The Future of Mobile, According to GSMA

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The Director General of GSMA, Anne Bouverot, gave her keynote "From the Internet of Things to Personal Data: The Future of Mobile”  at the TM Forum Live.

GSMA Director General Anne Bouverot

The future outlined by her speech is the future according to mobile opeators as the GSMA unites nearly 800 of the world’s mobile operators from 220 countries.

What's on the operators' minds?

"Globally, we now have 7.1 billion mobile connections," says Bouverot. "...There are more mobile connections than subscribers, as individual subscribers can have multiple connections or devices –number of users is far lower and stands at about 3.6 billion unique subscribers, about half the world’s population." 

For operators that means the opportunity lies not only in expanding the services to the "half that haves," but also in finding and signing up the "half that have not."

Without much mathematical ability, you can assume that, given time, the mobile business can be much more than doubled or even tripled. And GSMA believes they know how to do it...

In the last year, the GSMA undertook a strategic consultation process with its members worldwide, identifying several areas in which the mobile industry can reach this growth.

Now, explains Bouverot, the GSMA will align its activities around these four key areas

  • Personal Data – establishing operators as the secure guardians of consumer data through interoperable digital identity solutions, utilising the simplicity of the mobile phone number to enable an individual to access a wide variety of online services. 
  • Connected Living – equipping operators to support the transformation of adjacent industries, enabling a wide range of new mobile connected devices and services in healthcare, automotive, utilities and education. 
  • Digital Commerce – putting mobile devices and digital wallets at the heart of the digital commerce ecosystem, supporting a range of secure and straightforward payment services, and enabling globally interoperable mobile money services in the developing world. 
  • Network 2020 - placing mobile networks at the heart of the all-IP broadband era, enabling secure, smart, interoperable and seamless IP-based communications services. 

These same four areas spell opportunity for the rest of us, as well as the operators. 

GSMA 4 Key Area

Several points strike us as worth highlighting.

For example, the mobile industry is set to play a central role in the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT). GSM wants to label their part of IoT as "Connected Living."  Bouverot told her audience, "Connected Living promises a revolutionary step change in customer quality of life and enterprise productivity. Connected Living is a very significant opportunity – there will be more than 25 billion connected devices in 2020, transforming sectors such as health, education, automotive, smart cities, consumer electronics and others, enabling a range of new services and experiences for customers."

25 billion is almost 4X the current number of connections. Of course, she is just talking about one part of the IoT. "To realise the full potential of this opportunity, operators need to address new requirements and business models. Near term, we need to deliver increased network efficiency to accommodate the increasing number of devices. Longer term, we need to define the evolution of the network and operator capabilities," she explained.

The GSMA is in the process of agreeing the definition of an Embedded SIM that addresses remote provisioning requirements. The GSMA Director General noted, "This is a critical point, as these devices will be in the field for 10-20 years, have wide-ranging form factors and may be remotely located, all of which make traditional removable SIMs unsuitable."

Another important area is Digital Commerce, and GSMA has an initiative for Mobile Money Interoperability. "We are working with members around the world to accelerate the implementation of scalable, interoperable mobile money services, which are bringing convenient, affordable and ubiquitous financial services to people across developing markets."

No matter how big the device market or "connections" market, the mobile money market will surpass all others. GSMA didn't mention that their operators face competition from Amazon, Apple, Google and other giants who want to wrest the credit transaction business from the traditional suppliers such as Visa, American Express, and even PayPal.

eBay's PayPal, for example, operates in 193 markets and has 143 million active, registered accounts and a turnover that's more than $6 billion. And it could lose it all when internet payments shift to mobile payments...

Mobile money is the Next Big Thing of mobile and all the Big Guys want to play. Expect a major battle that makes smartphones look like kid's stuff.

Getting a grip on the digital wallet also requires spending some money. Operator will need to pick up the pace on the adoption of next-generation services. At the end of 2013, LTE connections stood at 200 million, or approximately 3% of global connections. Bouverot explained, "This is set to grow to 2.6 billion connections by the end of 2020 – by then, LTE will represent more than a quarter of all mobile connections worldwide. Momentum is gathering behind VoLTE, with several recent launches/announcements by operators including PCCW HKT, SingTel, T-Mobile, AT&T and NTT DOCOMO." 

Thus the GSMA is supporting the development of all-IP mobile networks that are more “self-aware” and dynamically configurable, to cope with increased traffic demand as well as to provide the newest digital services.

"We are working to avoid fragmentation, guarantee interoperability of services and enable new business opportunities," said the Director General. The unspoken part is that she means new business opportunities for her GSMA members, the mobile operators.

The rest of us will need to swim with the sharks to sell mobile devices and services in the Future According to the GSMA.

Go GSMA Director General's Speech & Slides