With the countdown to MWC 2020 in Barcelona well and truly underway, the telco industry will certainly be gearing up to witness the latest innovations in mobile. This year, the focus will be on how limitless intelligent connectivity will shape the future of our digital experiences.
Alongside the latest smartphone launches, all eyes will undoubtedly be on 5G, AI and IoT. These technologies denote a new era in which connectivity plays an instrumental role in meeting the needs of customers.
This month, the GeoSpock team will once again be heading to Spain to attend Mobile World Congress (MWC 2020). To help make sense of limitless intelligent connectivity and the explosion of data that comes with it, we’ve collated the key industry trends to look out for in the upcoming show.
Carriers reposition themselves at the top of the stack
In an era of hyper-connectivity, where there is a strong demand for more devices at low cost, telecom carriers are often negated to the role of ‘dumb pipes’. With the recent move towards 5G, however, network operators will have the opportunity to redefine themselves and offer more intelligent services.
We’re hoping to hear about these ideas at MWC, as well as how savvy operators plan to capitalise on this trend by using advances in analytics. By using analytics, operators can collect and process information from multiple sensors and devices to provide rich services that are both location and context aware. This will allow them to rise from the bottom of the stack and play a fundamental role in delivering new customer experiences, as well as enabling them to monetise services in new ways.
The acceleration of smart city developments
According to the United Nations, the world’s population is set to reach 8.6 billion within the next ten years. To meet the needs of a growing number of citizens, governments are having to rethink how they deliver public services and adapt the way these services are delivered to reflect the lifestyle choices of everyday citizens.
At MWC, the spotlight will be on smart cities such as Singapore, that are driving developments in this space to become more citizen-centric. There will be a strong focus on how data from robotics, IoT sensors and different government agencies is being brought together and analysed to understand the needs of a growing population and optimise infrastructure within cities. For example, data on pedestrian and traffic flows can be collected to analyse a region’s busiest areas. This information can then be used to inform local services, such as how frequently public transport needs to run, and whether there is appropriate street lighting in place to improve citizens’ safety.
Location intelligence fuels CX
The move towards 5G will connect everyone to everyday objects, everywhere they go. This will create an explosion in the volume of location intelligence available, making it one of the most critical pieces of information for adding context to sensor data. Data from mobile apps that increasingly monitor users’ movements can be combined with additional data sets that offer additional context - for example, points of interest like shops, restaurants or transport hubs.
The ability to analyse vast sets of data surrounding people’s movement will provide organisations with insight into who their customers are, what they do and what they need. We anticipate that MWC will showcase how this information can be used to deliver more connected, timely and personalised experiences to consumers. Organisations, however, will need to ensure that they strike a careful balance of achieving relevance while prioritising the transparent and ethical use of customer data.
Sustainability takes centre stage
Ethical and sustainable thinking has never been more important, with COP25 bringing increasing pressure on governments and businesses to take climate change seriously. This will undoubtedly reaffirm the telco community’s own commitment to sustainability. The seeds for this were sown during last year’s conference, with the better future initiative launched by GMSA. At this year’s show, we’re likely to see this taken one step further. All brands need to demonstrate a commitment to the environment and be able to articulate the steps being taken to reduce their carbon footprint. For many, this will mean identifying how they can optimise operations to reduce costs and emissions.
Attending MWC 2020 Barcelona this year? Visit us in Hall 7, Stand A11 to find out how operators, governments and businesses can leverage advanced, extreme scale data insights to uncover hidden patterns and unlock a host of socio-economic benefits.
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