‘ASIA THE CENTRE OF TECH SHIFT’
Mobile economy is booming and 5G is taking off in region, says TM Forum CEO
ASIA will be at the epicentre of a technology shift, especially in 5G, for the telco industry. TM Forum chief executive officer Nik Willetts said there were 2.8 billion unique mobile subscribers in Asia at the end of last year, equivalent to more than 50 per cent of the region’s population.
“Indonesians do more e-commerce on their phones than anywhere else in the world, while the Thais lead in mobile banking penetration.
“The mobile economy is booming and 5G is taking off but a faster connection is not enough to really transform the industry we work with,” said Willets at the TM Forum Digital Transformation Asia 2019, here.
“A faster phone is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission chief digital officer Gerard Lim Kim Meng said the local industry was investing RM116 million in demonstration projects that would cover agriculture, education, entertainment/media, digital healthcare, manufacturing and processing, oil and gas, smart city, smart transportation and tourism.
The demonstrations, which will cover Kedah, Perak, Penang, Selangor, Terengganu and Kuala Lumpur, started last month and will continue until March.
The demonstrations are being conducted by Altel Communications Sdn Bhd, Celcom Axiata Bhd, Digi.Com Bhd, edotco Group Sdn Bhd, Maxis Bhd, Petrroliam Nasional Bhd, Telekom Malaysia Bhd and U Mobile Sdn Bhd.
The objective is to facilitate, develop and foster 5G use in a live but controlled environment, which will also help to facilitate collaboration between ministries and industries.
“In the duration of the demonstration, we welcome industry players who might have solutions or applications to offer and are interested to join us. We want to be able to demonstrate the possible application of 5G that can benefit the rakyat,” he said.
Meanwhile, TM Forum announced that 13 top telcos and vendors were supporting a new Open API and Open Digital Architecture Manifesto focused on enabling a plug-and-play information technology (IT) and business architecture.
The 13 — Accenture, Axiata, China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, CSG, Etiya, Globe Telecom, MyRepublic, Openet, Orange, SigScale and Vodafone — agreed to endorse and drive the industry towards a radical uplift in IT agility and software architecture, and stand behind zero-touch interoperability and partnering.