22.04.2014:Telecom Industry Trends in the Near Future

For more than 20 years, high growth in the telecom industry has been attributed to continuous transformation in the technical knowledge and information waves, but virtue of the nature says anything on the trajectory of growth has to call it a day, and telecom sector is no different. With the telecom penetration becoming saturated, the industry is in dilemma, and is pondering over the innovative & inventive ways. This article forecasts the future trends in the industry and tries to predict that how can the industry adapt itself in the changed & competitive environment. Small Cell One such technology is the Small Cell. The local coverage and the issues related to capacity, due to increase in consumption of mobile data, would be handled by this technology. The beauty of the small cells is consumers inherently get unmatchable services, in the crowded areas. The more reliable mobile services cannot be denied, along with less amount of frustration due to data downloads, owing to the ability of small cells to boost coverage. 4G & Advanced LTE Another such technology is the 4G and advanced LTE. LTE stands for Long Term Evolution and is one of the penultimate standards for wireless communication of high-speed data. By far, the LTE has been adopted in humongous numbers in the regions of North America & Eastern Asia, but it is expected to see its accelerated growth in other parts of the world, specifically the Europe. Unamusingly, the traffic on the 2G & 3G networks will begin to dwindle once the LTE becomes centre of attraction. This increased traffic on LTE, along with the fact that there is a different behaviour of people on LTE networks, will certainly make operators to take detailed decision on their investment strategy, making them ‘discuss’ the pros & cons of over-investing in a single radio access network and comparing it with a “cap and grow” strategy, on point to point basis. VoLTE Another feature of LTE is the Voice Over LTE (VoLTE). With more investments being pumped in the industry, by the operators, on the LTE access, the operation would become more critical, owing to the complex nature of VoLTE. VoLTE will enable a new and high qualitative & conversation experience, which will be a huge path of migration. An added feature of this is the HD Voice, which would be possible when one calls one’s own network, and additional services are added to the VoLTE calls by the operators. Web real-time communication services will be enabled, where rich communications services into Web applications are embedded by operators and enterprises, in order to enhance the customer experience, while providing the peace of mind of connectivity over a secure operator’s network. Wireline Wireline is one such area that can never be left out of any discussion. In the near future, vectoring as a concept will take off in various parts of the world, especially Europe, as the condition of fibres reaching a critical density is attained. “Cross-talks”, between a mass of copper lines, are removed, enabling the true potential of technologies such as VDSL2 and G.Fast. With the plan of fibre roll-out, the existing copper investments and the broadband speeds will be increased by the wireline operators. Increase in fibre roll-out will be there due to increased interworking between the infrastructure of wireless and wireline technologies. Emerging markets The emerging markets are not called ‘emerging’ for the sake of it. It is anticipated that these ‘nascent’ markets will the incentre of all kinds of innovation. New day-to-day challenges are presented in these untapped markets, due to which one may see a whole new range of ‘cases’ that have never been seen or encountered before, anywhere. An example of one such market is Brazil. It is expected that Brazil will take off in the telecom sector in 2014, and with major sporting events such as the Olympics due in few years, there’ll certainly be an increased investment in both wireless & wireline technologies. To cater to the projected increased demand, a whole new market of ‘new’ & ‘affordable’ mobile phones will be there for the masses as well as the classes, which would take full advantage of the industry offerings. The list is exhaustive. What one has to see is with high volume capacity and better voice quality, one has to look for sustainability and security, for they are the meta-drivers to the road of growth, and with these technologies coming up, there is no looking back, with a win-win situation for both- the operators & the consumers.