In the technology world, everything is connected to something or the other. The very composition or the structure is such that no technology can really function individually. Give it a though, and you will most likely fail to name even one solution that can work alone. Well, this is not a bad thing. When technology is catering to millions or to say zillions of customers across the planet, it is bound to have a collaborative nature where solutions and services work in collaboration with each other.
The level of inter-dependency would vary from products to products and industry to industry. Here, we will talk about the very hot and trending Internet-of-things (IoT) and the implications that this will have on the telecom industry. It will also discuss the areas that telecom industries would need to focus on in order to support the IoT industry.
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Overview
The telecommunication industry essentially includes network service providers. Some major global players would be Vodafone, AT&T, Verizon, etc. When we talk about IoT services, most of them are linked via our phones and thus involve the network service provider. For example, an application that we are using to monitor different home appliances would need to send and receive data using services offered by the telecom company.
Meet the Need to Succeed
With the rise in IoT devices and the surge expected in the years to come, there is a need to address some common concerns that are not very prominent at present. First, telecom companies have to be prepared for dealing with large data transmission levels.The number of exchanges per minute might quadruple over the time to come as the number of IoT devices increase.
Second, there is an ongoing need to offer network services with no downtime. While some IoT devices would not require be online continuously, some might. This needs to be kept in mind while tailoring data plans to attract more and more customers. In the time to come, there will be a rise in the Internet users and also a rise in the amount of data each user is exhausting. Companies have to keep evolving as per the requirement.
Third, security will remain a persistent concern. I feel that no company can ever be completely prepared because the hackers are continuously upgrading their skills. The key in offering secure solutions does not lie in developing a fool proof security mechanism but in being versatile and unpredictable. If you are following a protocol religiously, hackers will sooner or later find a way out. Therefore, there is a need to continuously change the way you are dealing with data collected from the IoT devices and adopt different tried-and-tested approaches.
Fourth,the telecom industries might also have to make changes in their infrastructure and internal employee composition. In terms of infrastructure, IoT devices operate on numerous censors and the data would need to be stored on internal processors or cloud. The companies have to make these kinds of changes to accommodate the changing industry. Additionally, internal teams might require special skills that are needed to address the IoT concerns.
Plan and Execute
To meet the needs of the customers who are fascinated and pleased with what IoT can offer, telecom companies need to create a robust plan and execute it in phases. This is required because an industry-wide change will not happen overnight, and a lot of planning and modifications will be required to finally avail the benefits that customers and companies are looking forward to.
A greater collaboration and cooperation between telecom and IoT companies would mean greater benefits for customers creating a win-win situation for everyone involved.
