Let’s get digital. Digital transformation continues to revitalise the way we live and interact. As 5G and IoT continue to heat up globally, Communication Service Providers (CSPs) will need to begin focusing on new revenue streams to remain relevant and competitive in the market.
So how can CSPs expect to build new revenue models in a world operated by 5G? Through multi-play bundling of connected smart services, marketing to smart cities, and with big data management and analysation.
How do CSPs monetise connected cars?
The future is connected. 4G enabled faster browsing, allowing us to stream video content and brought car services like Uber to life. But now, with 5G there is faster service, greater capacity allowance, and a reduction in latency (time between instructing a wireless device to perform an action and that action being completed). This means 5G will deliver a responsive service – it will open the potential for a plethora of innovative connected services.
From Siri and Alexa built right into your vehicle, to enhanced safety, autonomous driving, and converged communications – connected vehicles are hitting the road. With connected vehicles projected to reach over 800 million units on road by 20351, CSPs are faced with a vast opportunity for growth.
With connected cars, end-users can start their car from inside, map out routes by voice command, and even control the temperature of both their vehicle and home while in the other. Voice control will allow users to play music, select a playlist, make phone calls, and more. By evolving existing LTE and 4G investments, CSPs can offer differentiated service levels with flexible per-connection, pay-as-you-go, and subscription models – further monetising 5G services.
Already we have seen CSPs bundle streaming services like Netflix and Spotify, home security monitoring, and even Alexa into vehicles, as recently released from Buick2. The future of bundling will be on connected cars and services with new value-adds for both consumers and businesses alike.
What services can CSPs offer smart cities?
In the future, where everything and anything can be connected in a web of intelligent networks and machines; your vehicle, your health monitor, everything in your home, all the way through to smart meters to help save energy and resources that help foster a sustainable future, smart services will emerge.
In fact, trends show the global population will continue to increasingly relocate to cities. With a projected 68% total of the global population living in cities by 2050, a rise of 55% today,3 municipalities will need to ensure the city can manage. Such growth will place additional demands on urban infrastructures while necessitating that city governments deliver services at an ever-greater scale. To achieve this cost-effectively and at the required scale, cities will need to leverage technology to streamline operations and use data purposefully to deliver a better quality of life to residents.
With 5G enabled, CSPs can find value in smart cities by providing the networks necessary to run the smart services on and host the connected IoT devices. By providing the network and large data required to bring a smart city to life, CSPs will realise the potential for an integrated network, security parameters, and data management.
Within smart cities all types of data are being monitored and optimising quality of life. Water consumption and waste trends, energy usage and predictions, road and sewer maintenance, emergency response time, and traffic conditions are only a few of the pieces that make a smart city “smart”. Again, looking to large amounts of real-time data being processed through a network.
Services like home security, healthcare with at-home monitoring, and smart stadiums and venues will continue to emerge to improve sustainability, predict maintenance needs to lower repair time, and improve quality of life and safety. With all these real-time services will come real-time data management. CSPs can begin to bundle services, IoT devices, and large network and data packages providing both businesses and consumers with the tools needed to reap the benefits of a connected, “smart” life.
Capitalising on big data management and analysation
The amount of data being processed through smart services and connected IoT devices brought to life from 5G capabilities will alone bring CSPs revenue. Still, with the mass data processed and managed from IoT devices, the AI and machine learning opportunities are ample. This data can be moved to a cloud-based server and analysed for patterns and performance that will continue to advance technologies – all of which provide streams of revenue from 5G investments.
Not only will CSPs realise monetary value in the data consumption increase, but also, they can transfer the data of their customers as knowledge to further innovate services and create a new and improved way of interacting with their customers.
According to data, by 2025 IoT revenue will reach $900 billion globally4 and by 2035 5G will enable $13.2 trillion of global economic output5. Leaving rooms for CSPs to step in and begin monetising 5G services and needs through connected vehicles, smart cities, and managing big data. To accomplish these complex services and offerings, CSPs will require a robust solution that enables innovation, ensures agile product descriptions, is meta-data driven catalog order management, and people with experience in the market.
Learn more on how CSPs can monetise 5G by catching the panel discussion, ‘Can CSPs still compete in the enterprise 5G market?’ at Digital Transformation World (DTW) 2022 in Copenhagen, Denmark, Tuesday, September 20 11:30 am – 1:00 pm local time.