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Telecom’s Future: From Infrastructure to Service Providers – Is 5G a Necessity?"


To start with I don't have much idea about the financial health of telecom companies except for the reports that I have been hearing in the news and the opinions I've been reading on social media. Now it may indeed be true that they are not doing that well or it may be exaggerated, hard to tell.


But what I do seem to sense is that the telecom industry is going to move away from being an infrastructure provider and become a service provider. Just providing the internet is no longer going to be enough.


[Remember that the license for the spectrums that have already been purchased last for 20 years]


Verizon purchased yahoo, JIO has their own suite of entertainment and news services and plans to build data centers, airtel has its bank and dish TV etc etc. You can see examples like this everywhere.


A few years back, just around the time when whats app was gaining hold in the market there was a big outcry about application companies "eating the lunch" of infra companies. The debate was centered around the fact that while infra companies did the hard,laborious work of laying the cables, setting up base stations, purchasing the airwaves and dealing with regulations the software companies simply took the consumers to their own platform and profited heavily from it. This was a bit hard to swallow.


From that time, many developments have happened. Application companies have started to deploy their own infra. Google, Microsoft, Facebook have their fiber optic lines and data centers. Both Google and Facebook[1] are investing heavily in wireless connectivity via satellites, wifi access points,messaging and calling services. Things that were traditionally sold by telcos are gradually being controlled by software companies[2]. And while there is still a long way to go for them, the intention is quite clear.


Why should a telco company pay more money for


1.Spectrum

2.Base station

3.Operation and maintenance


If you were the owner of a telco what would you do? When there are other players with services that are more valuable and deep pockets to set up their network and all of this with no baggage of maintenance,yet.


And that is not all of it. Telecom towers are expensive to purchase and run. They gobble up huge amounts of energy just to stay on. It may not be feasible to even set up more of them.


We therefore arrive at a deadlock.


Telecom companies need more consumers to keep the lights on especially when there are few alternative sources of revenue.


These consumers are to be found in areas where connectivity is low -- Rural areas


But to capture the consumers in these areas they have to spend more money than they can recover initially, esp. as the income levels are so low.


Considering how both towers and base station equipment is so expensive, who will be the first to take action?


Now please understand that I'm in no way defending telcos. I'm just trying to paint a picture as I'm able to see. Maybe someone else can put forward a different perspective.


Also note that I'm not saying that infrastructure can be created simply by extravagant spending. You need skills too which many software companies don't have. They can build it by putting in years of work. Will they? And what will they become when they do that? Will they be software companies any more? Time will tell.


I think that the financial health of the sector will not be improved simply by infusing money or by giving tax reliefs or by just waiting things out. In my opinion, at this stage, 5G is irrelevant for everyone except for those who want to sell their handsets and those who want to acquire more money by selling thin air. However I'm sure that the industry has already done their own research and they have a plan on how to grow the market and stay relevant.


I've written elsewhere how India can do quite well without 5G. Low cost alternatives exist to distribute the internet.


References


[1]For example https://engineering.fb.com/connectivity/introducing-facebook-s-new-terrestrial-connectivity-systems-terragraph-and-project-aries/



[2] Google's fiber optic cable ownership

https://broadbandnow.com/report/google-content-providers-submarine-cable-ownership


Akshat Jiwan Sharma–Strategy Consultant Mobile

/whatsapp:+919654119771 email:getellobed@gmail.com

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