This year, we at Neurocom had the opportunity to attend Capacity Europe 2025 — three intense days in London, thousands of professionals, and one clear takeaway: the telecom industry is restructuring itself at an unprecedented pace.

Having spent over two decades navigating interconnection, wholesale, and billing challenges, we see how dramatically the conversation has evolved. The rise of hyperscalers, the incredible growth of AI, and the move towards Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) have all converged into one major shift: connectivity is no longer a fixed product — it’s becoming a programmable, on-demand resource. And that’s a game-changer for billing and monetisation.

A Fluid Value Chain — and Fewer Clear Boundaries

The traditional separation between carriers, enterprises, and hyperscalers is fading fast. Telecom infrastructure is becoming modularised — split into distinct domains, each accessible through APIs. Capacity, whether in the form of fibre pairs, 5G slices, or satellite links, is now consumed dynamically based on customer demand. In this evolving model, operators become both suppliers and customers within a growing web of partnerships. Each layer carries its own commercial logic:

From our perspective, this “layered world” is fascinating but also challenging. Billing must evolve from static product catalogues to event-driven, API-based monetisation that can handle many-to-many relationships across multiple domains.

From Bill-Runs to Continuous Monetisation

We’ve worked with many operators where the billing cycle was the heartbeat of the business — a monthly ritual that defined cash flow. That world is disappearing.

In the as-a-service economy, services are activated and deactivated dynamically, and usage is measured in real time. To manage that, carriers need mediation layers that aggregate data from multiple systems and apply rating instantly, in near real time.

Revenue assurance can no longer be reactive. It must become continuous, validating and reconciling transactions as they occur. This shift is not just operational — it’s cultural, requiring billing and finance teams to move beyond the mindset of “closing the month” toward ensuring ongoing revenue integrity.

Hyperscalers Redefining the Playing Field

A recurring theme at Capacity Europe was the growing influence of hyperscalers in connectivity itself. Meta’s involvement in submarine cable projects is just one example — others, from AWS to Google, are moving in the same direction.

This trend blurs the traditional lines between suppliers and customers. Hyperscalers bring traffic, scale, and capital, while operators contribute regulatory expertise and operational discipline. Together, they form a complementary and collaborative relationship that is reshaping the ecosystem.

AI, AI, AI!

AI was, unsurprisingly, everywhere at Capacity. It promises to optimise network operations, enable predictive QoS, and even drive dynamic pricing. But it also raises critical questions.

If decisions are made autonomously at the edge, who verifies the billing logic? Who audits the AI model’s reasoning?

From our point of view, automation doesn’t eliminate humans — it simply moves them upstream. In billing and revenue assurance, this means teams will shift from processing data to designing controls and maintaining revenue integrity that ensures trust in machine-driven monetisation.

Accuracy Remains the Constant

One truth remains unchanged from our early days in interconnect and wholesale billing: revenue is only recognised when it is measured, validated, and agreed upon. Billing remains the language of value exchange across the telecom world.

Amid all the excitement around AI and “as-a-service” models, accuracy and transparency continue to define success. As operators evolve into digital infrastructure providers, their ability to translate complex usage data into trusted financial outcomes will determine who thrives.

Capacity Europe 2025 reinforced this for us: the telecom industry is accelerating toward automation and AI, but its future will still rest on the timeless principles of accurate, transparent, and trusted billing.