Mobile Europe Q4 2020

Q4

2020 www.mobileeurope.co.uk @mobileeurope Picture credit: A1 Austria

Tranforming digital infrastructure in the era of pandemic and beyond Profile: Alexander Stock, CTO, A1 Austria

28

IoT & infra

CTIO Spotlight

Connected cars

IoT is not a straightforward concept due to needing various types of connectivity, limited network coverage and territorial boundaries

Pascal Koster, CTIO of Hyperoptic, the fibre altnet company the UK, on being a trailblazer and keeping up with developments in technology

Like many tracked journeys, the progress of the connected autonomous vehicle is inconsistent and taking longer than expected

07

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Contents

32

Insight Report: IoT 14 Annual readership survey Annie Turner analyses our survey responses and finds that IoT is seen as critical by fewer businesses than previously, while business models remain a vexed issue.

08

Editor’s choice 04 Welcome At the end of a painful and difficult year, we celebrate the outstanding achievements of telecoms and look forward to delivering on our new sense of purpose and confidence in 2021.

07 CTO Spotlight Pascal Koster, CTIO of alternative fibre net provider Hyperoptic in the UK, thinks staying on top of tech changes and keeping an open mind are the key to success.

08 CTO Interview Alexander Stock, CTIO of A1 Austria talks about the reframing of what is possible, digital transformation, leadership and more in the era of a pandemic, and beyond. By Annie Turner.

20 Artificial intelligence in IoT AI is becoming an essential part of IoT deployments, creating opportunities for players across the mobile ecosystem, finds Kate O’Flaherty.

24 IoT at the edge The edge and IoT are two areas in flux, with some fundamental issues still to be resolved, but it looks like the rewards for getting it right will be huge, as Annie Turner explores.

24

28 IoT’s complex infrastructure IoT seems like a straightforward concept, but varied connectivity requirements, limited network coverage, geographic boundaries and competing technologies make for a complex and incoherent proposition, discovers Nick Wood.

Full Spectrum 36

Our quarterly round-up of the major events in the global telecoms market beyond Europe

32 Where are connected cars?

Like many tracked journeys, the progress of the connected autonomous vehicle is inconsistent and taking longer than expected, writes Nick Booth.

The Wireless World

38

Final Say Kester Mann of CCS Insight: how operators can build on their stellar efforts during the Covid-19 crisis

Welcome Editor: Annie Turner anniet@mobileeurope.co.uk Contributing Editor: Sarah Wray sarah.wray@mobileeurope.co.uk Sub Editor: Lisa Hughes lisa.hughes@easynet.co.uk Design and Production: Alex Gold Commercial Director: Fidi Neophytou fidin@mobileeurope.co.uk Acting Marketing Manager: Marcin Piechowski marcinp@sjpbusinessmedia.com Publisher: Wayne Darroch wayned@sjpbusinessmedia.com +44 (0)207 062 2526 ISSN: 1350 7362 Free Subscriptions Mobile Europe and European Communications is a controlled circulation quarterly magazine available free to selected personnel at the publisher’s discretion. If you wish to apply for regular free copies please register online at: www.mobileeurope.co.uk/register Paid Subscriptions Readers who fall outside of the strict terms of control may purchase an annual subscription. 1 year UK subscription: £111 one year International subscription: £139 To purchase a subscription please call: +44 (0)1635 879361 Free subscriptions: subscriptions@mobileeurope.co.uk Paid subscriptions: mobileeurope@circdata.com Tel: +44 (0)1635 879 361 Printed By Buxton Press

The views expressed in Mobile Europe & European Communications are not necessarily those of the editor or the publisher.

Mobile Europe & European Communications is published by SJP Business Media 2nd Floor, St Mary Abchurch House 123 Cannon Street London, EC4N 5AU

At the end of last year, I wrote that 2019 had been a landmark year for telecoms and suggested that 2020 might be even more so. Well, I got that right, even if for an entirely unforeseen reason. I certainly didn’t expect a year that has been defined by a pandemic. And I didn’t really expect a year in which telecoms has had such an unprecedented chance to shine and seems to have developed a huge new sense of purpose, mostly in two ways.

The first is that many are now building out infrastructure – especially 4G, 5G and fibre – faster than ever before and at a different scale. There is a serious urgency about closing the digital divide. The second is all about determined efforts, especially by European telco groups, to have a positive impact on climate change.

Another upside of what has been, and continues to be, a terrifying and sad time for many, is the impetus given to the digitalisation of businesses of all stripes and sizes. Clearly, operators have a huge role to play here beyond connectivity, although that is not to underestimate or undervalue its fundamental importance.

Not everyone will agree with Phil Skipper, Head of Business Development, Vodafone IoT, who says that, “The conversation has moved from IoT as an isolated technology to IoT as a way to move towards a connected business model.” However, the disagreement is about how far IoT is along that path rather than its destination, which is to become what economists describe as a “general purpose” technology.

Other such technologies include the mastery of fire and electricity, and the invention of the internal combustion engine – these are things that are integral to so much else that impact national economies and even the global economy.

This issue of the magazine is largely dedicated to IoT and its progress, which is tricky to gauge, as our survey and an incisive series of articles illustrate. This is not least because a lot of related activities are underway on many fronts all at once, which makes its inevitably non-linear progress super hard to track. At least one – artificial intelligence (AI) – is itself a “general purpose” technology, along with automation and perhaps low latency networks too.

We hope you enjoy this thought-provoking edition, and we wish you and those you care about a peaceful and safe holiday season.

Annie Turner, Editor, Mobile Europe/European Communications

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CTO Q&A

In the spotlight:

Pascal Koster, CTIO, Hyperoptic Pascal Koster has been CTIO of Hyperoptic, an alternative fibre network provider in the UK, since November 2018. Hyperoptic was founded in 2011 to disrupt the British broadband market and describes itself as “the country’s largest and fastest-growing gigabit network provider”.

What is the biggest issue on your mind now?

The biggest issue we face is the shift from an infrastructure powered by big classical switches to software-defined networking. The roles and skillsets of the people who work in the industry have fundamentally changed; you need a progressive skillset, aligned across IT and telecoms.

Who most influenced your career?

I have worked for and with some phenomenal people within telecoms. Magnus Mandersson at the Tele2 Group – the entrepreneurship he brought to and applied to telecoms. Experimentation and creativity from working with Jean-Claude Bintz at Orange Luxembourg, which I still apply to my working methods.

What is the most important lesson you have learned professionally?

You need to keep moving forwards. I call it “discuss, decide, do.” The worst decision is no decision. Failure is part of success: keep learning and progressing.

How important is 5G roll-out to your business model?

Having worked across both fixed and mobile industries I can confirm fixed and mobile technologies are, and will remain, complementary. There wouldn’t be 5G without a fibre network: it’s an access technology, so the better the fixed network, the better 5G can perform. They have evolved in parallel – first ADSL with 3G, then VDSL and 4G, and now full fibre and 5G. The new generation core networks, which are very similar for mobile and fixed, are the brain processing the data and enabling services. Fibre networks (and high-performance Wi-Fi in the case of fixed broadband operations) are the arteries, while mobile operators are the nerves collecting information.

What is your greatest professional achievement?

I am passionate about staying up to date with new high-tech and experimenting with new innovations.

I was part of the team that built out the first 3G network and I have spent my career building and rebuilding networks across Europe.

I like to think that my greatest achievement lies ahead. Hyperoptic is leading a shift to full fibre that will revolutionise how people can and will access the internet. We are just at the start of our journey, and one of the first networks to use the cloud as the foundation of the telco stack, plus we are pioneering new technologies in automation.

How has the pandemic changed your company’s perspective and roadmap?

Our developers and developers at our system partners have not been impacted, because they have always worked across different locations. Also, our core network elements are virtualised, and we use advanced cloud and security technologies, so it’s just business as usual from that side.

I miss the socialising but it’s a small price to pay to keep people safe.

How do you see Hyperoptic’s pioneering role continuing?

Altnets have played an extremely important role in pioneering the shift to full fibre across the whole of Europe. The pluralism is driving innovation. The altnets took the opportunity to address a market inflection created by new demands from consumers and proved the business model.

You don’t want monopolistic infrastructure – competition is important to drive the market.

Altnets have demonstrated a new level of innovation, which will drive their country’s GDP as incumbents follow suit. Alnets must fully leverage their ‘first-mover’ advantage, which is exactly what we are doing at Hyperoptic, by ensuring we have the best technologies in place that enable us to expedite roll-out.

When will we have ubiquitous fibre in the UK and what are the obstacles?

I don’t think it’s economically viable to have 100% fibre everywhere. It isn’t even feasible in small countries. The UK is shifting across to fibre in exactly the right way, starting in high-density areas and multiple-dwelling-units, then gradually moving to towns and so on. Different solutions will work for different topologies of neighbourhoods and different buildings.

What single recommendation would you make to your peer group of CT(I)Os? We are living in an era where Technology has never moved more quickly, so stay open-minded, keep a watchful eye on how technologies evolve and embrace what’s coming – especially machine learning and cognitive learning.

What do you do when you’re not working?

I genuinely enjoy working, so there’s never a time when I switch off – I am always thinking about the future and new innovations. I tinker in all walks of life, whether it’s a network, my car or my garden. I enjoy relaxing with a glass of wine, but those moments are few since my son was born!

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

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CTO Interview

CTO of A1 Austria: Lessons of lockdown Like many operators, A1 Austria achieved amazing feats during lockdowns to support customers.

