5G is an over hyped term – Reliance Jio

Mathew Oommen, President, Reliance Jio at the India Mobile Congress 2019 speaks about how the world is transforming digitally. Making the most of horizontal technologies like IoT, 5G, Cloud native, AI, ML and Blockchain he says that the telecom industry should also now have an infrastructure that empowers different businesses and benefits consumers, rather than being only the voice and data service providers. He enlightens on how digital freedom just not means digital connectivity alone but also means that we should be creators and owners and not only enablers. He also talked about the most hyped term 5G and says that 5G can only happen if it is available in the right amount of spectrum, bandwidth and transmission power in India –

According toMathew, India has become modern and stronger politically, economically, technologically, especially on the IT side.  India is now striving to become the leader in the space of digital technology, digital platforms, semiconductor technology, because it wants to have the IPR of self reliance. The industry needs to have a will and Mathew is very confident that India can and will make itself self reliant. 

He says, “India is going to get success in its digital connection, when everyone, everything, everywhere, every place is going to get connected. It is important that we offer meaningful connections.When everything is getting connected, and everyone is getting connected, how can we as a nation oras an industry, leave more than 400 million of our users digitallyunconnected in 2020. We are moving towards 5G and we as an industry has to have the will to make them change and be part of IT, and I dare ourselves to do that.”

The global technical trends

It is expected that in 2030, $13 trillion in AI willimpact globally. 

Sharing his views about a new world, Mathew says, “Made in China semiconductor for IPR for India is a very important component on a chip.Pharmaceutical takes about 15 to 18 years to create a new drug. Think that you have the MATLAB of engineering in the chip designed to be available for organs. That's the New World.Our heart ratesand our solid state devices of today could be becoming obsolete, because DNA sequencing is going to be the new storage with a footprint in zeta bytesin small, tiny bits. The world of storage is going to be changing. By 2020 over a trillion dollars is going to be spent on cyber security.”

5G

Mathew assures that to drive the industry, they have to look behind or beyond the connectivity business of 2G, 3G and 4G. Digital is an area of opportunity and entrepreneurship. He comments, “Digital is an area of transparency. When we look at 2G, 3G, 4G, it is the voice, data consumer business and that is the internet economy of connectivity. It's an age of the connected intelligence where horizontal technologies are coming to the doorstep because so far, we have had 2G, 3G AND 4G that only do one thing. 5G is a horizontal technology, IoT cloud native blockchain, AI, ML are also horizontal technologies.But at the same time, 5G is an over hyped term; 5G can only happen if the right amount of spectrum with the right amount of bandwidth with the right amount of transmission power is delivered in this country.”

The horizontal technologies are going to transform the telecom provider.It is for the operator community and the Telecom community. There are five critical blocks - 5G, IoT, cloud/edge computing, blockchain, AI and ML. Withthese five, there comesacollaborative technology with an extensible technology partnership.According to Mathew, another key component is robotics, whether it is personal robotics, military robotics, healthcare robotics, etc.

The video of today has also changed. When the physical and virtual worldsinteract, that is when mixed reality comes in and that is the world of the new video. As an operator, Mathew thinksthat theoperatorsare focused predominantly on the consumer business, sandwiched between the business and the things. 

Security

From the security point of view Mathew says, “For all of these horizontal technologies, and the collaboration technology, all of these are important from a security standpoint, because there are certain companies who use you, me, we, the people, the places, the things as their business. So it is very important that we have the right security, whether it is offensive security, or defensive security, or proactive security. We need to make sure we have the security framework that our nation and industry needs so that we can protect our citizens and our nation and our platforms.” 

Mathew feelsdigital freedom is not digitalconnectivity or digital experience alone.The digital freedom is the need to own IPR.  Jio is not just an enabler of IPR, but rather creators and owners of IPRbecause he thinks it is important to have itfor that physical freedom.