The world around us seems to be in a constant state of flux, and technology is right at the heart of it...
The Era of Everything, Everywhere Connectivity
The world around us seems to be in a constant state of flux, and technology is right at the heart of it. If we take the example of mobile technology - itself only a concept that has been around in any meaningful sense for two or three decades - we have moved from making telephone calls to sending text messages to data and apps and mobile internet, all in the space of a quarter of a century.
And now things are changing all over again. Following the rapid development of mobile data and internet capabilities with third - and fourth - generation mobile technology, we now stand on the cusp of 5G. Massive increases in speed and capacity, coupled with lower latency, better efficiency and platform consolidation, promise to revolutionise what we can do over mobile networks. The era of everything, everywhere connectivity is close at hand.
Speaking of which, one of the great leaps forward in mobile market evolution, already begun but likely to be carried forward significantly by 5G, is the Internet of Things (IoT). IoT pushes the purpose of connectivity in exciting new directions, it switches the focus from communications to data processing, and perhaps most importantly for mobile operators, it opens the door to vast B2B markets.
IoT will demand radical service diversification and innovation from MVNOs, something already happening in both consumer and enterprise markets. Out of all so-called value-added or adjacent services, Fintech currently stands as the biggest opportunity ready made for mobile players to embrace. Service innovation in both consumer and IoT markets will include the drive towards simpler, more seamless device connectivity and provisioning, wherever you happen to be, delivered by technologies such as e-SIM. And behind the scenes, the diversification of services will result in much bigger, more complex ecosystems, with Blockchain expected to play a key role in helping the industry manage greater sophistication and further improve operational efficiency.
These technologies - 5G, IoT, Fintech, e-SIM and Blockchain - can be described as the ‘Fab Five’ promising to transform the face of the mobile industry in a myriad of interconnected ways. In this paper, a companion piece to our MVNOs Asia 2019 Market Report, we will take a close look at how these emerging technologies are impacting on virtual operators across the world’s biggest regional mobile market, and what the prospects are for the future.
