With growing adoption of smartphones/tablets, and widespread availability of wireless networks, several new technology trends are gaining traction in the Indian telecom market. During 2013, enterprises, both small and large, increasingly adopted new technologies and applications to improve workforce productivity and reduce opex. Some of the technologies and applications that gained traction were cloud computing, near-field communications and optic fibre.
In 2014, enterprise mobility, hybrid cloud, small cells and the Internet of Things (IoT) are expected to witness adoption as companies and operators continue to opt for solutions that open up new business opportunities for operators.
tele.net takes a look at some of the emerging technologies and solutions in the Indian telecom space…
Small cells
While small cells have been in use for several years, their adoption has started gaining traction only recently, with most operators looking at ways to decongest telecom networks. Existing next-generation networks set up by telecom operators are capacity constrained to support the growing data traffic, which is driven by the proliferation of smartphones and availability of high speed broadband. While this issue can be addressed by acquiring additional spectrum, the high cost and limited availability of spectrum make this option unfeasible. In this scenario, small cells are emerging as a viable option for operators to expand network coverage and capacity.
Small cells are short-range, low-power base transceiver stations and perform the functions of a macro cell site. They can complement the macro network and enable offloading of data traffic in high-density areas such as shopping centres, stadiums and office complexes. While Wi-Fi has been the preferred mode for offloading data traffic, it has shortcomings such as interference as the technology uses unlicensed spectrum for providing mobile services. In contrast, small cells can operate on both licensed and unlicensed spectrum, which enhances network capacity and coverage, and enables operators to overcome interference-related challenges.
In the future, limited spectrum availability will drive the industry to innovate on data traffic management and implement data offloading strategies, among which deployment of small cells will be crucial.
The Internet of Things – Big data and analytics
With the increased availability of next-generation networks, the IoT concept is gaining popularity across the world. Today, several electronic devices and industrial equipment are embedded with sensors, actuators and wireless connectivity modules, which enable them to generate and share large volumes of information about the device condition and usage pattern of the customer, among other things. Companies and manufacturers are leveraging this information to improve the overall customer experience, drive efficiency and productivity, and mitigate risks and threats. To gain insights from the data generated by sensors, companies make use of predictive analytics. Industries such as manufacturing, health care, automobile and retail stand to gain significantly from IoT.
In India, the automobile and retail industries have been the biggest beneficiaries of IoT so far. Several automobile manufacturers are deploying sensors in their vehicles to collect data about customers’ driving pattern, vehicle performance and potential risks associated with the vehicle. The telematics solutions allow manufacturers to provide real-time feedback to customers, thus enabling them to improve their productivity.
Tata Motors has introduced a telematics and fleet management service, Tata FleetMan, which is targeted at commercial vehicles owners. The service offers solutions such as fuel management, remote diagnostic, geofencing and trip management. Similarly, automobile manufacturers are looking to introduce telematics solutions in passenger vehicles. While most luxury passenger vehicles already have an inbuilt telematics solution, manufacturers are planning to deploy these solutions in mass market cars. Ford has introduced a telematics solution, SYNC, for its Ecosport model and Nissan Motors intends to use this solution in its cars in India.
Insurance companies will also gain from the implementation of telematics solutions in vehicles. As these solutions generate insights about the customer’s driving behaviour, these companies can revise the terms of the insurance policy after reassessing the customer’s risk profile. For drivers with low risk potential, telematics solutions would enable insurance companies to ease the terms of the policy, thus resulting in substantial gains for the customer. These incentives would also encourage customers to drive more safely. An insurance service provider, the Liberty Videocon General Insurance Company has reportedly conducted trials with telematics solutions.
The growing number of devices/ machines getting connected to the internet means the generation of huge data volumes. As a result, big data and analytics will be utilised by companies for analysing data and drawing insights.
Enterprise mobility and BYOD
Another trend that is gaining acceptance among enterprises is “bring your own device” (BYOD). With smartphones and tablets becoming affordable, an increasing number of users are accessing the internet through mobile devices. Moreover, due to ubiquitous availability of high speed data networks, several employees are undertaking day-to-day official activities and accessing official data through smartphones. As this provides flexibility to employees in terms of accessing data from any remote location and improves productivity, enterprises are adopting BYOD and providing the necessary support infrastructure.
BYOD benefits enterprises as well. The use of personal devices by employees reduces the enterprise’s IT expenses, resulting in cost savings. Also, companies tend to allocate a fixed expense to each employee for mobile services. Additional charges are borne by the employee, which results in economical use of mobile services.
Although BYOD offers several advantages to both employees and enterprises, it poses security risks as personal devices are always vulnerable to external threats. This can lead not only to operational and integration issues but also legal issues for the company, with the risk of crucial client information being stolen or becoming corrupt. Another issue is challenges in implementing standardisation across device platforms. The companies are addressing these challenges through the use of third-party mobile device management platforms.
Hybrid cloud
Several large and small enterprises have already adopted cloud-based solutions in India, but 70 per cent of them utilise private cloud services. As companies shift their data from private data centres to the public cloud network, they increasingly face a security threat. This has resulted in most companies opting for private cloud solutions. However, in the past few years, security risks associated with public cloud infrastructure have been minimised and there is a strong business case for companies to shift to hybrid models. Under these models, firms use both public and private cloud to manage their resources and provide services. The hybrid model enables companies to avail of the benefits of both public and private cloud solutions. These include scalability and cost effectiveness (public cloud) as well as low security risks (private cloud).
The challenge for an enterprise’s IT department will be to ensure that public and private cloud networks are interoperable and can be used as an integrated solution. This is because most companies still prefer to keep critical data in the private cloud infrastructure due to latency and reliability, but would move less vulnerable data on to the public cloud. In addition, the hybrid model offers scalability to enterprise users. It allows them to expand their IT operations, deploy new solutions and applications, and manage changes in demand to maintain performance.
VoLTE
With several broadband wireless access (BWA) licensees planning to launch 4G services, voice over long term evolution (VoLTE) is likely to come up in a big way. This is primarily because offering only data services on the LTE network is not expected to generate reasonable returns for telecom companies in the near term. Besides, VoLTE will enable service providers to attract customers who have shifted to over-the-top services such as Skype for video calls, which will result in higher profit margins.
In India, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited are expected to launch VoLTE services in 2014 as these companies have already conducted trials. Given that Bharti Airtel does not hold BWA spectrum in all circles, it plans to deploy circuit switch fall back technology, which shifts subscribers to 2G/3G networks for making voice calls. In the long term, operators are likely to use service radio voice call continuity, which enables subscribers to make IMS-based voice calls over the LTE network.