Digital

Gaming & VR: Telcos Next Big Bet!

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Gaming and Virtual Reality (VR) have the potential to become the next big platforms after PC, web, and mobile.

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Telecom players are increasingly looking to the gaming sector for new revenue opportunities, but disruptive and ground-breaking applications enabled by augmented reality (AR) and 5G’s combination of high data throughput and low latency and are yet to be developed, according to industry analysts.

With the heat now on for telcos to identify ways to get a return on their 5G investments and develop new opportunities using the capabilities the latest mobile broadband generation has to offer, there has been plenty of activity in this area in recent months. Last week, US operator Verizon unveiled work on an AR adventure thriller that uses volumetric video (modern 3D holograms) to provide “an unbelievable immersive experience.” The production, called Helios, is being developed in partnership with immersive studio Novelab and 30 Ninjas, a digital entertainment company co-founded by film director and producer Doug Liman.

Supported by Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband 5G service, the immersive experience will allow users of 5G-capable Android and iOS smartphones to follow the plotline of a missing character and uncover the mystery by navigating the story and piecing clues together.

In addition to Verizon, Deutsche Telekom, EE, Globe Telecom, Orange, SK Telecom, SoftBank Corp. and TELUS have joined Niantic’s Planet-Scale AR Alliance, which has a mission to create “amazing real-world AR experiences that demonstrate the possibilities of 5G,” including ultra-reliable low latency, enhanced mobile broadband, network slicing and edge computing.

We’ve already seen some interesting attempts this year, as Japanese operator KDDI touted a successful use of network slicing and 5G standalone (SA) for 8K PlayStation game streaming. The demonstration was announced in February and is part of an initiative with Sony to create new business use cases and entertainment services based on 5G SA.

At the start of the year, US operator AT&T joined forces with NVIDIA to offer 5G GeForce NOW subscriptions, which it claimed offers “one of the world’s best gaming experiences.”

Another example in the gaming and immersive content field involves South Korean telco SK Telecom, which claimed it turned the country into the first Asian market to offer Microsoft Xbox’s cloud gaming service in 2020: A year later it created an AR app based on 5G edge cloud designed to offer immersive experiences for tourists.

Analysts feel that the introduction of new features and services, such as gaming on the move, some AR apps and 8K videos, which require greater bandwidth and higher speeds, will help to highlight the merits of 5G.    

Content will also have a huge role, as it is paramount in driving uptake and usage of next-generation networks. Therefore, expect all providers shouting as loud as possible about how good their fibre and 5G networks are, as rollout ramps up significantly.

After all, the big challenge for telecoms operators remains: How to find the right partnerships, content and marketing strategies to convince their existing and new customers that upgrading to the fastest network out there is, in fact, more needed than ever. (Telecom TV Report)

Social Media Companies’ Growing Obsession Towards NFTs!

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Social media networks are jumping on the NFT (non-fungible tokens) bandwagon. It all started when the ‘Twitter Blue’ account users were offered to put NFTs as profile pictures. Later, Meta has rolled out 3D Avatars for Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram and allowed users in the US, Canada, and Mexico to beam their virtual selves across apps via stickers, profile pictures, and feed posts. Meanwhile, YouTube has been distributing personalised NFTs to the influencers on the platform. Additionally, Reddit has launched a first test for changing profile pictures with an NFT.

NFT market

According to Emergen Research, the global Non-Fungible Token (NFT) market size reached USD 340 million in 2020 and is expected to cross USD 3,50,000 million in 2030. Pak’s NFT artwork fetched a whopping USD 91.8 million: The Merge was sold in 266,445 units known as ‘mass’. Earlier, digital artist Mike Winklemann, also known as Beeple, sold his artwork, ‘Everydays – The First 5000 Days’, for USD 69.3 million.

NFTs are currently not created, bought or sold on social media platforms. But, the inherently social nature of the artworks aligns with the social media networks’ DNA. Though social media platforms passively shape the future of NFTs, they want more skin in the game. Experts think tech giants believe NFTs will assume the trajectory of cryptocurrency– a slow start, followed by an explosion.

More details in this report

Getting 5G Ready…

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TRAI picks Delhi airport, Bengaluru metro and Kandla port for 5G pilots

The telecom regulator (TRAI) has identified Delhi airport, ‘smart’ city Bhopal, the Bengaluru metro, and Deendayal port (Kandla) in Gujarat for conducting pilot projects using street furniture and aerial cable for the deployment of small cells, Business Standard reported.

