Rakuten Symphony on choosing the right telco business model for the next decade
By Ray Le Maistre
Jul 21, 2026
Sandeep Arora, Head of Global Sales, Rakuten Symphony
At DTW Ignite 2026 in Copenhagen, Rakuten Symphony's head of global sales, Sandeep Arora, discusses the company's report, ‘Telecom Growth 2026: Choosing the Right Business Model for the Next Decade’, which argues that a saturated market requires operators to rethink how they grow. He sets out three strategic paths for operators - ecosystem, utility and platform - alongside three underlying themes: treating customers as lifetime members rather than subscribers, using disaggregation to unlock the value of spectrum and data, and applying autonomous networks and agentic AI to support that model. Arora also explains why the report favours lifetime value over ARPU and churn, the role of a common data platform in AI readiness, and how non-connectivity services can multiply the value of core connectivity.
Download the report - Telecom Industry Growth Report 2026 | Rakuten Symphony
Recorded June 2026
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