Mobile World Congress shows a vision of even more connected things

I approached this year’s Mobile World Congress as I usually would – with a very open mind. However, this year was different. It was far more fulfilling than previous years and, in some ways, had me feeling overwhelmed. Not so much by the sheer distances walked each day (approximately 20 kilometers) but by the types of discussions about the state of the telco industry and its future directions that were both enlightening and refreshing. For the first time I had the feeling that 5G will reach new milestones this year based on the various innovations that were on show.

Telco networks need to seize opportunities

Network operators globally are shaping their future, with MWC serving as the perfect moment to come together and discuss perspectives and the various opportunities that need to be recognised. Within this, what they can offer with regards to insights into data streams and providing additional overlays or security services on top to make their services more valuable and stick for customers were some of the key focus points. More important, however, is the growing opportunity to be more connected than ever before, offering the maximum potential of interconnectivity. Thanks to this, there is a clear opportunity for collaboration and the critical next steps that will define the future of telco networks for years to come.

For this to happen, however, telcos must start seeing the value of their infrastructure. Similarities can be drawn with parallel industries, take banking for example. The SWIFT network is critical for international money transfers. While this network is great, there was a demand from consumers to have a faster, simpler network to move money. Given this, the financial industry has complied with more agile alternatives such as the VENMO, PayPal, and intra bank networks to deliver high speed financial transactions. These additional services are what drive adoption and value add to financial networks.

Telcos, however, risk falling into two traps: Becoming a network provider to simply move data traffic or expanding their offerings by bundling additional services, such as partnering with Netflix as part of an entertainment package at no extra charge. So far in Telco we haven’t seen a level of innovation within its services that will lead to the additional demand for and consumption of said services. This is where true innovation will happen in the near future.

Optimisations are required between every single network and service operator that is delivering and or creating content. In the age of AI, the level of data and measurement that can be consumed to ensure the best sets of services must be leveraged. From understanding how to best compress a video file through to moving and allowing disparate edge computing usage. All of this is to be delivered through intelligent insights. A few companies have the foresight to realise that they must start looking into the contextual aspects of interconnectivity. It is more important to figure out why a specific device is connected on a specific network, when thousands of devices are making connections every second. Telco providers need to find a way to bucket this information to orchestrate the data streams effectively and deliver on the value of the data that is created.

My key takeaways from the show are:

1. SIMS are literally everywhere

From facilitating seamless communication between devices to enabling groundbreaking technologies, the versatility and adaptability of SIM cards are redefining the boundaries of connectivity. E-SIMS will allow organisations to provide country-specific access to data that travels with the user. The question that pops into my head is how these data streams will be secured in the future?

2. 5G is real

5G is no longer a theory only, even in Europe. While we still don’t have the proper standalone 5Gs in Europe, private 5G has matured to be widely accepted and used. We were always waiting for the killer app in previous years and speculating about the virtual reality goggles occupying this space. More and more applications are demonstrating the potential of virtual worlds this year, e.g., for training purposes.

3. Data sovereignty is a driving force

Given our fragile global situation, the topic of data sovereignty has been getting more attention. Organisations and governments alike want to be able to take active control of the locations of their data, and not only data resilience. The debate steered by NIS2 and new security measurements for national critical infrastructures ties into this data sovereignty, software, and cloud ecosystems as well.

Moving forward, the focus will be on connectivity being delivered everywhere now that almost everything is SIM enabled. There will also be questions around how telcos will make use of all the available information, and perhaps more importantly, how they can orchestrate it in one environment and deliver effective controls. The great unifier is security – every user, company, and service demands uniform security on any network. Zscaler as the world’s largest cloud security service, available everywhere, is in a poignant situation to deliver this glue.