Back to the crystal ball: Checking in on channel predictions for 2025

Somehow, we’re in the final third of the year already. At the beginning of the year, I set out six trends that I anticipated for 2025, and this blog provides a bit of an update on where things are at and if my tea leaves were right.

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PSTN

At Channel Live, back in April, James Lilley, director, all-IP at Openreach said that the PSTN switch off simply ‘can’t’ be delayed again. ‘We are getting to a tipping point now where it’s going to be more dangerous for people to stay on the current PSTN than to move to all-IP.’

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I mentioned back in January that this year needed to see the channel fully commit to moving customers over to post-PSTN solutions. While I’m struggling to get up to date stats on the businesses still to switch (I’d love to see them if you have them), Lilley mentioned in the same panel that Openreach still has 5 million customers left to transition. So, the opportunity remains; but it’s important to start acting on it now to get ahead of the transition.

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Vendor consolidation

I predicted 2025 would be a year of continuing vendor consolidation - and this is proving to be true. One recently announced example is Virgin Media O2 and Daisy Group planning to merge their B2B operations; two big names in the UK channel coming together to combine fibre and mobile infrastructure with end-to-end IT and sales management platforms.

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It makes sense for both the channel and end users. Managing vendor sprawl while making the necessary investments in new technologies and platforms remains a challenge and we’re seeing this shift toward simplification reflected in our partner ecosystem.

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For our part, we’re continuing to build managed services that directly complement and enhance our connectivity offer. This is a key part of our channel strategy - allowing us to support partners with full service solutions and the ability for our partners to outsource the management of them as much or as little as they want to. It’s also a particularly margin rich opportunity to diversify your portfolio, letting us take care of the end to end service and taking advantage of the cost efficiencies of supply through one provider.

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AI

AI continues to rapidly transform the IT landscape, bringing new threats and new defences with it. Leading with a Zero Trust approach is essential: trust nothing, verify everything. As hybrid working continues, we need intelligent automation to monitor vulnerabilities at scale. 

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SASE plays a key role here, supporting secure remote use, tackling the management challenges of SaaS (data protection, access control and shadow IT), and improving visibility across all these elements. Single-vendor SASE offerings such as those from Fortinet, are becoming more valuable, helping to consolidate technologies for better integration and efficiency. 

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At the beginning of the year, I discussed the role AI would increasingly play in network maintenance and management too. I called out Juniper MIST - which we’re an Elite Partner for, as a particularly ground-breaking AI-native networking platform. Just this month, it’s been lauded as one of the key contributors to Juniper’s position as a Leader in Gartner's 2025 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Wired and Wireless LAN Infrastructure, for the fifth consecutive time. 

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"AI for networking operations (AIOps) has become the strategic focus for enterprises to prepare their wired and wireless infrastructure for the future." 

• Sudheer Matta, SVP, Campus & Branch, Juniper Networks.

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Partner experience

My predictions blog discussed the trend towards larger carriers streamlining and restructuring their indirect sales models - and the opportunity this presents for smaller carriers and those determined to make their mark in a more personal way. (Like us!)

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Our next step, having seen our channel community grow so quickly and successfully, is to start to build more specific initiatives across our base and the wider channel. We launched our Women in Channel Community initiative this year, and the first event took place last month. The event and the feedback since has been great validation for this more personal, community based approach, so we’re most certainly not stopping now. If you’re a woman working in the channel, or the wider telco industry, we’d love you to get involved. You can learn more here.

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Increased fibre availability

In the absence of up to date statistics on Project Gigabit, there are a couple of anecdotal examples we can point to to understand how the roll out is progressing. In January 2025, a £289 million initiative was announced to bring gigabit broadband to 131,000 households and businesses in rural areas of England and Wales. At Elevate, we recently completed our roll out of full fibre across Cardiff, and have recently been awarded the contract to bring the same to St Helens. 

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As Project Gigabit moves into more rural and hard to reach areas, there’s also an opportunity in alternative access options like wireless connectivity. You can read more about that in our recent blog on the subject.

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Backup and diversity

I noted back at the start of the year that the proliferation of AI, SaaS, cloud and remote working necessitated better backup - in the foundational, network layers of infrastructure. We’ve seen a number of high profile attacks in recent months, and given the heightened awareness of connectivity vulnerabilities, channel partners have a significant opportunity in focusing on comprehensive backup solutions. 

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By integrating services such as 5G or wireless failover, we can address the pressing needs of businesses seeking to mitigate downtime risks. Add to that a margin rich Managed Firewall, and you have a compelling security proposition for both BAU and incident response. 

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The push for regulatory measures to ensure compensation for connectivity outages also reflects this growing recognition that internet access is for most businesses. Partners need to be able to offer robust, failsafe security and backup to stand out. Please do get in touch if you’d like to learn more about our AlwaysOn offer, and we can support you to do just this.

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It’s been a busy old year so far - both across the channel and the wider tech community - and while feeling slightly smug about my January tea leaves being fairly accurate, I’m still taken aback by the sheer pace of change we’re seeing. Looking forward to seeing what the next few months bring, and if there are any trends you think I’ve missed, please let me know!

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Will Goodall, Elevate Wholesale Director