Here Alexander Stock talks to Annie Turner about capturing that reframing of what is possible, digital transformation, leadership and more in the era of a pandemic, and beyond.

Picture credit: A1 Austria

D

uring the first wave of the pandemic, A1 moved its entire workforce to homeworking – and supporting customers from those home offices – over the course of a weekend. During the first lockdown it was also clear how stable and reliable A1’s networks are, not only in Austria, but in all its Central and Eastern Europe markets. This was a huge achievement for the network and IT teams, particularly given that there was more pressure on their processes than ever before, and Stock reflects, “What we have learned, and what we aim to keep, is the changed perspective that Corona has taught us.

“Working efficiently is not automatically connected to working in the office; decisions can be taken faster remotely. Cooperating digitally and participating in events to learn do not require physical presence. There are many other examples. All of them have one thing in common: modern ways of working, based on state-of-the-art tools and processes. We have also accelerated our own internal digitalisation and modernisation.”

He highlights how Covid-19 put digitalisation into the spotlight overnight and made it clear how important it is in all areas of life, from home working to home schooling and socialising. He describes it as a “call to action” which in some ways pushed A1 into digitalisation, but he insists, “Companies will not turn back the clock. Video conferences have replaced business trips and many things are now done remotely, which was unthinkable only a few months before.”

Digital transformation Stock has a refreshing approach to digital transformation. He explains, “I don’t see cost reduction and investments versus digital transformation as a trade-off anymore.

The beauty of digital transformation is that when you do it well, in the right places and at the right speed, you get efficiency along with the enhancements.”

He continues, “With today’s coding possibilities, you can create flexibility where it is needed, without first needing to completely transform old platforms in a lengthy and expensive process. This means that we are building modern interfaces, based on a microservices architecture, for flexibility where it is really needed and when it’s needed. This approach accelerates the process, while keeping costs under control.

“The main reason for following this approach is that when our business colleagues come up with new requirements, then they usually need them yesterday, not in five to seven years’ time, which is the average length of a big transformation project. Today we can deliver most of their expectations, while shifting our overall transformation into the background.”

There are many benefits of this approach, he says. “This gives us – the IT and technology teams – full control of the speed and cost of transformation, and we can keep up with fast delivery for the business. You can imagine this as frontend and backend processes, where the front represents the business need and the back represents our technological house-keeping.”

Company culture and structure The human and cultural aspects of transformation are rising up the agenda in telco boardrooms around the globe, along with the issues of inclusivity and reskilling staff, as well as attracting new talent with desperately needed skills in data analytics, AI and so on. This puts a lot of responsibility on the CTO’s shoulders, which Stock acknowledges. He says, “Attracting new people with new skills is one of the biggest challenges: it can take a very long time to fill new positions.

We try to build the key knowhow we need internally, but, of course, we also need partners, such as in areas like agile methodologies.

Issue Q4 2020 Q4••www.mobileeurope.co.uk www.mobileeurope.co.uk

CTO Interview

Deploying 5G against the backdrop of the Votivkirche (Votiv Church) in Vienna.

Picture credit: A1 Austria

“Building a scrum team sounds simple; in fact, agile requires new job functions, like a scrum master or product owner. We need to put new career paths in place for those roles, and a new human resources (HR) structure. All this has to be developed.”

He stresses, “Moving from the analogue world to the digital one is not just putting a new face on an old process. It means re-engineering that process or even the whole product. Let’s take the digitalisation of TV, for example. It involves not only selling services online, but getting rid of the set-top box, which means you don’t need logistics, delivery, set-up and so on anymore. Services are over the top, in real time, and all your processes from sales to support have to be reinvented.”

Managing and developing talent As for managing and developing talent in-house, A1 has a multi-faceted approach. Stocks says, “Firstly, it’s about constant learning and fostering curiosity about new things. Then digitalisation and innovative communication solutions are creating completely new opportunities, but they are also challenging the design of our existing working and learning environments. Collaboration, independent of time and space, as well as the exchange via internal social networks or knowledge platforms offer enormous potential to promote the development of skills, and the productivity and attractiveness of the working environment as a whole.”

However, Stock emphasises that, “Constant learning is not only a technological thing, it also requires every one of us to adapt. The boundaries between our private worlds and those of business and learning are blurring. We have already started to learn [digital skills] while following our hobbies, for example.”

He believes there is no question that developing and expanding people’s skills plays a very important role in the technology sector, explaining, “By the end of the year, every employee will have had an interview with their manager to determine what skills they have or the roles they play. Then we ask if these skills and roles be needed in the future, based on team-level goals.

“We see if there is a gap between existing and required skills, then we will take measures to close these gaps, through training, for example. If the role is completely eliminated, further discussions are held with the employee to find a solution.”

Personal responsibilities This is part of a big shift, Stock says, away from “old-fashioned ‘performance-management’ to strategic HR, not only to answer the question about who has high potential, but also to know in which roles and skills I need them in the future.”

In a rapidly changing work environment, there is an onus on em-

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

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10 CTO Interview

Providing denser converage in urban areas with 5G Picture credit: A1 Austria

A1 Austria can deliver fibre-type speeds where needed.

Picture credit: A1 Austria

ployees to be aware of developments and take charge of their careers.

Stock states, “For me, it is important that the employees themselves take control of their own future and take responsibility to expand their skills and remain competitive and attractive to the company. As leaders, our role is to create an environment that allows for this required flexibility and empowerment.”

Stock points out that for almost every telco there are big demographic changes coming in the workforce, because IT and networking teams tend to comprise older people. He says, “The average age of technology employees is 47 and many will retire in the next few years. These skill development measures will help us to control the situation and adapt to new requirements. To cover our future needs for young skilled workers we also train apprentices in the field force and ICT services.”

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

For instance, in 2019, A1 provided training for 100 apprentices in Austria. In addition, there is a long-standing cooperation with the University of Applied Science, the Technikum Vienna, with whom the operator has 19 dual students – that is, they split their time between studying and working at A1 in IT or ICT, and receive part-time pay and the operator pays their tuition fees.

Infrastructure priorities The pandemic has highlighted the importance of connectivity for many aspects of life, from work to study, entertainment, social cohesion, access to support and more. A1 already had an ambitious build-out schedule for fibre infrastructure. It has the largest fibre network in Austria, at about 60,000km, and this is growing significantly in all federal states.

CTO Interview 11

In the first six months of 2020 alone, A1 invested more than €226 million in infrastructure expansion and laid more than 5,000km of fibre cable in over 160 municipalities. More than 2.1 million households are already connected to the A1 fibre optic network Stock says, “The pandemic and associated lockdowns interrupted our roll-out for a short time. We faced delays in the issuing of permits and in the activities of the construction companies, but normal operations resumed a few weeks after the first lockdown.”

He continues, “The 5G network is expanding rapidly. We are following a two-path strategy: pushing 3.5GHz 5G [base] stations into rural and high-density areas, and rolling out 2.1GHz 5G for [denser] coverage. In rural areas we can finally deliver fibre-type speeds to communities with poor infrastructure and in high-density urban areas we can achieve capacity upgrades. In between, we are fast closing coverage blind spots with 2.1GHz. “Our goal is to rapidly expand the 5Giganetwork, a combination of Austria’s largest fibre optic network and the fastest 5G technology to provide Austria with high performance mobile internet, in cities and rural areas.”

Setting the trend Stock explains that since the latest frequency auction, A1 holds the largest share of spectrum at about 38%, which, “We require to serve the biggest customer base in Austria. In addition, local companies use A1 campus networks based on 4G and 5G technology.

“This builds the foundation for efficient digitalisation, the use of IoT and innovative technologies such as edge cloud and network slicing. 4G slicing is an innovative solution that we have developed with our partner Nokia to deliver innovative use cases faster.”

As examples, Stock points to A1’s implementation of a campus network at Vienna International Airport, which guarantees the highest availability through pre-5G technologies and enables secure IoT con-

nectivity. He says, “Network slicing gives us the possibility to design the network’s performance according to our requirements. Thus, Vienna Airport is optimally prepared for the digital challenges of the future.”

Another example is ÖBB – Austrian Federal Railways. A1 intends to be the first mobile service provider worldwide to implement network slicing in 4G and 5G networks for ÖBB Infrastructure AG, working with its technology partner Nokia. Stock describes this as a “trend-setting project” and adds that A1 has also established several 5G research campuses, “Where we aim to accelerate use case development with our partners for our customers.”

A sustainable future So how does Stock see the impact of the pandemic and the lessons learned – particularly the redefinition of what is possible, the sense of urgency, the innovation and the total support of employees – playing out in the company’s culture and indeed the company’s future?

He replies, “Sustainability and our contribution to the society is very important for us, especially during these challenging times. Therefore, for us as the A1 Leadership Team, the guiding principle is to create ‘a sustainable future for Austria’.

“This means that we consider ourselves more than a service provider: as almost every Austrian is a customer of A1 we have a special role and responsibility when digitalisation has become a central driver of the economy and society.”

Stock concludes, “In five years’ time we would like to have regained the status of Austria´s number one place to work. Only with this reputation can we keep and continue to develop the teams and skills required for such a journey. During the same period, we will have created not only the best 5G network in Austria, but we will also set the standard within the industry. 5G will – like the arrival of the smartphone – build the basis for endless IoT use cases and will accelerate the speed of economic development.”

Expanding Austria’s largest fibre network Picture credit: A1 Austria

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

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Insight report: IoT

14

Annual readership survey Annie Turner analyses our survey responses and finds that IoT is seen as critical by fewer businesses than previously, while business models remain a vexed issue.

