India’s telecom sector envisions a data-driven future

Of all the industries in the world, none is as central to the economy as the telecommunications industry.

The reason is easy to understand.

Advances in telecommunications were directly responsible for bringing high-speed internet to mobile devices. Internet access on mobile devices led to an explosion in the number of apps and online ecosystems. These keep billions of people engaged for hours on end. Such engagement generates valuable data for businesses. More recently, consumers’ data has been transformed into a source of training data on which the next revolutionary technology – AI – is built.  

Telecommunications has also given rise to smart devices, whether these are everyday household items, automobiles, combines, or you name it. Thanks to telecommunications, nearly every dumb device and machinery of the past has a newer and more innovative version.  

While the advances made possible by telecommunications in India and overseas have been monumental, they are just the beginning. There is reason for tremendous optimism about what lies ahead. Communications and 5G have the potential to drastically transform how we live, work, and perceive ourselves.     

In India, the latest amendment to the telecom bill is laying the groundwork for many new opportunities.

A robust telecom bill

The Telecommunications Bill 2023 was passed by the Rajya Sabha in December of last year. Its passage bodes well for the country’s telecommunications industry and, more importantly, for every Indian. The bill provides a framework for laying telecom infrastructure on public and private property. As a result, rolling out telecom infrastructure to every corner of the country will become simpler.

Expansive telecom networks will prove crucial to economic growth and personal and professional success in the decades ahead. Hyperconnectivity and data flow will define destiny, so countries further ahead on the development curve invest heavily in vast 5G networks and are already prepping for 6G!  

Other elements in the bill will make it easier to have one’s number added to Do Not Disturb registers and make it simpler to avoid receiving unwanted messages from advertisers. Cyberfraud will become harder to perpetrate.

The 5G networks in the thousands of Indian cities today will appear quaint by 2030.  

The latent potential of 5G

At the end of the last quarter, sales of 5G handsets exceeded that of 4G ones. Indians are won over by more than just 5G’s lightning-fast speed.

5G opens new possibilities by letting users share their lives with the world with maximum effect. Incredible life-like videos and photos can be shot and uploaded in seconds. For developers, 5G connectivity makes developing more robust apps that wouldn’t work on slower networks possible. In short, 5G makes work, play, and engagement more creative, fun, and purposeful. While this is impressive, it’s only a fraction of what’s possible with 5G.

In several cities in the US and China, autonomous vehicles safely roam the streets. These vehicles work because they communicate over 5G networks with data centres.

This is the vision behind 5G: a data-driven world in which trillions of devices in every corner are connected and continuously share data.

From data generated by vehicles, biometric data, data generated by a refrigerator, a bed, or a pillow, even the most innocuous product generates data about people and their surroundings.

Over this decade in India, robust AI systems at quiet yet powerful data centers will analyze these vast data streams. Such analysis will unlock insights about what’s going on in consumers’ minds and show people a better way to live! Introspection about our world and life, which until recently was the purview of the human mind, will be taken up by machines.  

5G will transform the economy, paving the way for more leisure and richer interpersonal connections.    

The vision behind 5G also included autonomous factories and labour automation. The technology makes building factories that run entirely without human intervention possible. Autonomous human-like robots that work alongside people and take care of them were anticipated. With the advances in AI over the past year and a half, these seem closer than ever.

Yet, today, in India, away from the wealthy and technology-laden urban centres, such a world seems a distant dream. Yet by 2030, with deeper penetration of 5G networks into the country’s heartland, it won’t be. The telecom bill is one reason why.   

With connectivity in rural India indistinguishable from that found in urban regions, the digital divide will become a distant memory.

Indians from villages and urban centres will spend time in virtual worlds as digital avatars. They’ll learn and speak with each other in any language, and thanks to automatic language translation, they’ll understand every word that’s said.    

With 5G, Indian smart cities will live up to their promise. Citizens will become safer as the millions of connected devices act as sentries that continuously collect data and alert authorities of danger. Access to civic services will become faster and easier in the future of smart cities.    

As it’s already doing in most parts of the developed world, the telecom sector will play the most critical role in bringing this hyperconnected futuristic world to life in India.  

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