The top technologies transforming Telecommunications today

When it comes to digital transformation and its necessity, everyone talks about how it is facilitating real-time communication, accelerating delivery capabilities, and what not.  

But what has the digital transformation really led to? 

The emergence of digital technology and innovation has connected every industry to each other. As digital has become the way of life, every business is leaping in the transformational race. An unsaid interdependency has been created among all the industry verticals in one way or another. However, there is one industry without which the transformational evolutionary process will come to a standstill – Telecommunications. 

Holding the threads to global communications and connectivity, the telecom sector is at the center of all the ongoing disruptive activities.  

In fact, the telecommunications industry has always been on an unstoppable train of disruption. It was disrupted when telephones came into being, when wires were cut, when internet was introduced, and Wi-Fi revolutionized things. Now, it is simply rolling on a high-growth trajectory. From smoke signals and postcards, to telegraphs and telephones, to smart phones and Wi-Fi, we have come back to the ‘wireless’ era – one that has several times advanced technologies and speed. 

2020 is a strategically-critical year. It marks the beginning of a decade and end of the other. As the dependency on telcos grows, it is necessary that significant resources are deployed to ensure negligible downtime. The market size for telecom assurance services is expected to reach USD 8.9 billion by 2024, growing at a CAGR of 9.4%. As the sector continues to invest in technological advancements and innovative solutions, quality assurance of communications services is becoming inevitable. Let us dive into the technologies that will grow, evolve, and sustain in 2020 and beyond in the telecom sector. 

       1. Internet of Things 

Not only telecom is an enabler of IoT devices across the globe, but also a benefiter itself. As per a report, companies in the telecom industry have the largest budget for IoT infrastructure. 

The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) defines IoT as “a network of physical objects, devices and systems connected to the internet that contain embedded technology and sensors to communicate and share data.” 

The growth of IoT may be attributed to the advancing sensor technology as well as faster internet connectivity. This colossal augmentation in sophistication is drastically reducing operational costs and facilitating greater cost effectiveness.  

Telecom sector, using IoT, are empowering smart cities and smart homes. The idea behind such landscapes is to have continuous, high-speed connectivity. In order to achieve the desired level of seamlessness, a ‘for IoT, by IoT’ tactic will be needed. 

       2. Big data and intelligent analytics 

Both big data and AI are being talked about since a few years now. But, as we enter the next decade, it is necessary to give them a relook. 

The improving connectivity and IoT devices are generating tons of data in volume. Although the telecom companies have the data repositories, they are not really putting them to real use. Without mining and analysis, the data is entirely useless and expensive to store. 

In this decade, we can expect telcos to increase their investments in AI technologies for deriving meaningful insights from the data pools. Analytics and data-driven decision-making will see a surge and be well on its way of becoming the norm. 

      3. 5G 

    With the promise of near-zero latency period, 5G invited much buzz around it in 2019. As it is still to be rolled out for public use, it becomes a key trend to talk about for the coming years. 

If 5G succeeds in delivering on what it has promised, it will not be long before we see the mere ideas and blueprints of full-fledged smart cities become a reality. However, 5G is still not accepted everywhere due to several compliance and regulation issues. 

Also read: 5G: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Future of Telecom IoT 

The negligible latency, improved data rates, and network slicing properties of 5G will empower telcos achieve new heights in their customer satisfaction efforts. The talks about onboard connectivity in a flight and maritime connectivity will become feasible with 5G. With 5G, the power of telecom sector will grow manifold, which is why, 5G is one technology that all the sectors are looking forward to. 

       4. Cybersecurity and cyber resilience 

As pointed out earlier in the blog, telecom is the enabler of all the other industry verticals. Thus, it also serves as a key entry target for cyber criminals who seek to exploit or breach any industry domain. In addition to fracturing the reputation of the exploited organization, a hack may cause severe internet and network outages, which would massively affect businesses and operations. 

As telecom providers also have a pool of sensitive information generated by vendors, users, as well as the government, they become the gold mine for hackers looking to steal valuable data. The increasing IoT devices is further raising the complexities that need to be addressed by the telecom sector.  

Cybersecurity was a hot topic in 2019 as well, but we can now expect to see some action regarding implementation of robust security measures, strengthening of cyber walls, and growing importance toward compliance and regulations. 

        5. Quality Assurance 

For ensuring scalable and reliable connectivity within the telecom industry and across other verticals, assuring quality of network and devices becomes utmost critical. 

With the advancing technologies and increasing customer expectations, an outage or service downtime is too big a gamble to take for telcos. This is why, quality assurance of telecommunications services and infrastructure will assume prominence. 

To Conclude 

Marking the end of a decade and the beginning of another, we are all set to enter a decade that may be even more disruptive than the past ten years. We may see a completely revolutionary technology taking birth, or the demise of an existing trend that we had hoped will rule. 

The pace and style at which developments are happening in every space, the enterprises need to fortify all corners with quality assurance. 

Cigniti offers a fully–functional lab dedicated towards testing all sorts of network and bandwidth related needs of the industry. Our integration and advisory services help understand the underlying needs of your organization, thereby assessing how best to overcome the persistent challenges. Our processes have been established with a lot of expertise and experience in handling real-time issues and prove a boon when overcoming similar challenges as they are reusable. Connect with us.