in emerging markets. Recent years have shown that fixed wireless access (FWA) has been a good service offering for operators. In places where fiber is slow or expensive to roll out, FWA has become a fast path to broadband competition and subscriber growth. Operators that doubled down early now enjoy new revenue streams. It is good to note that FWA is still a connectivity service which MNOs know how to sell. So, while it’s innovative, it’s also not much of a stretch.
Private 5G networks and edge cloud services represent even greater long-term potential. Enterprises in manufacturing, logistics, mining, and energy increasingly seek low-latency, high-reliability networks tailored to their operational needs. The market has been slow but is now being unlocked beyond the specialized hard-to-deliver environments such as mines and ports. The secret to success is commoditization so the market offers Wi-Fi level operational simplicity with Wi-Fi level pricing.
If operators embrace these enterprise and industrial markets with purpose-built offerings, rather than treating them as adjacent experiments, 2026 could mark the beginning of a sustainable new revenue model.
Rethink Open RAN as a Tool for Customizable Solutions
Open RAN is an industry success and at the same time is irrelevant. How can these both be true? The supplier base has not expanded, some say it is smaller, and Rakuten Mobile is one of the few new success stories.
The lack of true progress in adopting industry-wide open approaches comes down to the lack of understanding that this was an operational automation transformation first, and an open radio approach second. Open RAN is far from irrelevant outside the staid macro network however.
It is enabling completely different approaches, topologies and combinations in the markets for private networks, neutral hosts, and shared infrastructure offerings, where different mesh designs and hosting models can radically change the costs and lead times for deliveries. 80% of traffic is indoor and AI is being used to increase localized requirements even if its growth is not strong in macro networks. The growth of these deployments will impact macro networks. The future will refer to now as the “peak macro” era.
And in this reality, Open RAN should be viewed as a platform for continuous evolution—one that allows operators to adopt new functionality at a pace closer to cloud-native software companies. By embracing openness, operators gain the ability to assemble customizable system designs that mix and match capabilities, optimize performance, or selectively integrate innovations from specialized suppliers.
On the radio side, in a landscape where tech companies are iterating faster than ever, Open RAN is one of the few levers that could fundamentally shift how operators compete. But it requires moving beyond the narrow cost narrative and embracing openness as the foundation for renewed innovation.
Score Easy AI Wins Right Now
Telecom AI is another area in dire need of recalibration. The hype surrounding transformative AI use cases, many of which require massive data center investments, has overshadowed the practical, near-term opportunities operators can tap immediately.
These large-scale projects tend to be expensive, complex, and slow to deliver measurable value, creating disappointment and reinforcing the industry’s reputation for long, costly technology cycles.
AI can help telecom make sure the basics are fixed:
Quality consistent customer and network data, available when needed.
Data streaming, collection, management.
Data governance and accessibility as a platform.
We know how to do this in Rakuten, it is required for all our 70+ businesses. Telecom is no different.
In parallel, there are real opportunities for targeted AI initiatives such as back-office automation, field service support, fraud detection, customer care enhancements, and network planning optimization. These initiatives can deliver meaningful cost savings and service improvements without requiring the full build-out of advanced generative AI capabilities.
There’s a lot of benefit to starting with high-impact, low-risk use cases that build momentum and confidence before expanding into larger, more transformative domains.
A Moment of Truth for 2026
In recent months, industry chatter has increasingly drifted toward 6G as the next big solution to the industry’s financial and strategic challenges. But history provides little support for that hope. The transitions from 4G to 5G failed to deliver the step-change in operator economics that many expected, and there’s no compelling reason to believe 6G will be any different.
That is why operators cannot rely on 6G as salvation. Instead, they must confront the structural issues surfaced during 2025 and make bold choices in 2026. The path forward lies in rethinking market opportunities, embracing openness, and pursuing pragmatic AI strategies, not waiting for another generation of wireless technology to magically reset the playing field.
2026 is a pivotal year. And unless operators act now (I say this every year), MNO irrelevance will continue to grow, not because of actors or opportunistic consumers, but because the industry failed to redefine its place in the digital economy when the opportunity was right in front of it.
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