How 5G rollout will define the future of telecom | Economic Times

Technological innovations with 5G will redefine the future of telecom in India, according to a recent CII-Deloitte report titled ‘Digital reset – Touching a billion Indians’. India is contributing significantly to the next generation of telecom services with companies collaborating to broaden solutions, the report furthers. Private networks are expected to see a huge demand from enterprises in the near future across industries such as healthcare, education, fintech, e-commerce and entertainment. “Telecom has played a significant role in bringing a change in consumer usage pattern. Data availability has pushed more and more digital services to the end user,” Peeyush Vaish, Partner and Telecom Leader, Deloitte India told ET. 86988760However, Indian telecom still has major hurdles to face in the road to 5G deployment. “The govt, telecom regulators, telecom service providers (TSPs) and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) need to work in tandem,” said Vaish, identifying the key issues to be low fiberisation, local hardware manufacturing, high spectrum cost, and selecting appropriate 5G standards and bands.“With fibre infrastructure connecting only 30% of India’s telecom towers, this number has to multiply fast enough for a successful roll-out across India. We need to encourage and boost our local 5G hardware manufacturing at an unprecedented rate considering our drive to minimise dependence on imports.” Furthermore, balanced 5G spectrum pricing will help the GoI generate adequate revenue from the auction without hampering implementation plans for 5G in India, he explains. "If India is to have a successful 5G launch, band allocation and pricing must be carefully considered." Global superpowers are also campaigning to build up fifth-generation wireless infrastructure. "It has been a domino effect ever since US sanctions on Chinese telecom OEMs were imposed," said Vaish. Following US, Australia, UK, other European countries, and India too left out Chinese equipment makers from their 5G trials.“While a host of local companies and foreign manufacturers have already started manufacturing facilities in India under the “Atmanirbhar Bharat’ mission, it needs to be scaled up significantly to deliver the massive investment requirement of close to $30 billion for pan-India roll out.” Here are the other key highlights from our conversation with Peeyush Vaish.How will usage of IoT in telecom sector help enterprises to cater to diversified customer needs? IoT will continue to shape consumer experiences and live by the promise of an interconnected world. The enterprise service portfolio is bound to expand exponentially in areas such as smart homes, utility meters, autonomous vehicles, asset tracking, and security amongst others. To deliver IoT solutions that can adequately cater diversified customer needs, leading telecommunication operators have launched IoT platforms that will integrate data seamlessly and connect billions of devices. Such platforms are poised to fulfill IoT’s requirements backed by a secure, low latency high-speed internet. ‘Neighborhoods of connectivity’ irrespective of our geolocation will drive the future consumer needs. How will data storage strategies like cloud computing offer tailored products for data storage and facilitate business operations by integrating devices online, without owning physical assets? Unlike traditional hardware and software, cloud computing helps businesses stay at the forefront of technology without making significant investments in purchasing, maintaining, and servicing equipment themselves. Organizations experiencing rapid growth but lacking capital to invest in hardware and applications, may seek cloud services with the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) models, which offer essential computing, storage and networking resources on demand, on a pay-as-you-go basis. Also, cloud data storage services are cost-effective and elastic, allowing companies to scale capacity up or down based on data volumes, thereby by helping in saving money by paying only for the capacity used, rather than maintaining an expensive in-house storage network. As the telecom industry becomes the key driver of industry-wide convergence, how will new revenue streams open for TSPs? With the current changing landscape in the technology and digital platforms, telecommunication companies are busy strategizing the next step in finding possible business prospects to produce new revenue streams. Using the one-stop OTT app, TSPs can offer various services to consumer and enterprise customers such as virtual classrooms for education, at home medical consultation, self- launch platform for artists, common app for movies and soundtracks, travel booking facility, live events experience from home etc. A hybrid subscription model for on-demand services and pay-per-use charges may be commercialized, and for enterprises it shall become a revenue-sharing platform. With nationwide coverage, telecom companies can segment customers based on requirements, demographics, and behavior. Using this data, telecom providers can partner with online retailers of other industries to offer user data (such as location-based data and network use). The telecom sector may create its own production firms and Pay-TV services. Also, partnering with content owners and production firms internationally to acquire sports broadcasting and gaming companies will also add to revenue streams.