With Covid-19 still causing
lockdowns in Asia-Pacific, consumers staying home have triggered a demand for
further growth of network traffic originating from indoors. Traffic already reached
over 80% of capacity before Covid-19, and now with an estimated 60% of
customers dissatisfied with indoor coverage, the growth of indoor concepts to
meet increasing demands and corresponding indoor traffic will set off an
innovation race for next-generation indoor solutions, including digital indoor
systems (DIS).
Indeed, Covid-19 has accelerated the need to prepare homes and offices for new ways of working remotely. According to a Frost & Sullivan analysis, innovative indoor solutions will be the key enabler of future revenue stream for businesses and telecom operators.
Quah Mei Lee, Frost & Sullivan’s Associate
Director for Mobile & Wireless Research (Asia-Pacific), said: "In the past year, 5G was
included within several government policies and public-sector projects in APAC.
"This
has been in countries where there is high demand for 5G, such as South Korea
and China, and where countries are still building the groundwork for 5G. In
South Korea, the government has been actively removing potential barriers to 5G
commercialisation.
“Meanwhile,
in China, a government mandate to share spectrum for indoor coverage is leading
to co-development of indoor solutions that will lower costs and improve
efficiencies.”
Quah noted: “The
Myanmar government is also creating a favourable environment for innovation and
investment when 5G arrives."
To remove transformation hurdles, Frost
& Sullivan suggests public/private
entities to co-create solutions that are scalable business models. To scale,
solutions must be able to be used across verticals. These solutions can
leverage emerging technologies such as edge and artificial intelligence and
partner with system integrators (SI) or cloud providers.
Scalability
and flexibility across verticals are indeed promising developments for DIS. In South
Korea, KT has diversified its business models for indoors by enabling high
value-add services, for example, smart office/building applications with
security and asset management systems.
And in Switzerland, telco Sunrise
has employed the “Anything as a Service”, or XaaS, concept to network
infrastructure, calling it the “5G Indoor Coverage as a Service” business
model.
“XaaS concepts are not new
in Asia-Pacific and with private 5G networks on the horizon, beginning with
Japan, Network as a Service could bring an interesting new spin to the region,”
said Quah, adding that with the right elements
coming together, the incentive is high enough for companies to consider investing
in DIS.