Indian telcos want to live an edge-y life

Online gaming, connected vehicles, and remote working environments require an unprecedented level of low-latency networks

- VIKRAM ANAND

Imagine that you’re sitting in the middle of an important client presentation and your high-speed internet connection fails. You’re watching a cricket match that’s in the final minutes and suddenly the live stream freezes and all you hear is cheering sound from your neighbor. Your parents require surgery but can’t travel to a hospital in a large city for treatment, so they must have remote surgery. These are some real-life situations that you might have faced, as our dependency on the internet and connectivity services reaches the next level due to the current mandates requiring us to remotely work and play.

For Indian telcos who already offer the world’s cheapest data rates, it’s very difficult to maintain revenue growth of connectivity services. This will become even more challenging with the inevitable shift to 5G. In order to support the surging demand for highbandwidth and low-latency applications in our remote environment, telcos can consider taking a new approach to transforming their network architectures – it’s referred to as edge cloud.

Our low-latency world

The need for speed is reaching all new levels and network reliability will become non-negotiable. For example, take smart factories or online gaming championships. Even a small lag in the network can cost you your production cycles or the big prize money you were about to win in the online game.