In a ‘strategic move,’ Finnish mobile manufacturer Nokia and India’s largest telecom Bharti Airtel announced their most recent collaboration to develop 5G technology and enhance the 4G infrastructure in the country.
Under the agreement, both digital companies will develop new services that focus on the 5G network, as well as looking at improving standards and management of connected devices, and increase the effectiveness and efficiency of 4G.
“The 5G and IoT applications have tremendous potential to transform lives and we are pleased to partner with Nokia to enable these future technologies for our customers,” Abhay Savargaonkar, Director-Network Services (India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel, said in a statement.
Last year, Nokia openly expressed their desire to build “a smarter India” by rolling out the new and faster mobile data service. During their Innovation Day in Bengaluru, the company featured over 60 useful cases of the 5G technology, including Smart Parking, Video Analytics, and Rail Road crossing.
The mobile manufacturer also cited that technology would enable growth in different sectors beyond IT including agriculture, manufacturing, entertainment and more.
However, Nokia and Airtel aren’t the only partnership working on building the 5G technology, as India’s newest telecom operator Reliance Jio and Korean-based tech giant Samsung are also collaborating to bring a solution to India. The announcement was made during the 2017 Mobile World Congress conference, along with Samsung showcasing a whole host of 5G-enabled products, based on the report by Gadgets Now.
India is an ideal market to build IoT technologies. Aside from being one of the world’s leading tech hubs, the IoT industry in the country is projected to grow from $1.3 billion last year to $9 billion by 2020, according to a report by The Economic Times. It will be driven by the increased adoption of mobile technologies and new forms of IoT devices.
The article also predicts that telecom operators will soon start rolling out fresh IoT strategies or “stretch the existing one” to achieve an overall end-to-end Internet of Things ecosystem and economy. These companies will make significant investments in field service platforms and in enhancing the current state of Internet services in the country. These companies will look to “focus on being end-to-end solution provider[s].”
The IoT ecosystem has grown exponentially in the past couple of years. Telogis cited that its power isn’t limited to mobile devices as it has turned homes smarter and even made its ways to the highway. The ever-growing integration of the Internet has transformed a wide variety of vehicles from minivans to 18-wheelers.
“Fleet vehicles, drivers and managers are now privy to the real-time sharing of vehicle diagnostics, GPS-based tracking, routing information, and more,” the digital developer explained.
With the 5G technology present, it can improve peak data speeds, network latency and agility, as well as allow network slicing.
Network providers will also be able to address the demands of a growing number of customers and billions of connected IoT gadgets with the reliability of their Internet services and solutions.
As 5G lays the foundations for remote healthcare, smarter rural communities, and a myriad of business possibilities, the government is also prepared to assist the possibility of a faster internet solution. During the WMC in Spain, Telecom Secretary J.S. Deepak said that they are also working to ensure that the country will embrace 5G telecom networks and their services quickly.
