Leveraging digital era growth @TLF India 2020

There was a panel discussion on Leveraging Digital Era Growth at the TLF India 2020. Presenting his thoughts, Shyam Mardikar, President and Group CTO, Mobility, Reliance Jio, said that more than 800 million Indians got connected over the last decade. The last decade was the decade of connectivity. The really digital era started with 3G in 2010. 4G started in the middle of the last decade. We have moved on from hyper connectivity to hyper consumption. Both were earlier, linear. The journey can be more complex, and non-linear in nature in the future.

By January 2020, we need to see what will grow 100X in the coming decade. We look at AR/VR/MR, security, industry verticals, machines/IoT, enterprise, etc. All things will become bright and digital. The bonds will further stregthen. The smartphone has become a key element. The relevance of devices as the open window to the world will only go up. Enterprises will also need to go digital.

The overhauling of your own persona to digital will become very important. The network goes programmable as well. The network will have the ability to adapt and heal itself in the future. In a liquid manner, the network will adapt, and move on to a digital society. In the world of programmable network, may the source be with you.

Significant growth areas

Anand Bhaskar, MD, Service Provider, Cisco Systems, said that today, the client is looking more at the experience. We are building the Internet for the future. For SPs, in the context of digital, there are significant growth areas. There are multiple use cases. There is the power of partnerships. There can be strong ecosystems from the customers' standpoint. Enterprises have some great experiences to come up.

"We have put our vision of the Internet of the future. We are in the silicon space. We are also coming out with optics. We are also partnering with companies such as Microsoft."

Ben Parker, CEO, Data Center Solutions, STL, noted that the last 10 years have been spent building hyperscale infrastructure. India is looking to achieve all that in the next five years. Leniency on part of the government can help a lot. The infrastructure is going to be quite huge to build. There is a lot of room for growth in India. You also need the large data centers to get 4K content to the user. There is a lot of weight on the infrastructure.

Rajesh Nambiar, Chairman and President, Ciena, said that there will be a whole new monetizing model for SPs. Can you really differentiate and deliver? Can you monetize much faster than the others? Can you deliver exceptional experiences? We are catering to the adaptive networks and delivering the new experience to consumers.

Shyam Mardikar, Reliance Jio, added that digital is fundamentally the underlying infrastructure. You need to split to multimedia. Every piece of experience leads to digital twins. The growth in future will be very complex. The real experience will merge with the virtual. The richness of the data is prime.

Sridhar Krish, COO, Tikona, noted that there are two scenarios. One, with 300,000 customers and looking to move, and another, with the same customers, but threatening to pull out. 20-25 years hence, there will be a massive customer reach. You have a huge opportunity here to tap. Where do you take your movie further? The consumption has moved from 1GB per month to 10GB per month. You have a 10X opportunity to connect homes. You can double the industry. The 4G experience is not that good in India, as in Europe. You need to get up to 100% fiberization. It is a supply problem in the country.

Rajesh Kalra - Chief Editor, Times Internet, said that there is 85-90% of traffic on the mobile phone. OTT and telcos need to collaborate. The quality of the network has to continuously improve as well. When more people get onto a network, where does the money come from, for improving the service? Telco networks have to be robust to survive. There also have to be much more collaborations.

Rajan Mathews, Director General, COAI, moderated the discussion.