20

Artificial intelligence in IoT AI is becoming an essential part of IoT deployments, creating opportunities for players across the mobile ecosystem, finds Kate O’Flaherty.

24

IoT at the edge The edge and IoT are two areas in flux, with some fundamental issues still to be resolved, but it looks like the rewards for getting it right will be huge, as Annie Turner explores.

28

IoT’s complex infrastructure IoT seems like a straightforward concept, but varied connectivity requirements, limited network coverage, geographic boundaries and competing technologies make for a complex and incoherent proposition, discovers Nick Wood.

32

Where are connected cars?

Like many tracked journeys, the progress of the connected autonomous vehicle is inconsistent and taking longer than expected, writes Nick Booth.

14 Insight ???????Report

IoT survey: Uncertainty about operators’ role and new business models persists Our annual IoT survey found that tech is in danger of sliding into the somewhatnice-to-have category, rather than being critical to the future of business, and there is divided opinion in many areas. Analysis by Annie Turner.

O

ur annual survey on IoT received 102 responses, 40% of which were from network operators (an almost identical proportion to last year). The rest were made of up hardware and software vendors, systems integrators, consultants and trade associations or standards bodies. Most, 87%, were from Europe with 7% from Asia and 6% from the Americas. Please note that all percentages are rounded throughout. The survey

was carried out in November 2020 by Mobile Europe/European Communications.

Where is the growth?

We asked respondents what they see as the biggest growth opportunities in IoT and to choose their top three. The top three chosen by respondents were eHealth, smart cities and Industry 4.0/manufacturing, which have pulled away from the pack.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that eHealth was identified as the sector with the most room for

growth in a year that has been defined by the pandemic. It was joint top with 49% (tied with smart cities, last year’s leader), up from fourth place in 2019.

Industry 4.0/manufacturing had the second highest score this year with 47%, a much closer second to smart cities than it was last year when there was a 9% gap between the two.

A study published in November by Juniper Research found that the global number of Industrial IoT (IIoT) connections will increase from 17.7 billion in 2020 to 36.8 billion in

What are the biggest growth opportunities within IoT? (Please choose your top 3) Smart cities 49% eHealth – remote monitoring of patients (eg vital signs, movement, drug compliance etc) 49% Industry 4.0/manufacture 47% Connected cars/automated vehicles 31% Smart homes 28% Remote monitoring and security of assets and property 25% Fleet management (eg monitoring drivers’ behaviour, accident prevention, predictive maintenance) 25% Retail and supply chain 18% Smart railways (eg predictive maintenance, better use of tracks/scheduling) and roads (eg traffic mangement, smart parking) 15% Freight tracking and monitoring (eg temperature, humidity, location, handling eg if dropped) 11% Other, please specify 6%

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

Insight Report 15

What is the single biggest challenge facing operators in IoT today (choose 1)?

New business models are hard to validate 28% Cybersecurity 22% Lack of standardisation 18% Cannot justify the business case 11% Lack of company strategy 8% Organisational/company culture 6% Establishing cross-border use cases 4% Unlicensed technology 2% Other (please specify) 2% Analytics 0.00%

How much of a priority is IoT to your company (choose 1)?

It’s important 51% It’s a focus but not a major one 16% It is critical 14% It’s neither important nor unimportant 11% It is not a priority 9%

2025 – an overall growth rate of 207%. The research identified smart manufacturing as a key growth sector of the Industrial IoT market over the next five years, accounting for 22 billion connections by 2025.

Challenges facing operators When we asked about the single biggest challenge facing operators in IoT today, new business models were overwhelmingly cited as the biggest stumbling block (as they were last year), with cybersecurity the second biggest with 21% of the vote, almost identical to last year.

If you add the vote for new business models being hard to validate (28%) to the vote for inability to justify the business case (11%), it catapults business issues to being

way out in front as the main inhibitor to operators’ IoT businesses.

There is clearly awareness of this in the telecoms industry, with, for example, Vodafone UK partnering with IoT.nxt, part of the Vodafone Group, in November and announcing a new range of IoT services. In particular, it is looking to help medium-sized British businesses digitalise and gain a return on investment. Vodafone will offer customers every part of an IoT solution, with a single data management platform, and the capability to integrate old and new devices in one system.

This year lack of standardisation (18%, up from 13% last year) gained ground, while respondents’ concern about a lack of company strategy dropped down the ranking to 8% from 14% last time.

Technology in Europe NB-IoT was the clear leader among respondents when we asked them to name the technology they saw as the most prominent IoT technology in Europe as 2020 comes to a close. This wasn’t altogether surprising as there has been a lot of grumbling about the lack of coverage and reports of would-be customers deferring investment because of it.

At an online roundtable in November, run by the international carrier, BICS, the panel was asked if poor coverage is because operators lack confidence in the business model and ROI; or it’s proved to be more expensive to upgrade the networks as they can’t do it by software (as was first assumed); or because they need new sites to get sufficient coverage for IoT use cases?

Talia Goldstein, Head of Roaming Business

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

16 Insight Report

at BICS, agreed that they have found it hard to monetise. However, her colleague, Fernando Llobregat, Head of Enterprise Sales and Go To Market for IoT, thinks this is changing, with the market moving on from the initial hype and dazzle of billions of connected devices.

He said, “Now we are plotting actual numbers of nodes; we are getting into something more concrete. We talk money with them [as in], ‘We are going to pay you this amount of money per device,’ so they can start coming up some numbers, which was not the case before.

“When we discuss [an implementation] with them, they have a clear idea of what the business implications will be for them and they are also scaling up their capabilities. Mobile operators really want to move up the value chain and provide solutions. It’s not just about the connectivity.”

NB-IoT 40% 45% LTE-M 31% 32%

How big a priority is IoT? The year of the pandemic seems to have shifted priorities – the bulk of survey respondents either thought IoT was important, but not critical, or a focus, but not a major one, making it feel like IoT is seen as nice to have rather than essential – maybe a lack of clarity around the business case yet again?

Specifically, last year 29% thought that IoT was critical to the future of their companies, but this year that more than halved to 14%.

Last year 44% thought it important, but that rose to 51%, absorbing only some of the shift from ‘critical’ to ‘important’.

Both last year and this, 10-11% of respondents decided it was neither important nor unimportant. In 2019, almost 5% thought it wasn’t a priority, this year that rose to almost 9%. In other words, about a fifth of our re-

spondents have no clear view of the potential role of IoT in their businesses or think there is no role.

Most important tech?

By the end of 2025, our respondents expect NB-IoT to have pulled a little further ahead of LTE-M. However, non-cellular connectivity’s market presence is expected to fade somewhat, with LoRaWAN winning 22% of our respondents’ votes for market presence now, down to 17% by the end of 2025. Likewise Sigfox’s share of respondents’ vote is 3% now, falling to 1% in five years’ time.

Unsurprisingly, 5G remains the technology expected to have the most impact on IoT in the coming year at 45% (respondents were asked to choose just one option). eSIM was a very distant second at 17%, but has gained

Which IoT technology do you think is the most prominent in Europe at the end of 2020 (choose 1)?

Which IoT technology will be the most prominent in Europe by the end of 2025 (choose 1)?

LoRaWAN 22% 17% Other (please specify) 4% 5% Sigfox 3% 1%

Which technology will have the most impact on IoT over the coming year (choose 1)?

5G 45% eSim 17% AI including machine learning 13% Edge computing/processing 13% Data analytics 9% Cloud 2% Other (please specify) 2% Blockchain 0.00%

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

Insight Report 17

Which technology will have the least impact on IoT/is over-hyped (choose 1)?

Blockchain 31% 5G 16% eSim 13% Data analytics 12% AI including machine learning 12% Edge computing/processing 9% Cloud 7%

What will 5G bring to IoT by the end of 2021 (choose all that apply)?

Other (please specify) 1%

Low latency for specific applications 46% New operator business models 45% New use cases 44% Network slicing 25% Ability to better target enterprises 23% Intelligence to better manage and secure IoT networks 20% Its role in IoT is over-hyped 16%

about 5% since last year.

The relative lack of interest in eSIM’s potential is surprising. As Tom Rebbeck, Partner, Research at Analysys Mason, noted in a briefing in December, operators have so far failed to counter the terrific success of mobile virtual network operators like 1NCE, EMnify and Twilio. Deutsche Telekom has a small stake in 1NCE, which since launching has introduced more than 5 million eSIMs into the market, thanks largely to a very simple price plan – connectivity costs €10 for up to ten years – and the ease of buying online.

Rebbeck said, “The main telecoms operators have been a bit slow to react to this…

I’m slightly surprised that they haven’t countered it yet and I think probably we’ll see one of the big operators counter it during next year [2021], quite possibly through an

acquisition: they could buy out one of these smaller, smaller MVNOs.” Introducing the edge This year we introduced edge computing/processing into the survey as an entity in its own right and it immediately gained 13% of the votes, while cloud’s share fell to 2% from 11% last year (see the separate article on page 24).

Data analytics and machine learning/AI just traded percentages, reflecting the early days for them in IoT. One respondent suggested that Wi-Fi 6 would have the greatest impact on IoT, another that data analytics and AI are the province of over-the-top players “as they are closest to end users” while “5G, other network, edge, blockchain etc are enablers.” This is illuminating in that it suggests the primary use of an-

alytics and AI is for customer experience and doesn’t envisage a role for AI and analytics in carriers’ operations, and network automation and orchestration.

