Beyond voice and data

— RK Upadhyay

Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone call on 10 March 1876 to his assistant, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you,” was the first ever telephone call made in the history of mankind. However, while making this voice call, little did the father of telephony realize that in just about 125 years (a very small period in human history) voice would start losing its status of being the main feature of a telephone.

World’s first commercial 3G network was launched by NTT DoCoMo in Japan on 1October 2001, and in a way it can be taken as a dateline for the data significant mobile telephony. This is because of the ability of 3G to offer greater data bandwidth and proper web browsing, coupled with a video transmission capability—pictures could be sent over the mobile network. On 3G networks, one could, for the first time see moving pictures of the caller. It took less than 10 years from the commercial launch of almost voice-only 2G mobile service in mid1991 to data enabled video calling becoming a reality. It may be recalled that the 2G and 3G services were launched in India in 1995 and 2008, respectively.

With the advent of VoLTE, now even voice is transmitted as data. LTE networks, coupled with smart phones, have made voice calling just a very insignificant part of the overall communication capability. We have arrived at a phase in telecommunications, where voice has not just become incidental but almost, if not altogether, free.

The evolution from voice to data is changing the telecom operator’s business beyond recognition. From being a mere provider of telecommunications (carrier of voice and data), telecommunications companies are fast transforming into providers of “lifestyle management pipes”. The majority of revenue in telecom business in times to come will come from digital services as even data is becoming a commodity. Data revolution is compelling these companies to foray into e-commerce, banking, media, and content to name a few.

Due to an increased and still increasing data capability of mobile networks, the magnitude of content and services provisioned through internet is growing phenomenally, thus necessitating search of relevant data through refined search engines. This “internet search” has become an industry in itself, giving rise to emergence of new business models based on captive eyeballs. Searching for content on internet leads to monetization through advertising and most of the online advertising models are based on content and eyeballs.

Evolution and proliferation of social media to become a power to reckon with in shaping public opinion is largely due to increased availability of affordable mobile data and smart phones.

In our country of one billion plus people, data revolution is becoming instrumental in bringing about financial inclusion and bridging the digital divide. In a country of India’s size and population, access to any service—health, education or financial services—is the first and foremost problem. Increasing availability of mobile network with data is providing a solution to this.

In India, in 2008, only 17% of the population had bank accounts. However, between 2009 and 2018, about 330 million Indian people got new bank accounts. Political will, urban rural migration, and increasing number and amount of financial benefits transferred by the

government to citizens are cited as the reasons for this accelerated growth in financial inclusion. a data footprint as any small business doing the same in the USA or any other developed country.