How Crisis-Time Investment Fueled Telecom ROI: Insights from 2008 & 2020
- Maria H. Blake
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
Every significant economic downturn follows a similar pattern.
It often starts with a shock — a stock market crash, liquidity crisis, or unexpected global event — but quickly deepens into a broader collapse when underlying vulnerabilities surface.
Right now, global conditions are precarious:
🚩Persistent inflation remains stubborn in major economies.
🚩Geopolitical instability is disrupting energy markets, trade, and supply chains.
🚩Rising interest rates are straining debt-heavy sectors, including technology and telecommunications.
Following The Global Risks Report 2025, state-based armed conflicts and geoeconomic confrontation are the main drivers of the crisis as of 2025. 31% of respondents anticipate financial turbulence (31%) during 2025-2027. It means the probability of a financial shock spiraling into a full-blown global recession is very real.
And if history teaches anything, it’s this:
Businesses that react by slashing strategic investment can lose ground and may never recover.
This article explores how telecom companies survived two major global crises — in 2008 and 2020 — and why the winners were those who continued investing in infrastructure and built lasting advantages in customer loyalty, revenue growth, and market leadership.
Read on for more details.
What Happens to Businesses During a Crisis?
The first instinct when a crisis hits is always the same: cut fast and cut deep. Freeze hiring. Slash CAPEX. Defer infrastructure upgrades. Eliminate non-urgent spending to protect cash flow at all costs.
It’s a logical short-term move, but in industries built on infrastructure, it can become a slow form of self-destruction.
Telecommunications businesses operate on a different reality as connectivity they sell is a core link of all B2B and B2C business relations. When investment in services and infrastructure stops, networks decay against rising demand.
This was clear during the 2008 financial crisis. Operators that halted fiber rollouts, delayed 3G/4G expansions, or minimized maintenance under the banner of austerity lost ground almost immediately.
By the time consumer demand rebounded, network limitations were already visible, slower speeds, dropped connections, limited coverage, and customers had already begun switching to providers who had kept investing.
In 2020, the same pattern reappeared, only faster. The sudden shift to remote work, remote education, and telehealth created surges in bandwidth demand that overwhelmed underinvested networks.
Telecom businesses that had preserved or accelerated infrastructure investment absorbed the demand and gained customers. Those that had cut back scrambled to catch up — often too late to prevent permanent churn.
In telecommunications, crises accelerate competitive dynamics. Any weakness in network quality, resilience, or customer experience is brutally exposed and immediately punished by the market.
Crisis-Time Investment vs. Cost-Cutting: Telecom’s Outcomes
Crises have a way of clarifying strategy.
Some telecom companies chose to double down on their infrastructure bets; others froze, hoping to ride out the storm. The difference between these two paths became glaringly obvious in the years that followed, measured in revenue growth, customer churn, and long-term market leadership.
2008 Financial Crisis: The First Test
🥇 Who Won
During the 2008 financial crash, most industries rushed to cut spending. But in telecom, a few players understood that connectivity demand would not vanish — it would surge.
Verizon
Despite the recession, Verizon invested $17.2 billion into its network infrastructure in 2008, aggressively expanding its FiOS fiber services and preparing for the LTE rollout. This decision paid off: even in a down market, Verizon grew its consumer ARPU by 9.6% and its strategic business services revenue by 23.5%. More importantly, it locked in customer loyalty at a time when competitors hesitated.
TeliaSonera
Similarly, TeliaSonera maintained steady investment through 2008–2009, focusing on broadband and mobile services. By the end of the downturn, it was first to market with commercial LTE deployments in Stockholm and Oslo, a technological lead that translated into brand loyalty and early revenue gains.
🙁 Who Failed
Sprint
Sprint drastically cut network expansion in 2008, opting for basic maintenance over growth. The consequences were immediate: for the first quarter of 2008, Sprint reported a loss of $505.0 million, or 18 cents per share. The company's sales fell to $9.3 million from $10.0 million. By 2010, Sprint had lost millions of customers and ceded its ability to compete on network quality.
Telecom Italia
In 2008, Telecom Italia’s net profit dropped from €720 million to €630 million, hurt by stiffening competition and regulatory pressures on mobile networks. The company was slow to adapt to digital transformation and was burdened with €35 billion in debt, Consequently, Telecom Italia made 5,000 job cuts in Italy and announced plans to divest non-strategic assets in deals potentially worth up to €3 billion.