It was interesting that this year blockchain had no takers as the technology with the most potential to impact IoT, and it topped the ranking for the most overhyped tech as well, with almost a third of the vote, way ahead of 5G in second place for being overhyped with 16%.

We’d expect this to change in the next year or two. José Antonio López-Jamar, CEO, Telefónica Global Roaming, told Mobile Europe that when it comes to blockchain’s telco potential, the time is now, and Europe’s biggest telco groups, including Orange and Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Telefónica, are carrying out various roaming trials with blockchain to improve accuracy for billing, to lower cost

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

18 Insight Report

What will 5G bring to IoT by the end of 2025 (choose all that apply)?

New operator business models 48% New use cases 46% Intelligence to better manage and secure IoT networks 46% Low latency for specific applications 43% Ability to better target enterprises 34% Network slicing 29% Its role in IoT is over-hyped 10%

Has the pandemic accelerated or delayed IoT’s progress?

It will accelerate IoT in the longer term (to 2025) 44% It slowed IoT deployment in the short term ONLY 23% I don’t know 21% It will slow IoT deployment into the long term (to 2025) 7% It accelerated IoT deployment in the short term ONLY 6%

and improve end-to-end services – all parts of the puzzle that need to come together.

Vodafone UK’s Scott Petty noted that some medium-sized businesses, as well as multi-nationals, are interested in cross-border IoT and BICS’ Goldstein too thinks it’s taken a while, but a sea change is coming regarding IoT and roaming. eSIM’s hype-rating fell by over 4% to 13% compared with last year. However, one respondent stated, “I don’t believe eSIM is the way to go for IoT. Access-agnostic core with standard-compliant authentication and security is a better solution.”

What does 5G bring to the party?

We asked respondents what they thought 5G would have brought to the IoT party by the end of 2021 and what they expect it will bring by the end of 2025. In both instances, they

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

were asked to choose all that applied.

Low latency was the winner for 2021 (46%), although by the slightest of leads over new operator business models (45%). New use cases, which in many instances will involve new business models, came a very close third with 44%.

This underlines the telecoms industry’s high hopes that 5G – and its low latency attributes in particular – will give IoT a huge boost (see article on IoT at the edge on page 24).

Even so, almost 16% of respondents thought 5G’s role in IoT to the end of 2021 is overhyped, which falls to a still significant minority of 10% by the end of 2025.

It’s interesting that low latency dropped to fourth in importance by the end of 2025 in our respondents’ expectations, perhaps being seen more as an element of solutions rather than a breakthrough tech by then.

The ability to better manage and secure IoT

networks, which languished at second bottom in the 2021 predictions with 20%, rose to joint second place for the end of 2025 with more than double its original score of 46%. No doubt this was a reflection of the increasing prevalence of 5G’s non-standalone mode in core networks, as opposed to its standalone mode in the RAN now.

Effects of the pandemic The main effect of the pandemic on the IoT market, according to 44% of respondents, has been to accelerate its deployment in the longer term. Some 23% thought it had slowed IoT in the short term only, hence two-thirds of our respondents were bullish about IoT in the longer term.

Perhaps not surprisingly given the many uncertainties at the moment, 21% of respondents said they didn’t know – an echo of the response to how important is IoT to your busi-

Insight Report 19

ness (see above), about a fifth of our respondents either had no clear view of the potential role of IoT in their businesses or thought it had no role.

We asked which European operator was leading in IoT – in previous years Vodafone was the clear winner (see the Gartner Magic Quadrant on page 30), but this year it was pipped at the post by respondents choosing Deutsche Telekom (DT) as the leader, with 38% of the vote. Vodafone was on 34% and the two had a long lead on the rest of the field: Orange came third with 11% and Telenor got a special mention from some of our respondents who answered “Other”.

We think this sudden and significant change in the perception of DT in the IoT market could be due to it announcing plans to spinoff its IoT business in June to strengthen its presence in the growing IoT market. Deutsche

Telekom IoT began operations on 1 July and has end-to-end responsibility for the entire IoT business at DT. Rami Avidan, CEO of Deutsche Telekom IoT, said, “The amalgamation of all IoT solutions into one framework provides a business environment that is unique to date. With this, Deutsche Telekom is establishing the world’s first open IoT network and expanding its role from IoT player to IoT orchestrator.”

Operators’ role in IoT There was a huge difference of opinion between our respondents regarding what they thought an operator’s role should be in IoT, with 43% arguing for connectivity and 40% for an end-to-end solutions provider. About 14% thought operators should provide data platforms.

Vendors and others often have a different view of operators’ potential roles and capabil-

ities than that of operators themselves, so we investigated further. Of the operator respondents, 48% thought they should provide endto-end IoT solutions and 38% connectivity, reversing the order of the overall vote and with a higher proportion of operators going for the end-to-end option. Still, there was clearly no single approach to ecosystems and roles within them (as Nick Wood confirms and explores in the article on page 28).

As one respondent put it, “Operators try hard to be end-to-end providers, but in reality, they are better in [their] core business of providing connectivity… for IoT to boom operators should create open platforms for applications developers to create an IoT app ecosystem.” That’s certainly interesting in the light of Vodafone’s approach through its subsidiary with IoT.nxt and Deutsche Telekom’s global hub set up this year.

Which European operator is leading in IoT? Deutsche Telekom 38% Vodafone 34% Orange 11% Telefonica 9% BT/EE 8%

What do you think an operator’s role within IoT should be?

Connectivity provider 43% End to end solutions provider 40% Data platform provider 14% Other (please specify) 3%

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

20 Insight ???????Report

Intelligent future: AI in IoT AI is becoming an essential part of IoT deployments, creating opportunities for players across the mobile ecosystem, finds Kate O’Flaherty.

Picture shows: (L-R) Paul Murnaghan, Regional Director for BT’s Enterprise division in Northern Ireland and Joe O’Neill, Chief Executive of Belfast Harbour with 5G remote controlled inspection technology.

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

Insight Report 21

T

he vast number of connections and devices comprising IoT is continuing to surge. At the end of 2018, there were an estimated 22 billion IoT devices in use around the world, according to Statistica. By 2030, it is expected this number will reach around 50 billion.

To unlock IoT’s true value, though, the huge amounts of data produced by these connected devices needs to be analysed and acted upon.

AI, and in particular the most common variety of it currently in use, machine learning, is key to that unlocking: it can increase efficiency and cut costs across myriad IoT applications, from industrial IoT (IIoT) to healthcare and autonomous vehicles.

AI is already deployed in many IoT ecosystems, but it will become ever more widely used, especially as 5G and edge computing start to emerge (see page 24). Dr Richard Benjamins, Chief AI and Data Strategist at Telefónica, explains that some of this value comes from predictive analytics, to which AI can be applied. Examples include predictive maintenance to reduce unscheduled downtime and improve safety.

Benedetto Pietrabella, VP of the Americas Network Equipment Providers Business at Altran, a Capgemini company, agrees. He points out that in the past humans could monitor situations, identify problems and react, but this task is now increasingly being passed to a machine learning algorithm.

Among the benefits of this approach are, he says, that “It can identify issues early and even predict the month when a piece of equipment will fail.”

Martin Garner, an IoT Analyst at CCS Insight, notes, “There’s a lot that can be done without AI, but IoT systems are becoming complex and the volumes of data are growing at a rapid rate. We are moving into an era where we need AI to make the most of the data and to cope with the sheer volume of it.”

AI use cases in IoT The use cases for AI in IoT span many sectors.

Telefónica, for example, says Dr Benjamins, uses AI to perform predictive maintenance for its industrial clients. The company is also using AI to perform predictive maintenance for connected cars, as well as to detect anomalies in consumption in energy IoT.

Dan Jelfs, Mobica

Fernando Llobregat, BICS

Pietrabella Benedetto, Altran

Martin Garner, CCS Insight

Most AI in commercial use is achieved by some form of machine learning, says Dr Benjamins. “Machine learning recognises patterns in massive amounts of data and is able to ‘learn’ that certain patterns in photos correspond to cats, faces or specific cancers.”

John Vickery, Principal Technology Partner for Enterprise at BT, says the operator is using AI in IoT to offer “tangible business benefits” for customers.

BT is working on a 5G IoT deployment in Belfast Harbour (see main picture on page 20), where it is testing use cases, including environment monitoring. “A lot of grain and coal is shipped there and stored before it moves on,” says Vickery. “We need to think about air quality, public safety and people and things, and how to monitor the air quality so it’s safe for the public and employees.

“You can then start to combine different data sources such as CO2 sensors with weather predictions and business intelligence. Rather than taking a snapshot, it’s on a real-time basis. It means you can understand at any time what the air quality is like and also start to predict how that might change in certain areas.”

Water quality Another BT project, in the Forth Valley, uses sensors, satellite data and AI to ascertain water quantity and quality. “We can start to combine data sources to understand the water: is it safe now and will it be in the future?” Vickery says.

He adds that the benefits of AI in IoT include cost efficiency, quality improvements, safety and “insights as a business to help you make strategic decisions”.

In industrial scenarios, AI is allowing manufacturers to introduce computer vision and sensor-based technology to improve quality control, and enable the deployment of advanced operational technology such as collaborative robotics, says Dan Jelfs, SVP of Sales, Mobica.

The technology is also enabling production managers to develop prediction failure models and carry out impact analysis. Jelfs explains, “This allows preventative maintenance, process optimisation and the elimination of unnecessary downtime.”

