Sunday, January 24, 2010

Evolving Global Telecom Scene

Gone are the days when we can say that we are comfortable with a laterally diversified set of things to use in our day to day activities. We all need centralization. It may be in paying our bills (phone bill, Electricity bill, Water, Broadband...). We need a BangaloreOne. It may be in shopping.... All brands under 1 roof. Examples are everywhere to be seen.
No different is the telecom scene. It is all about Centralization. Here, we call it "Convergence".
Let me illustrate a few examples.
1. Pramod has a home phone and a mobile. Prathima calls Pramod on his number. Both his home phone and mobile phone rings at the same time, as he has taken the "One Subscriber - One Number" scheme. He has the option of lifting his home phone and speaking as he runs around his home. Now, he wants to start-off to his office. With the click of a button, he transfers the call to his Mobile, Seamlessly and continues on the call as he drives.
2. Taking a call on ur Mobile at ur residence. The mobile is now connected to the Mobile network through ur home Broadband connectivity. And Now, when the user drives out of the house towards his office, the call seamlessly transfers from the home broadband to the GSM/CDMA network.
These are the kinds of convergence we are looking forward to. Some of the operators around the world have already plunged into it. The time is right to do so. With the exponential increase in the number of smart phone users around the world, the data usage is bound to increase at a rapid rate. This is exactly what the mobile operators would wish for, as data (SMS, MMS, Voice Mail, IM, Email2SMS) is their main revenue generator. The time is gone when an operator would solely depend on Voice for his revenue generation.
As more and more Operators decide to upgrade from 2G/2.5G towards 3G and 4G (LTE), companies who have the technology and telecom solutions which make this transition seamless and cost effective will be the ones who would make it big. As a technology provider, you cannot look at selling a whole IMS (IP Multimedia Services) solution to the Operator. There are a number of gaps in this approach, wrt the transition and the effective usage of existing telecom infrastructure in ones network. Hence a pseudo-IMS solution would be the way to go, which reduces the transition cost, and also the subscriber database management issues.
Example : After a pseudo IMS deployment in my local mobile operator's network, I become a subscriber in both its GSM network and in the IMS network, to make use of the services like Social networking websites being integrated with your Mobile phone book, Ur phone book showing the Presence status of ur buddies (online or offline), Integration of the location info of ur buddies on a Google Map, Calling the pizza hut and the call landing on the nearest pizza hut in reference to ur location, and many many more applications.
During the past 2 years, where almost all the domains took a beating during the worst economic depression, telecom domain is one which kept growing. This fact has a lot to say about the what we can look forward to in the next 3 to 4 years to come.
The big story inbetween all these is the fact that, India would be going the 3G way....
Imagine the 700Million Subscriber base to be tapped on the 3G scale. Technology providers would be closely following the India telecom trend, which would open a multi-billion dollar market very soon. (in-progress i should say).
Add to this, the fact that, Indian Telecommunications Authority would be bringing in "Number Portability". This would mean that Pramod would be able to retain the same mobile number even though he wishes to transit from Vodafone to Airtel for its better Reachability. Subscribers need not think twice in changing loyality from one network to another, when they feel that the service offered to them is compromised in one way or the other. This would directly mean that the Mobile Operators would have to be on their toes in providing the best possible services to their subscribers at all times. This would make them reach out to get the best cutting edge technology on-board, which directly translates to more business to the telecom Infrastructure and technology vendors.
So, all Indians, its not far when we would be previlaged to watch a streaming video without any buffering lags on our smart 3G handsets, sitting on a roadside ;)

4 comments:

  1. I agree with your thoughts Pramod, i just hope some day i can get rid of my credit cards, manage my bank accounts, ATMs, Check into a flight, and ultimately use my mobile as a source of authenticity. I just hope our mobile phone becomes one device such that a user can carry one thing in my pocket "The Mobile".

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  2. Pramod-J, the below link may interest you in this regard.
    http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_technology.html

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  3. Nice writeup Pammi!I'm sure seamless integration like the one you mention and the no-buffer-lag streaming video on a mobile is gonna be here sooner than later. And I guess you guys are working towards these already! Will look forward to it then! :)

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  4. keepup the style of writing pammi !! light and informative !

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