How 2020 COVID-19 Crisis Affected Telcos
🥇 Who Won
Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile)
Despite pandemic-induced uncertainty, Deutsche Telekom doubled down on growth. The company completed its $26 billion merger with Sprint in April 2020 and immediately began scaling its 5G rollout using Sprint’s mid-band spectrum. That bet paid off since Deutsche Telekom gained 5.6 million net subscribers in 2020, more than any U.S. rival, and boosted total revenue by 55%. While competitors retrenched, Deutsche Telekom secured a 5G leadership position and became the second-largest U.S. carrier by subscribers, gaining massive market momentum when others stalled.
“We made history in 2020. We added a substantial and important chapter to Deutsche Telekom’s story. We closed a groundbreaking deal in the United States, improved our market position in Europe and at the same time made an important contribution to managing the impact of the coronavirus pandemic with our stable networks.”
CEO, Deutsche Telekom
Orange
Orange proved that consistency wins in chaos, considering the company’s revenue in 2020 achieved €42.3 billion. It maintained fiber and 5G expansion across France and parts of Europe, and boasted of over 11 million convergent customers at December 2020, up 2.7% year-on-year. In 2021, Orange introduced its European TowerCo, TOTEM, aiming to solidify its role in managing passive mobile infrastructure while opening new revenue streams. The company also accelerated digital health and security services through Orange Business. Consequently, the giant achieved minimal disruption, sustained growth, and stronger foundations for the future.
🙁 Who Failed
Telefónica
Already under pressure pre-pandemic, Telefónica was hit hard in 2020. The company reported a €1.9 billion decline in revenues and a €1 billion in OIBDA (Operating income before depreciation and amortization).
Instead of leaning into transformation, Telefónica cut its dividend, sold 30,000 towers, and scaled back capex to preserve liquidity and shrink its debt.
Though the company launched 5G in Spain, the move lacked muscle relying mostly on spectrum refarming rather than fresh infrastructure. Telefónica’s retreat left it exposed to more aggressive players, and its domestic market position in Spain began to erode.
AT&T
AT&T entered the pandemic saddled with over $150 billion in debt from previous media acquisitions. When COVID-19 hit, the company’s core telecom business shrank: Q2 2020 service revenues dropped 1.1%, due to decline in international roaming. Overall company’s revenue was down to $41 billion from $45 billion in Q2 2019.
AT&T also lost 897,000 premium TV subscribers in Q1, 2020. Consequently, the company cut costs and slashed capital spending growth while trying to focus on launching HBO Max, which struggled with adoption early on.
As rivals surged ahead in 5G and subscriber growth, AT&T’s lack of network investment and scattered focus caused it to lose postpaid wireless market share to T-Mobile and Verizon.
Why IT Infrastructure Matters During a Crisis
1.Service Continuity
During crises, demand for telecom services always spikes as we're talking about a central link for digital society and operation of all domains dependable on connectivity. In 2020, people shifted to remote work, digital learning, and video streaming en masse. If a telco’s IT backbone (networks, cloud platforms, OSS/BSS systems) isn’t ready to scale or handle dynamic demand, it risks outages, degraded service, and customer churn.
2.Network Resilience
Software-defined networks, automated orchestration, real-time analytics, and scalable backend systems that route traffic efficiently during unexpected surges - it all should get a high level of maturity to help companies stay afloat and even win in crises. Telcos with modern, virtualized, and cloud-native IT infrastructure fared much better in 2020.
3.Client Convenience
In a crisis, physical stores might close, but it doesn't mean it should affect business. Telcos that lack robust self-service solutions, digital onboarding, and AI-powered customer support may find themselves scrambling. Those with cloud-based CRM, billing, and customer care platforms could continue selling, supporting, and retaining users effortlessly.
4.Growing Demand
Crises expose the tech debt telcos carry. Businesses that had already invested in IT modernization (5G-ready core networks, open APIs, CI/CD pipelines) could adapt faster, launching new services, reconfiguring bandwidth, or enabling B2B solutions. Telecom companies that stuck with legacy systems struggled to tailor their activities to circumstances.
Lessons Learned from 2008 and 2020 Crises
→Prepare Before the Crisis Hits
Financial flexibility is built in good times. The companies that won, entered crises with balanced debt and room to invest. If your balance sheet is overloaded, you won’t be able to act when it matters.
→Focus on Core Services
Crises elevate the value of core services. Focus on broadband and mobile performance to earn trust and revenue when customers needed reliability most. When resources are pulled into non-core ventures, customer experience, and infrastructure readiness suffer.
→Invest Through the Downturn
When the market tightens, most players retreat: delaying upgrades, freezing capex, and waiting for clarity. But in telecom, demand doesn’t disappear in a crisis. It shifts, accelerates, and concentrates on digital.
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