It’s clear the area is gathering pace. Most vertical industries have started to use AI in some form in IoT, says Jesper Rooth, Director, Solution Architecture, Telecom-

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22 Insight Report

German Bionic presents first robot exoskeleton for Industrial IoT at the Hannover Fair, April 2019

munications, Red Hat. For example, he says, “Many manufacturing companies want to move away from Wi-Fi on the factory floor to either Wi-Fi6 or 5G to connect industrial devices with sensors.

“The telemetry information from these devices is analysed to build patterns and provide proactive resolutions. Many IoT sensors now have 5G or LTE chipsets and use service provider networks to take advantage of low latency. In many cases, AI is being used with analytics in closed loop automation to analyse and correlate information to perform predictive maintenance.”

One major application that takes advantage of AI is the ability to predict failure of service on IoT and embedded devices, says Rooth. For example, some healthcare companies are collecting data from medical equipment in patients’ homes. He says, “They use AI to remotely monitor equipment for conditions such as humidity, tem-

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

perature and battery life. In some cases, AI has helped them to predict if the IoT devices were close to an open window, which could ruin the calibration.”

Meanwhile, BICS’ customers are using AI in IoT for use cases including remote maintenance and exoskeletons, says Fernando Llobregat, Head of Enterprise Sales and Go-toMarket for IoT, BICS. The other aspect of AI in IoT that he notes is being used by carriers such as BICS is the measurement of devices’ connectivity and behaviour on the network. “We extract patterns from the usage, which is valuable data as we have devices communicating with different technologies.

“For example, devices switch from the 3G network to 4G depending on coverage and they also switch from country to country.

So the data we extract and analyse is very useful to see what’s going on. We can detect, for example, when devices are behaving in

a strange way, which could mean they are being attacked.”

Challenges in AI in IoT The potential is huge, but there are also challenges in utilising AI within IoT. Access to data can be a major issue, says Dr Benjamins. “There are important discussions going on about who owns IoT data. For instance, in connected cars, is it the manufacturer, the seller or the owner?” Another vexed issue, he adds, is having the right skills to unleash the value of data generated by IoT as these are in short supply.

At the same time, says BT’s Vickery, there are commercial challenges. Smart city solutions are a good example. He asks, “You have a big ecosystem of public and private sector customers: who pays for it and how do they monetise it?”

For mobile operators to monetise IoT, they need expertise, says Sef Tuma, Global Lead for

Insight Report 23

Industry X Intelligent Products and Platforms at Accenture. “Benefiting from AI in IoT requires deep understanding of the intent of the industry solution and the context that comes from the data.”

Meanwhile, privacy is an important consideration where IoT connects with people’s data in areas such as connected cars, says Dr Benjamins.

Managing security is also a problem. Pietrabella warns, “In metropolitan use cases when you are monitoring for safety, cameras can be stolen or hijacked. The IoT environment by nature is not secure.”

There are obstacles to be overcome, but one thing is certain: in the future, AI will be an essential part of IoT deployments. “Applying IoT without using AI and machine learning might solve a concrete business problem, but this

leaves a significant amount of value untapped,” points out Dr Benjamins.

The two technologies will not exist alone.

Further down the line, privacy-enhancing technologies (PET), 5G, cloud and blockchain will also become a key part of AI in IoT. The roll out of 5G and edge computing will help AI applications reach mainstream adoption, as it will enable inferences to be made much faster, says Jelfs. “The 5G standard, which enables network slicing to allow use cases such as massive machine-type communications, should reduce latency by 50 times and increase bandwidth by four times.”

Meanwhile, he says edge computing will result in compute processing taking place locally. “This will further reduce latency and the potential bottlenecks that can slow cloud computing response times.” In scenarios where

microseconds make a difference, such as managing the pressure in industrial pipes, this can be crucial, says Jelfs.

As the IoT landscape continues to grow and diversify, the need for AI will become even greater. On the connectivity side, 5G could be transformative by adding useful data to provide visibility into what is happening in the network.

“5G will have the capabilities to apply machine learning algorithms to other data, such as signalling information, which will provide a better view into security,” notes Llobregat.

This will be critical in autonomous vehicles, where security is required in the car itself and at the connectivity level, he says. “In the future, it will be important that all the people participating in the connectivity and services – including mobile operators – have visibility into what is going on.”

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

24 Insight ???????Report

IoT and the edge: magic won’t happen automatically Edge and IoT brings together two mega-trends that are still in their early days, with many issues to thrash out and a tendency to fixate on network speed alone, writes Annie Turner.

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

Insight Report 25

O

ur survey (see page 14) illustrated that the biggest inhibitor of IoT is the lack of business models and feasible use cases – and guess what? Research published in November by TM Forum found many operator respondents were unsure if they will pursue an edge strategy or not (see graph below) and most cite a lack of use cases as the reason for their inactivity.

Interesting to note too that almost half the 55% operator respondents were from Europe and North America where edge activity is greatest.

Operator aware To address this issue, in January 2020 América Móvil, KT Corp, Rogers, Telstra, Verizon and Vodafone founded the 5G Future Forum,“to accelerate the delivery of 5G and mobile-edge computing-enabled solutions around the world”.

Jennifer Didoni, Head of Cloud Portfolio at Vodafone Business, is responsible for the operator’s partnerships with AWS and with Microsoft, which are seeking to put their applications or cloud software at the edge of Vodafone’s networks to be closer to where they are used. She says, “Edge is the main area of focus of cloud interoperability at the moment,” and that with the 5G Future Forum, “Our mission is to look at what customers expect and need from MEC [multi-access edge computing] in future, and to ensure that we can provide a global offer for them, that makes low latency computing easy to consume, regardless of where they are in the footprint.

“This was a big part of Vodafone’s promise with IoT – you manufacture a SIM, put it into a device then sell and activate it anywhere in

the world, and provide a consistent experience and pricing model. We’re looking at something similar for MEC anywhere in the world. If you want to consume low latency edge computing, we can make sure it just works.”

“

Edge is the main focus of our cloud interoperability at the moment…our mission is to look at what customers expect and need from MEC in the future

Dedicated edge Will IoT be the primary application? Didoni says, “IoT has a huge role to play” and stresses there are different types of edges for different applications, IoT and otherwise. For instance, she says dedicated MEC is where edge computing is bundled with private mobile networks for sectors like industrial manufacturing, travel and transportation, mining, heavy goods, and oil and gas.

She says, “We’re seeing things like automation and autonomy; optimisation of how a factory works. It’s really powerful because can get one

millisecond of latency between the device and the [edge] computer, but also get the ability to move things at pace across a big factory floor, which is something that you wouldn’t necessarily have been able to do in the past with technologies like Wi-Fi, without the connection dropping, or not being as reliable over a wider space. That’s a real game changer.”

For example, Vodafone Business is working with car maker Ford in UK, building a private 5G solution to test the manufacture of electric engines.

Then there’s the kind of edge out in the big wide world. Didoni’s colleague, Erik Brenneis, CEO Vodafone IoT, points out that it takes about 30 milliseconds (ms) for a message to be transmitted across a 4G network within a country. Hence many real-time applications that have been around for a long, long time – such as the control and monitoring of electrical networks, including the high voltage grid network – are connected by dedicated wires.

“Why? Because mobile networks have never been fast enough to ensure that if you need to switch off a transformer in the network, and you need to do that in milliseconds to avoid instabilities which can lead to blackouts and worse,” he explains. Brenneis adds “To switch these things off, you need a short latency time and a deterministic function. This is another feature of a 5G network: you can reserve a slice for a customer, so nobody else can use that frequency and you can be sure that a message gets to the necessary point within a predefined time period.”

Creating more value at the edge Dheeraj Remella, Chief Product Officer at VoltDB, notes the uncertainty around many

Source: TM Forum, November 2020

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26 Insight Report

edge and IoT business cases. He argues, “Telcos spend a lot of time talking about moving up the value chain beyond connectivity, and this is a great opportunity. Differentiation is based on sets of complementary features, contributed by an ecosystem, that create capabilities rather than individual features, which as stand-alones are not compelling. The owner of the platform that delivers that joint capability holds the keys to the digital kingdom.”

As Remella points out, decisioning at low-millisecond speed is one thing on a private network within an industrial plant, but another ball game when the edge is hugely distributed, such as a wind farm over hundreds or thousands of acres, or for smart agriculture or an electricity grid.

“

Differentiation is based on sets of complementary features, contributed by an ecosystem, that create capabilities rather than individual features

He says that often, to cut down processing times at the edge, companies take what he calls a “hyper-contextualised” approach – automating decisions based on data about a single entity or an isolated set of events. This limits its usefulness, just making existing processes digital (digitising), rather than using advances in technology to do things we’ve never been able to do before (digitalising), which means doing thing differently – changing processes.

His view is that to get the most out of IoT at the edge, enterprises need a system of multiple entities working together as a business process subsystem, pulling data together from multiple sources to product almost instant decisions – and that pulling data together to enable decisioning in under 10ms is what VoltDB’s in-memory pro-

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

cessing platform brings to the party. This is especially important at the distributed edge, where some milliseconds are taken up by transmission.

For instance, a sensor picks up that a lubricant is becoming more viscous in a wind turbine while another cluster of monitors sees that the temperature is rising slightly in a motor and another that the wind is strengthening. It is by combining sets of data, that it becomes clear that thicker lubricant will slow the machine so the sails of the wind turbine need to be instantly disengaged to prevent torque building up – which happens very fast indeed giving the strength of the forces at work – and shearing off the aluminium housing, say.

