CHANGING THE GAME

MARNE MARTIN, PRESIDENT OF IFS SERVICE MANAGEMENT, ON THE IoT USE CASES IN THE TELECOM INDUSTRY.

What are some of the most common IoT use cases in telecom?

Some of the most common IoT use cases are first around the move to condition-based maintenance (versus time-based maintenance) and what we call “anticipated” break fix driven from a sensor reading and proactive data monitoring. These use cases are fairly common now, although the ability to drive statistically significant and positive results from the connected asset data is still something that is easier for the manufacturers also providing aftermarket service to do than others. In any event, enabling these use cases are possible and profitable as more effective maintenance typically improves profitability by 20-25% versus conventional break fix, as well as it is delivering a much better customer experience.

In a more strategic sense, IOT (and a strategy and operational plan for generating value from these connected assets) are necessary to also move to outcomes-based service and where intelligent asset monitoring in its fullest form comes to play to drive also asset longevity, asset uptime, and thinking about how to do better in adverse conditions or even climate-based maintenance and service. As more and more data is also realised and analysed, additional machine learning can be applied to become more predictive alongside greater artificial intelligence that helps to drive self-learning across the asset, customer and mobile workforce patterns.

What will be the impact of 5G in Telecom?

It enables us to think truly like a mobile agile world that ubiquitous 5G is not only great for assets that are deployed that we want access to, but it enables us as consumers to be able to enjoy our work and play activities anywhere we are, not only in our home or where Wi-Fi is available. The passion and the vision that we have for mobile telephony where you no longer need cables to a home or business that is

becoming real for the first time with 5G. And that enables us to think about all of the business and activities that we do outside the home in new ways. As someone that focuses so much on how we digitalise our business models and daily activities for business and their end customers, and how we help frontline and field service workers to have more insights and assistance at their fingertips, this is a very exciting time. And for all those that love streaming content, playing games, you are similarly thrilled.

Data speeds in the past before 5G weren’t fast enough to drive the differential experience that businesses and consumers would pay for, but 5G enables operators to generate more of a return on their investment in these networks and drive upward Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) related to the additional services they can provide. There is great value in enabling individuals and business to be more agile, more mobile (pun intended) and able to run anywhere in the world since it is also clear that many more workers than ever will be remote or in the “field” than ever before. 5G is huge for industries with heavy or long-lived assets that have high up-time requirements and also for cities, communities and / or other utilities beyond telco that want to become “smart.” All of this suddenly comes to life, gets a kickstart, with 5G. It is great business for the telcos that they have needed infrastructure that they can monetise to a much more diverse group of use cases and business cases because of the speed of the 5G connectivity. But it’s also just advantageous for consumers where they can now effectively take broadband anywhere in the world with the power of 5G.

What are the existing challenges related to IoT implementation in Telecom?

Modern infrastructure is connected, so IoT implementation in Telecom has fewer challenges. They are also already used to having network monitoring and equipment analytics. TELCOS HAVE THE ABILITY TO BE A CATALYST AS A DIGITAL ENTERPRISE AND ACTS AS A FACILITATOR OF HOW NOT ONLY THEY BRING IOT DATA TO LIFE IN THEIR OWN NETWORKS, BUT ALSO FOR THOSE THAT ARE USING 5G CONNECTIVITY IN ASSET RICH INDUSTRIES.

Having the right analytics on the BSS infrastructure related to driving predictive maintenance, uptime in disparate environmental conditions, asset longevity, that is the continued challenge for many of the telco operators that will take cooperation with software vendors like IFS, the equipment vendors, and the telco operators to solve. 5G will make this work even more critical given the multiplication of the BSS ecosystem requiring 300-500% more radio antennae’s, but 5G will also help to transmit the data, and we know adoption of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is expected to leapfrog over the next three to five years given that much of the data has been under-utilised so far, and more will now be available. Telcos are an immensely data rich environment for asset and consumer data.

Time is of the essence to harness this data to make sure that 5G drives ARPU in the ways that telco operators need it to, but also make sure that they use their data, experience and new capabilities to operate their 5G networks in ways that are best of class in terms of asset constructure, maintenance, and repair.

What do you think will be the future of IoT in telecoms?

Telecoms are the enabler of IoT in all industries, but companies within each industry still need to decide what asset information is meaningful and what they plan to do with it to drive the business value that is most impactful to their company performance and the delight of their end customers. Therefore, telco operators have an opportunity to not only be the connectivity vendor, but also leading in terms of value-added services and insights in other verticals to drive uptime and reliability where data insights add value. Telcos have the ability to be a catalyst as a digital enterprise and acts as a facilitator of how not only they bring IoT data to life in their own networks, but also for those that are using 5G connectivity in asset rich industries. This will give the push that is needed for connected assets to become a reality. Telcos have the opportunity to showcase how they are managing their data, implementing AI, Machine Learning, automation, etc. and in the process also build deeper and richer relationships with their business customers (while delighting end customers that are likely also personal telco users as well).