These pilot projects are crucial to understand the regulatory and policy interventions which will be required, especially with the launch of 5G services, when more small cells will become the backbone to support a larger traffic volume per unit area.

While macro towers will be deployed as they were for 4G, huge proliferation of small cells, which have a coverage area as low as 10 metres to a few kilometres, is expected to ensure high data speeds and low latency, especially with the use of high band spectrum. The Cellular Operators Association of India has been pushing to include small cells in the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (Trai’s) framework for right of way.

For Full report of Business Standard, click here

COVID-19 pushes India on digital adoption: Morgan Stanley

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The COVID-19 pandemic will accelerate digital adoption in India as increasing number of people shop online and small businesses digitise, Morgan Stanley said crediting Reliance Jio’s 4G telecom services for spurring the digital economy by propelling internet usage in the country.

In a 53-page report on ‘India’s Digital Economy in a Post-COVID-19 World’, Morgan Stanley said 2020 will likely see increasing online penetration in grocery and will put a few Super Apps into motion.

India’s total online shopper base at 30 per cent of its internet population is low when compared with 78 per cent in China and 70-plus per cent in the US.

Morgan Stanley projected India’s 670 million internet users to rise to 914 million by 2027 and online shoppers to jump to 590 million from 190 million in 2020. The average spend per online shoppers is also projected to nearly double to USD 318.

While in the past few years digital adoption in India has been evolving with increasing 4G adoption and rising internet penetration, the overall transactional base was still small.

“The launch of Reliance Jio’s 4G telecom services in September 2016 helped spur the digital economy in India as it propelled internet usage in the country, with fast, reliable, and cheap 4G services leading to significant growth in data usage (especially on music and video content),” it said.

Morgan Stanley said COVID-19 has relieved some apprehension relating to digital transactions. “We believe COVID-19 could accelerate the shift to online transactions (such as e-commerce and payments) and provide a tailwind to growth in India’s digital economy.”


Stating that a larger increase in its online shopping base is needed to drive growth in its digital economy, it said COVID-19 has the potential to do just that.

The power of online has been seen in the past few months as start-ups helped consumers shop, pay for bills, converse, entertain, and collaborate without much physical contact.


“We believe that this digital adoption has the power to pull growth forward by a few years in India’s internet industry,” it said.


The analyst said in a post-COVID-19 world, “India’s online shopping population could see a sharp increase, online penetration in grocery could finally inflect as e-commerce and new entrants make a bigger push in this category, digitization of small and medium business (SMB) enterprises could take centre-stage (and) investments in segments such as gaming, edtech, healthtech, and cloud could increase.”

Also, the country could see the emergence of a few large tech companies (Super Apps or category leaders) in the next 5-10 years.


“These developments are notably important for some of the global tech companies that are invested in India,” it said.

Stating that India could see the emergence of some large tech companies in the next 5-10 years, Morgan Stanley said Amazon and Flipkart, amongst the e-commerce companies, and Paytm and PhonePe, amongst the digital payment companies, have been trying to build several offerings on their platforms.

However, their penetration in their core categories (retail/payments) is still small and hence, the ability to make huge investments in other segments/categories is limited by both capital and management/execution bandwidth, it said.


“Another company that is talking about creating a digital ecosystem is Reliance Industries/Reliance Jio. With 388 million 4G users on its platform, it has touched more than 50 per cent of the total internet base in India,” it said adding the company has talked about plans of foraying into the digital economy with Jiomart (its new commerce offering), payments, health tech, edtech, cloud services, agri tech, etc.

Morgan Stanley said the war is heating up on grocery, with potential digitization of small business, an initiative similar to Alibaba’s LST in China.

“Online grocery is characterized by its large potential market size (USD 400 billion), low penetration (0.2 per cent), customer stickiness, and high repeat rate, and hence ticks most boxes for large companies to have a significant presence in the segment, more importantly, if one were to think about emerging as a Super App,” it said.

Reliance Retail and WhatsApp have entered into a commercial agreement to accelerate Reliance Retail’s new commerce business on the Jiomart platform using WhatsApp. Jiomart is a platform that helps RIL support small merchants and Kirana stores in serving end-consumers.


Reliance aims to focus on 60 million micro, small and medium-sized businesses along with the 30 million small merchants and millions of SMEs with the digital platform, it added.

Amazon India has also announced a USD 1 billion investment over the next five years to digitize 10 million SMBs, enabling USD 10 billion in cumulative exports by Indian businesses selling on Amazon worldwide by 2025, it added