Another scaly problem The business of changing processes is a vexed one and among other things, hinders scalability, which in turn undermines business models. Ankur Bhan, Head of Nokia IoT Worldwide IoT Network Grid (WING), is insightful on this point. WING is a managed service that enables operators to support enterprise customers with global IoT connectivity across borders and technologies (2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, and NB-IoT and LTE-M), with low power technologies that run in unlicensed technologies to be added in future.

He says, “The question is how do we take a company’s initial interest or PoC [proof of concept] for IoT to mass scale deployment?

We have the technologies and increasingly [they are] becoming available at really commercial price points as well. That is not a major inhibitor. The big challenges that we have collectively as an industry is to get changes in processes.

“IoT makes new data or information available, which means you need to act in different ways to leverage all of those insights. Some of the jobs need to be reorganised, and that is really the hard part – how we help manage enterprises through that process of change.”

Bhan adds, “It might be that some initial deployments of asset optimisation for remote healthcare can be scaled up right across an enterprise’s divisions, but I still see many multinational companies that have launched an initiative in one geography, but cannot scale it up across their businesses,” due to approaches and processes that are not

Don’t dismiss connectivity for moving up the value chain What about operators’ dearest wish that 5G, edge and IoT will help them move up the value chain?

Ankur Bhan, Head of Nokia IoT Worldwide IoT Network Grid (WING) says, “When it comes to IoT connectivity, operators are not talking about selling SIM cards in the High Street…but about embedding connectivity in really mission critical applications, in healthcare, in manufacturing [and others] which underpin, enterprise processes for large organisations.

“Communication service providers (CSPs) have a major role in assuring this connectivity is enterprise grade: that it’s SLA [service level agreement] driven and they fulfil the responsibility of these large enterprises, because they become an infrastructure component of these enterprises’ digitisation initiatives.

Also, providing that connectivity gives CSPs a fundamental, very good platform where we can offer value added solutions, like helping enterprises manage their devices and applications.”

Vertical expertise He continues, “In some cases, they bring in the vertical expertise and do an end-to-end solution to address an enterprise’s problems, not just at the connectivity layer. It’s a step-bystep journey, and many CSPs do not organically have the deep vertical expertise or capabilities beyond connectivity.

“But they are now enabling connectivity of future products for an enterprise: in automotive they are putting connectivity in a car, which the automotive firm sells to consumer. It’s very different from selling a SIM card to the automotive [company’s] employee.

Connectivity gives them a good foundation, and there are many, many opportunities for CSPs to use that as platform to go up the value chain.” standardised and/or not suitable.

He concludes that these “soft” cultural issues need to be given more emphasis at the initial stage, but “that’s still a challenge, and it is both an art and science”.

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28 Insight ???????Report

IoT and infrastructure are complex, lack cohesion and deter customers IoT looks like a straightforward concept, but varied connectivity requirements, limited network coverage, geographic boundaries and competing technologies make for a complex and incoherent proposition, discovers Nick Wood.

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

Insight Report 29

I

n some ways, IoT is a bit of a stitch-up. On the surface, it’s a straightforward proposition that addresses real demand from customers, while for the supplier there is the possibility of massive growth in connections and revenue. However, variances in customers’ connectivity requirements and budgets, competing network technologies, and limited network coverage – exacerbated by geographical boundaries – belie that surface-level simplicity.

What’s more, there is no set pattern to follow in this unchartered territory, no model for untangling this complication and rearranging it into a coherent offering – although some have recognised the problem and are trying.

Fragmentation everywhere “The bottom line is, at the moment everything is very fragmented. You’ve got quite a lot of different approaches and different technologies being rolled out,” says Matt Hatton, Founding Partner of Transforma Insights, a research firm tracking the progress of digital transformation, including IoT. Transforma predicts there will be 24.1 billion active IoT devices by 2030, up from 7.6 billion at the end of 2019. Some 72% of those devices are expected to connect via short-range networking technologies, like Wi-Fi, BlueTooth and Zigbee. Public wide area network (WAN) IoT connections are expected to reach 4.7 billion, meaning about 2 billion devices will be connected to private networks.

When it comes to the low-power, wide-area network (LPWAN) segment, overall connections are expected to hit 4 billion in 2030. 5G massive machine-type communications (mMTC) – the term Transforma uses to describe cellular IoT networking technologies like NB-IoT and LTE-M – is forecast to account for nearly two-thirds of those connections. Technologies that use licence-exempt spectrum, like LoRaWAN and Sigfox, are expected to account for the remaining third.

These forecasts paint a picture of fragmentation and complexity that needs to be carefully managed to avoid stifling adoption. “We’re in a funny kind of situation where we’ve just had effectively four new technologies – NB-IoT, LTE-M, 5G and, to an extent, LoRa, being

dumped on the operators, and they have to do roll-outs and roaming agreements and things like that,” says Hatton. “There’s a little bit of shaking out to do.”

Tailor-made jockeys The shake-out is likely to come later; right now, players are still jockeying for position.

For some that means putting themselves front and centre in the market. “We provide

“

The bottom line is, at the moment everything is very fragmented.

You’ve got quite a lot of different approaches and different technologies being rolled out

our own cellular networks on 2, 3 and 4G, and using our IoT Global SIM we enable our customers to connect to over 400 networks across 180 countries. We also have 5G networks in seven countries in Europe, as well as NB-IoT in 18 countries,” says Phil Skip-

per, Head of Business Development, Vodafone IoT. Vodafone has been recognised as being the leading operator for managed IoT services worldwide by Gartner (see graphic on page 30) for several years.

Clearly Vodafone is firmly in the cellular IoT camp, although it is keen to point out that its customers don’t view IoT through a telco lens. “Typically, customers buy business solutions rather than communications networks. As such, we offer our connectivity as a managed service to allow organisations to focus on their business while we focus on providing them [with] the best connectivity,” Skipper says.

In November, Vodafone UK launched a new range of IoT services in partnership with IoT.nxt, which is majority owned by Vodafone Group’s South African unit, Vodacom.

An end-to-end offering, it comprises devices and sensors, a data management platform and professional services. One of its chief aims is to lower the barriers to IoT adoption.

“Our objective is to make it easy for customers to understand which is the best connectivity for their application and make it simpler to implement, so they can start realising the benefits that come with IoT,” says Skipper. IoT. nxt is one of several IoT solutions specialists to have been acquired by Vodafone over the years. Others include German IoT solutions provider Grandcentrix, South Africa-based Mezzanine and Greece’s Innovus.

“We have also built a strong capability across a number of IoT verticals, such as utilities, automotive, manufacturing, logistics

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30 Insight Report

connectivity is available, reliable and affordable, then the network technology itself is less of a priority. It seems to be the prevailing attitude, particularly on the non-cellular side of the IoT market.

and health, where we can provide the insight required to enable our customers to create and deploy solutions internationally and across widely differing regulatory regimes and operating models,” Skipper explains.

Power of partnerships Vodafone wants to claw its way as far up the value chain as possible by being a verticallyintegrated, one-stop-shop for IoT, but that approach doesn’t suit everyone.

“We believe that it’s the best fit between partners if we provide our strengths and combine them with the industry use case and the know-how of our customers. Doing it this way means each party can focus on what it is best at,” says Julian Dömer, Head of IoT Business Customers at Swisscom.

For Swisscom that means, “Supporting customers with technical expertise, economy of scale on infrastructure and platforms, and resource pooling for professional

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

services,” he says. “Use case or vertical expertise, which is clearly the domain of our customers, is not for us.”

Like Vodafone, Swisscom offers a global IoT SIM – an eSIM in this case – for overcoming those geographical boundaries and drastically simplifying the process of provisioning multinational IoT connectivity for enterprises. However, unlike Vodafone, which is keen to maximise its use of cellular technology, Swisscom has hedged its bets, rolling out a nationwide LoRaWAN network in Switzerland.

“We have the necessary know-how and capabilities to abstract the underlying technology – cellular, LoRaWAN, BlueTooth, Wi-Fi etc. – so that the customer can manage its use cases through one seamless interface,” Dömer explains.

Swisscom believes, again like Vodafone, that customers first and foremost want business solutions that work for them. As long as the

Benefits not tech “The customer does not care about the technology. The customer cares about savings, about potential new revenues, potential new benefits,” claims Remi Lorrain, EMEA Vice Chair at the LoRa Alliance and Global LoRaWAN Networks Director at semiconductor maker Semtech.

“It’s up to the operator or the systems integrator to propose to the customer the best solution. This solution can be a multiradio access network solution, or can be only LoRaWAN or only cellular, depending on the use case,” he says.

“In France, Orange operates LoRaWAN and LTE Cat-M1, and is positioning the two technologies for IoT very differently,” adds Lorrain’s colleague, Olivier Beaujard, Senior Director of the LoRa Alliance and Senior Director, LoRa ecosystem, at Semtech. “It’s use-case dependent, so they will ask the customer about bandwidth needs, latency etc., so they can narrow down the application,” he says.

“End customers don’t really care what the connectivity is, it’s just forming an infrastructure to them,” agrees Lawrence Latham, CEO of wholesale LoRa network operator Everynet.

“At the end of the day, they need their data and then there’s certain price points they’re willing to pay in order to get that.”

Plus size matters In October, Everynet announced a partnership with Spain-headquartered towerco Cellnex, which is expanding at an astounding rate. The two companies have agreed to jointly deploy wholesale LoRa networks in Ireland, Italy and the UK. It takes an altogether different approach to the market than the likes of Vodafone and Swisscom.

“We build national networks that are neutral host, which means we go out and build the coverage, and then our business model is wholesale. We don’t sell to enterprises; we don’t want to build enterprise sales teams.

