TIME TO COOL THE HEELS

With 5G tailwinds not likely to arrive anytime soon enough and carriers yet to recoup their 4G investments, big-ticket deals are not awaited

The telecom industry is rapidly evolving, courtesy constant innovation and technological changes. Introduction of LTE-A, availability of affordable smartphones, and a mushrooming OTT ecosystem have changed the consumption pattens of the average telecom user. While on one side, this has positively impacted the overall economy, it has also put telecom service providers under a lot of strain.

Telcos today are constantly looking for steady revenues in an era where voice usage is declining and demand for mobile data traffic is increasing. This transformative shift has compelled service providers to rethink their business models and augment their network infrastructure to meet the new-age consumer demands while improving their revenues. In a bid to catch up on digital-age consumer requirements, they are putting substantial efforts on strengthening their backhaul and transport capacities and also considering outsourcing arrangements.

While these are early days for IoT, the number of connected devices are increasing exponentially and service providers are facing challenges in gearing up to meet the new requirements. Since the integration of IoT requires a higher level of connectivity and data flow from the underlying platform, telecom players are facing challenges to develop a functional platform that can support such IoT ecosystems.

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