How location intelligence can help push telecom growth?

Now is the time for telcos to embrace the power of ‘where’ and 5G with the combined prowess of spatial technology, data, and analytics and shape industries of the future.

By Abhijit Sengupta 

India is the world’s second-largest telecommunications market with a subscriber base of a staggering 1.16 billion and it is no surprise that the Indian mobile economy has been rapidly growing and contributing substantially to India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the last couple of decades. The growing consumer demand, backed by liberal and reformist policies of the Government of India, has largely been instrumental in driving this growth. Additionally, easy market access to telecom equipment and a fair and proactive regulatory framework has ensured the availability of these services to consumers at an affordable price too.

However, telecommunication is a highly competitive industry and the only way a telecom can gain a competitive edge (besides cost) is by innovating and integrating future-ready services at an early stage of its rollout. Add 5G to the mix and a whole new world of opportunities opens up. Technologies such as multi-access edge computing (MEC) are already bringing resources closer to the edge to process data at much higher speeds. This, combined with 5G, is going to revolutionize the way we live and conduct business, especially within the telecom industry. In this backdrop, companies that ready themselves and invest in their future will steer the gateway to the internet of things (IoT) devices, smart vehicles, and more. Like any business or industry though, profitability for the telecoms industry will be underlined by optimizing investment in the right technologies.

Powering the next wave of growth

The idea of using location technology and data isn’t new for India Inc. In line with this, location intelligence has always been a key mainstay across industries, from ride-sharing apps to targeted digital promotions, retail marketing, and connected vehicles. But now is the time for the connectivity industry to fully embrace the power of ‘where’ with the combined prowess of spatial technology, data, and analytics.

High-precision maps, advanced edge AI perception, and low latency provided by 5G MEC pave way for enhanced road safety and precise localization for navigation.

Historically, telecom companies have relied on location insights to surface marketing insights and drive consumer engagement. Location innovation is shaping the future by helping the telecom industry drive intelligence, business innovation and stay ahead of the curve in terms of market disruption by network planning, enhancing business operations, streamlining the workforce, safer driving, and creating new opportunities.

Driving effective network planning

Location intelligence can help gain vital insights into business operations to determine which and how many customers a telecom can reach, the number of towers they need to build and connect, as well as ways to optimize the existing network. Keeping the ‘where’ dimension in focus, organizations can model and test the best site locations for network towers for optimum coverage. Besides enabling effective network planning, leveraging location intelligence can also help in managing the assets after installation.

As we continue to build a world that will thrive on remote working, 5G and MEC will enable unprecedented levels of computing and network performance with high bandwidth data transfers and ultra-low-latency connections to power autonomous services globally. Location intelligence will be crucial to the deployment of 5G MEC networks. To support the infrastructure required for this new 5G MEC, which requires a dense and complex network of small cells instead of the usual spaced out cells, rich visual information and geospatial context will further support the process of network planning and optimization.

Location innovation is helping the telecom industry drive intelligence, innovation, and to stay ahead of the curve by creating newer opportunities.

Enhancing business operations

By deploying location analytics and data, telecoms can also automate several processes that ensure they’re identifying and communicating their current total addressable market to partners, including the location of services, product availability, and pricing. This can enable companies to get the bottom line out of the way and instead focus on the available information to directly load rate cards and lists, load, and add in application programming interfaces (APIs) to keep data actionable and updated.

Integrating location data and analytics into day-to-day business operations can help companies make their workforce smarter, faster, and efficient. With data visualization tools such as HD maps, project managers can identify faults along with recurring maintenance tasks and outages, thus speeding up the collaboration process. Rich topographical insights can also help plan upgrades of the legacy networks ensuring the right people can solve these challenges.

Enabling safer driving

While location intelligence already plays a crucial role in ensuring safer driving, throwing in the power of 5G into the mix will potentially transform vehicle safety. High-precision maps, advanced edge AI perception and low latency provided by 5G MEC pave the way for enhanced road safety and precise localization for navigation.

For example, a leading global telecom player which is finding ways to make roads safer by making use of mobile networks has unlocked capabilities of less than 10 milliseconds response time between the base station and the location of the server (where mobile data response times are usually between 50 to 200 milliseconds). With these super-high speeds, coupled with the right kind of connected vehicle technology, geospatial information, and real-time traffic updates, drivers can gain insights into road conditions, traffic congestion, and any sudden movement of pedestrians onto roads and respond quickly to avoid road accidents.

Creating new opportunities

One of the biggest fallouts of the pandemic is that it has forced us to rethink how we live. And that includes the idea of advanced technologies to build smart cities that can help with better mobility for citizens. As our urban ecosystems grow ever larger, challenges like population pressure, deforestation, traffic congestion, deteriorating infrastructure, crime, and resource crunch will grow as well. But the use of technology has the potential to dramatically improve the systems on which the cities run: whether it is public safety, healthcare systems, public distribution systems, urban planning, or governance. This is where a plethora of opportunities for telecom players will lie. As demand for smart mobility options such as connected vehicles and electric vehicles grows, telecom operators will have to take advantage of new opportunities emerging from the convergence of location data and the expansive powerful 5G network. This means being able to empower enterprises with wide access to location-powered solutions such as visual positioning services, 3D positioning algorithms analyzing images and videos in real-time that will demand widespread, higher bandwidth, lower latency, and the connectivity necessary for enabling a more connected world.

In short, location-based technology holds the key to maximize revenues, enhance the user experience and subsequently execute long-term solutions for present and future challenges. As we realize the vision of a digitally connected world, telecom companies will have to continue thinking in this direction and leverage location-led innovation to build capacities and capabilities to shape the industries of the future.

Sengupta is Director & Head – Business, India, SAARC region & Southeast Asia, HERE Technologies