Our partners are MNOs [mobile network operators], MVNOs [mobile virtual network operators] and global managed service provid-

Insight Report 31

will help Everynet on its mission to be, by 2025, “one of the largest IoT connectivity companies in the world by number of connections – outside of China.

“If we do keep executing day by day on our current plan, on our current trajectory, with our current technologies, that is where we’ll be,” he predicts.

A different kind of network Of course, as we all know, LoRa is great for low-power, wide-area coverage, but not so suited to high-bandwidth, mission-critical connectivity. So even if Everynet meets its objective, there will still be IoT applications that require a different type of network.

“If what you want is something that’s best effort and not too critical in terms of your systems, and it doesn’t matter if it reports now or in an hour, then you’ll be fine with LoRa,” says Transforma’s Hatton. “A connected rat trap, for example. Do you need up-to-the-minute alerts that your rat-trap has caught a rat? Probably not. But if you wanted to do something around smart grid – that end of the spectrum – you wouldn’t want to do it with LoRa,” he says.

“We know the reality and no one technology, whatever it is, will serve all the use cases.

Even cellular won’t serve all the use cases,” Beaujard adds. “When you really talk low power and long range it’s LoRaWAN. When you want high throughput and low latency, it’s really a no-fly zone for us.”

Source: Cellnex: https://www.cellnextelecom.com/en/cellnex-to-add-c-30000-telecommunication-european-sites-from-ckhutchison-to-its-portfolio/

ers,” Latham says.

“The wholesale model is amazing, because it allows multiple operators or private companies, or cities or any stakeholder, to use the same mutualised network,” says the LoRa Alliance’s Lorrain. “It’s a kind of Uber-like network, where many people can use the same one. I think that’s the future, or one of the futures, of deployments.”

Boosted European footprint Everynet already has a presence in Italy, but nevertheless the Cellnex deal will significantly boost its European footprint, which currently also includes Spain, Andorra, Bulgaria and

Iceland (see map above).

It will also benefit the European LoRa networking ecosystem as a whole. Orange and Bouygues in France, KPN and Tele2 in the Netherlands, Proximus in Belgium and Luxembourg, Telent and now Melita in Germany, and of course Swisscom in Switzerland – these are just some of the big names backing LoRa in Western Europe.

Working together, Everynet and its counterparts in Europe aim to offer seamless multinational LoRa coverage, unlocking the opportunities that come with it. “The Cellnex partnership helps to fill in the transnational LoRaWAN coverage gaps,” Latham says, which

Long-term success It seems, then, that the players that stand the best chance of long-term success are those that can weave the threads of coverage, networking technologies and tailored end-to-end solutions into a seamless blanket of intelligent connectivity, one that is all but invisible to the end user.

“I would put our success down to a very clear focus on customer requirements, the ability to keep up with market demand, and to continued innovation to enable our customers to create new services, offerings and solutions across many markets and multiple verticals,” says Vodafone’s Skipper.

“Increasingly we spend a lot of time supporting customers on their digitalisation journey,” he continues. “That’s because the conversation has moved from IoT as an isolated technology to IoT as way to move towards a connected business model.”

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

32 Insight ???????Report

Connected cars: Where’s the autonomous model they promised?

Like many tracked journeys, the progress of the connected autonomous vehicle is inconsistent and taking longer than expected, writes Nick Booth.

5G Milbrook, UK Credit: Stuart Berman

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

Insight Report 33

T

he products aren’t the ones we expected, the delivery time keeps changing and the destination isn’t certain. We were promised a dazzling electric future, but instead we are confronted by dark holes in the infrastructure.

For Europe’s communications service providers, the top three variables to concentrate on are industry standards, competing products and delivery. Network operators can be agnostic about the first two – they can work with any make of connected autonomous vehicle (CAV) and whatever acronyms run under the car bonnet or hood – but the third issue is crucial: who will be in control of the car? Will network operators be in the driving seat, so to speak?

Micromanaging connected and autonomous vehicles, which in effect are data centres on wheels, will be tough for network operators as operators are known for their intransigent and monumental silos of data, according to Danny Shapiro, Director of Automotive at chip maker NVIDIA. His company is re-engineering its processors for industrial IoT (IIoT) and connected vehicles, and the four terabytes of data traffic that will bounce between the CAV and its environment are driving many new chip designs.

While operators are confident about handling the network, the re-engineering of data processing will be tricky, says Shapiro.

Historically, telcos managed their data silos in the same way unstable, three-wheeler cars like Robin Reliants handled corners – badly.

If speed and low latency are essential, will the data processing tip over?

Question of perception Vendors claim the CAV’s eyes and ears (Lidar, Radar and Sonar systems) have reached the point where they can spot a pedestrian at 200 metres. However, in November Britain’s independent testing agency, the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), issued a report questioning the perception of CAVs. “The testing of sensors and fused systems is not standardised,” warned Andre Burgess, NPL’s Head of Digital Sector Strategic Partnerships, adding, “Sensor suppliers can’t characterise the limitations of their products well enough to give accurate representation to vehicle manufacturers.”

There is better news on comms standards.

The GSMA is confident that all the data from

Andre Burgess, National Physical Laboratory (UK)

Danny Shapiro, NVIDIA

Mikaël Schachne, BICS

Paul Carter, Global Wireless Solutions

Peter Phaal, InMon

Professor Jean-Philippe Vergne, University College London

these vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) conversations can be processed simultaneously with all the other types of exchange, from vehicle to infrastructure (V2I), to networks (V2N) to people, pushbikes and pavements (V2P).

They are all are lumped together as cellular vehicle-to-everything or C-V2X, which promises universal understanding between devices and no boundaries between the vehicle and its environment. The GSMA also assures car makers that LTE (long term evolution) is a metaphorical jam-free conduit between two generations of mobile telecoms (3G and 4G).

Scott Raynovich, Futorium

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

34 Insight Report

might wobble and weave, bursting with mismanaged passengers before the doors fall off. Expect some circus acts from 5G, was Raynovich’s own verdict.

CSPs should buy in some AI and hire data scientists, advised Peter Phaal, President of network traffic monitor, InMon: ‘If there was something wrong with our car, we made do with duct tape. AI is going to be the duct tape we use to patch up 5G.” Operators must optimise their network for M2M connectivity, and have the right licenses and connectivity agreements in place, says Mikaël Schachne, VP for Mobility and IoT Business at BICS. The CSPs should expect tough 5G investment conversations. “There will be a crowd of operators, manufacturers and verticals from logistics to insurance shouting show me the money,” predicts Schachne.

Source: https://www.oponeo.co.uk/blog/what-europeans-actually-think-of-autonomous-cars

First-mover advantage Meanwhile today’s service providers are travelling on the de facto standard roads. For Mark Thomas, VP at connected car service provider Ridecell in the US, the technology that works first tends to become the standard.

“The conversations are so varied that you end up looking to the leaders in those arenas to set the agenda. For 4G and 5G connectivity, the telematics vendors are in the driver’s seat,” he says.

The US Department of Transportation One proposes 802.11p as an alternative for handling dedicated short-range comms (DSRC), but the GSMA insists C-2VX has a global ecosystem of 130 mobile operators, networking kit manufacturers, car makers and various types of service supplier behind it.

The GSMA also insists that only C-2VX will be reliable and ‘real-time’ enough to keep pace with speeding cars and packets of infor-

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

mation in dense traffic conditions. When 5G networks are built out, the C-V2X standard will have evolved from 4G LTE networks to 5G NR (new radio) V2X. This is the only way to harness 5G while maintaining backward compatibility, it argues.

Not so smooth However, those experienced in systems integration don’t think it will be that smooth. In November NVIDIA staged an Everything is Changing in the Network seminar online. Host analyst Scott Raynovich of Futorium asked computing vendors, software developers and service providers about CAVs running on 5G. It would be a step in the right direction but, because virtualisation will be such a huge change, we should expect “a few [metaphorical] car crashes” was the verdict from David Iles, Head of Ethernet Switch Technology at NVIDIA. If the CAV 5G IoT were a car, early models

Not so hard for hardware Meanwhile, the hardware is on course. On test tracks in California, CAV maker Pony.ai has gone in value from nought to $5.3 billion in front of an admiring audience of venture capitalists willing to invest. Pony is competing with AutoX, Waymo and Zoox to reach Level 4 Autonomy (see graphic), a state of intelligence that allows a robot-taxi to move people around uncongested areas like colleges, industrial campuses and tiny towns. Robo-taxi operations have already been licensed by California’s Public Utilities Commission.

In the UK, O2 is testing driverless cars at the Darwin SatCom Lab in Oxfordshire. One proof of concept tracks the CO2 emissions of vehicles using Lidar sensors, with satellite used to track the distribution of vehicles and their effects on local biodiversity.

Meanwhile, the 5G Urban Connected Communities scheme aims to establish testbeds across the West Midlands. O2 activated its 5G network for autonomous vehicle projects at the Millbrook Proving Ground in 2019 and Jaguar Land Rover has told Ireland to expect a connected car testing hub in 2021 as part of a smart city initiative.

Some 5G-ready tests are taking place under real-life conditions at Vodafone’s 5G Mobility Lab in Aldenhoven, Germany. Vodafone is working with Continental to create a digital safety-shield for cyclists and pedestrians, using C-V2X direct communication and edge computing over 5G. In Europe Bosch, Huawei and Vodafone

Insight Report 35

Deutschland passed their C-V2X driving test on the A9 main road in Bavaria, Germany.

Deutsche Telekom is working on this too, with Skoda Auto in the Czech Republic.

Support structure sticking points Building the support infrastructure, meanwhile, involves more than networking and electricity charging points – though these are substantial enough challenges.

Every vehicle component, from the tyre gauges to the big end and the battery, will be in constant conversation with a management system, reporting on how each is faring.

Bosch is helping to shape how maintenance is offered much more pro-actively, applying the principles that Formula One racing has taught the car industry about IIoT for vehicle maintenance.

“

What happens in the event of a network failure?

How will network or technology redundancy be handled to ensure continuous availability of coverage in case of an intermittent 5G signal?

There are other CAV conversations taking place on a completely separate level and different channels, but their delivery is almost as critical, according to Oliver Döring, Porsche’s Financial Strategist and Risk Manager. Porsche is the first car maker to use blockchain as a foundation to build a new prototype network. If successful, it would make Porsche and partner Quantoz, a Dutch blockchain specialist, the model for service providers to copy.

The Porsche/Quantoz model fine-tunes all

the human transactions, such as locking and releasing the vehicle, self-driving and taking care of finances, such as paying for parking and road or bridge tolls, energy bills for electric car charging.

Blockchain’s growing importance to car makers exemplifies how the movement of data needs to be re-engineered, so there are more local journeys made by information. This means using technologies such as edge computing and blockchain so that decision-making is distributed and devolved.

Distributed versus centalised The mistake that CSPs might make is that too many people confuse distributed comms and decentralised decision-making, says UCL Associate Professor Jean-Philippe Vergne. His study for University College London, Decentralized vs. Distributed Organization: Blockchain, Machine Learning, and the Future of the Digital Platform, examines the misconceptions about centralised digital systems, the very type traditionally favoured by telcos.

Porsche says blockchain not only gives car users control of their data back, it can localise much of the data processing and decision-making. At the risk of over-simplifying this complex issue, the beauty of

blockchain is that it minimises the volumes of information that need to be shifted by the CSPs, making the volume of data traffic less of an issue.

The re-engineering of data processing, network traffic loads and edge computing will be the foundation on which completely autonomous driving will be built, says By Dr Paul Carter, CEO of mobile network benchmarking firm Global Wireless Solutions.

Most promising option The most promising option will be 5G, but there are many issues that need to be settled before the insurance industry will underwrite any automated drivers, says Carter. More wireless network standards and public infrastructure development is needed. Evidence of operators having a plan B is a key concern, says Carter. “What happens in the event of a network failure? How will network or technology redundancy be handled to ensure continuous availability of coverage in case of an intermittent 5G signal?” he asks.

Without complete coverage and alternatives in the event of failures, CAVs will have to wait for offers of comprehensive insurance, which puts the brakes on for fully autonomous vehicles for the foreseeable future.

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

36 Full Spectrum

The Wireless World Our quarterly round-up of news and innovation from around the globe.

Canada Telus Nokia is deploying 4G and 5G solutions for Telus to deliver greater network scale, performance and efficiency, helping to strengthen and expand its high-speed mobile services. Telus is implementing various Nokia solutions: next-generation passive optical network (XGS-PON) fibre, subscriber data management, policy controller, NetAct network management, LTE picocells and IP edge routers.

In June Telus said Ericsson and Nokia were the suppliers of its commercial 5G network, covering 26 cities and 20% of the Canadian population. In the second week of November, Telus expanded 5G to Winnipeg and Brandon in Manitoba province, and some 50 more cities are to be added by the end of the year.

Brazil EB Capital The Brazilian private equity fund EB Capital is raising BRL2 billion (€313.91 million) to fund its ambition to consolidate a number of regional fibre players under the EB Fibra brand. Apparently, the fund already has nine acquisitions in its sights, which are in the final stages of due diligence. Some should close by the end of the year. The investment firm expects to end 2020 with around 800,000 customers and to expand this to 2 million by 2025 through organic growth and acquisitions.

Jamaica Rivada Networks The Jamaican government is considering a proposal from US firm Rivada Networks to deploy a 5G network free of charge, in exchange for a share of the revenues. It seems the proposal was made some time ago, but the authorities cannot decide. Rivada’s website says it has provided “tactical communications solutions to the federal government since before our involvement with Hurricane Katrina in 2005”. TeleGeography notes that the firm was disqualified from Mexico’s Red Compartida open access 4G network tender in 2016 for failing to meet the necessary financial obligations to compete.

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

Botswana Liquid Telecom African group Liquid Telecom is activating a new 82km cross-border link between South Africa and Botswana to improve connectivity between Botswana and Liquid’s 73,000km pan-African fibre network. In late November, Liquid Telecom announced plans to take full control of its unit in Botswana, buying the 42.5% of shares currently held by Botswana Power Corporation (BPC).

Full Spectrum 37

Japan United Arab Emirates Etisalat Etisalat has awarded Ericsson a contract to deploy 5G radio and core network equipment to support use cases like enhanced mobile broadband, fixed-wireless access, industrial applications and IoT. 5G will be available to consumers for applications from gaming and entertainment services to smart home and home business applications.

NTT Corporation In what the Nikkei Index says will be the operator’s biggest bond issuance, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT Corp) is to issue corporate bonds worth over JPY500 billion (€6.21 billion) to help fund its planned takeover of mobile arm NTT DOCOMO, despite opposition from other operators. It will be used to help it obtain loans: NTT Corp needs funds for its JPY4.25 trillion offer for DOCOMO. Japan’s mobile market is expecting major disruption when the world’s first cloud-native operator, Rakuten Mobile, fulfils its promise of offering customers superior service at lower prices, plus the advantages of being part of the Rakuten e-commerce ecosystem.

Uganda Huawei Uganda’s President Museveni has inaugurated the country’s fourth national fibre deployment project, which covers the West Nile and Karamoja regions. It was begun in May 2019 and was completed in March. Huawei installed 1,590km of fibre and implementation was under the supervision of the Uganda National Information Technology Authority (NITA-U) with funding from the World Bank. Under the first three phases of its backbone roll-out, NITA-U previously connected 39 districts, providing access to government offices and public buildings like schools and hospitals.

Australia Australian Communications and Media Authority Fixed broadband companies will have to publish their customer service commitments and details of their performance under new industry rules proposed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). Currently, telcos don’t publish customer service commitments nor the remedies they provide – such as refunds or interim solutions –if commitments are not met. This follows the introduction of new rules whereby retail service providers must ensure their customers benefit from the new rebate scheme – in monetary form or in kind – if they are compensated by the national wholesale NBN Co. for poor service, missed appointments and so on.

Q4 2020 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

38 Final Say

Pandemic offers opportunity for fast-moving operators Clients regularly ask Kester Mann, Director, Consumer and Connectivity, at CCS Insight, “How can operators build on their stellar efforts during the Covid-19 crisis?” Here are some of his suggestions. surveyed more than 2,000 people across the UK and US about how they view their telecoms provider and whether the pandemic may influence future buying decisions.

Telecom companies sometimes get a bad press, so it was heartening that nearly nine out of ten mobile customers said they were either “very satisfied” or “fairly satisfied” with their service provider. Of course, this satisfaction was achieved despite soaring and often unpredictable recent demand.

T

he telecom sector has enjoyed a welcome boost to its reputation this year as the health crisis has clearly shown the value that businesses and consumers place on high-quality connectivity. In many of my recent conversations with network operators, I’ve heard about improving loyalty and higher customer satisfaction. Operators’ brands may never be the most loved, but it seems they’re at least getting a little more appreciation.

Five months into lockdown, CCS Insight

Issue Q4 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

Usage into revenue The challenge for the telecom industry has long been how to turn usage into revenue.

I believe there are clear opportunities for providers that are prepared to move quickly or think a little differently. During lockdown, some operators temporarily upgraded people’s tariffs, for example offering free content or faster download speeds. Can they now use this goodwill to encourage people to sign up to these services permanently?

About one out of seven respondents said they would be happy to spend more on their home broadband package in return for a better service. This sounds like welcome news for premium providers, which could seek to lure customers from rival networks with an emphasis on network quality. Another 13% of respondents expect to upgrade their mobile tariff in the coming year.

Work from home Dedicated work-from-home packages are also worth talking about. Deutsche Telekom has recently launched a concept called Magenta Business Home Office, which bundles hardware, connectivity, collaboration tools, security and consulting, and support. I expect

to see a flurry of similar offers land over the coming weeks.

Also, according to the CCS Insight’s research, nearly one in three people plan to buy a new mobile phone within the next 12 months and about one in five expects to invest in a new laptop or home computer. More than 10% reckon they’ll spend more on online subscription services.

Clearly, there are opportunities to go after, but let’s not be lulled into thinking that tough economic conditions won’t become a significant drag on people’s budgets for technology and connectivity. Yes, some people will emerge from the pandemic better off, and more able and prepared to spend more, but countless others won’t have that luxury. It’s one of the reasons CCS Insight expects total mobile phone sales in the UK to have plunged 15% during 2020, to its lowest volume for a decade.

Numbed interest Despite continued roll-out of 5G networks, the pandemic appears to have numbed some interest in the technology among consumers. More people in our survey this year said they “don’t need 5G” compared to 12 months ago. This is likely due to Covid-19 restrictions making the reasons for taking 5G less apparent, but it also serves as a warning to the industry that it must do more to help people understand how the technology can help them.

In some ways, Covid-19 resets the competitive landscape and I believe it opens both new opportunities and challenges in the consumer market. Operators surprised with their impressive levels of agility during the pandemic; those that continue to act quickly and think differently will probably be the most successful.