Future in your hand
Source: Bijoy Sankar Saikia
Emerging mobile technology promises to completely change the way we experience life
Future in your hand
The chief executive officer of a top mobile technology company was up for a rude shock at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona a fortnight ago, when an engineer joined him on stage, shook hands with him and claimed that his mobile phone had picked up the CEO’s credit card number during the momentary body touch.
As a puzzled audience watched agape, the engineer clicked a photograph on his mobile phone and used the CEO's body to transfer the image on a television screen to demonstrate what he called the human wire.
While technology that can pick up credit card information through a handshake can seriously interrupt human relationships and behaviour, at the same time the potential of using the human body as a wire for data transfer can be mind-boggling. It’s not hard to imagine a time when your mobile phone will tell your blood pressure and heart beat rate the moment you pick it up after getting out of bed!
Earlier this week, the US carmaker Ford unveiled its small family car B-MAX at the World Auto Expo, Geneva. While the car made news because the company said it aimed to target the small car segment in emerging markets such as India, what escaped attention was the fact that it will be one of the most technologically-advanced cars to have come in recent times, that too in the small car segment.
The vehicle will have a mobile connectivity that can power a few lifestyle features such as emergency assistance that automatically responds to a crash by using the customer's connected mobile phone to call an emergency service directly in the local language with the location of the accident.
BMW is also working on an embedded mobile technology. Its ConnectedDrive service that links up the driver and the car with the rest of the world all the time is now available in nine countries and the company is planning to roll it out worldwide by 2015. And then, there is already talk about a self-driven car that you can just call up and enjoy the ride.
Welcome to the advanced information age, where the future is in your hand, literally. The mobile phone that you used only to make calls a decade ago, is already an organiser, a texting device, an MP3 player and a camera, to name just a few. It promises to soon become much more than that ― it will become a remote control for your life by transforming itself into an entertainment device, a payment device, a security centre, just to name a few.
Voice or phone call, which was the main function of a mobile phone, is now taking a back seat as data is taking over. Technology mavens will tell you in just about five years, data flow will be the mainstay of mobile communication worldwide with voice, apps and video occupying less than half of total usage.
“The potential of mobile technology is enormous, especially in a country like India. We can already see 3G hitting the right notes in areas such as entertainment, m-commerce, m-education and some other non-voice services,” says Deepak Gulati, executive president-mobility business at Tata Teleservices (TTSL).
Bharti Airtel projects India to have more than 1 billion networked devices in four years, compared with 570 million in 2010. This paves way for the data revolution that awaits us.
“Our society is in a point of change. Industries across the system are increasingly using internet and communication technologies (ICT) and getting them built into their core processes to add value to consumers,” says Patrick Regardh, networked society evangelist at Ericsson. “For instance, the music industry has been able to deliver a completely new experience riding ICT. Music is more of a social experience today with a whole lot of sharing. This has reshaped the whole experience of music,” he pointed out.
Research in Motion, the maker of Blackberry phones, expects the mobile revolution to act as a life-changer for societies by transforming social and economic landscapes. Sunil Lalvani, director of enterprise sales at RIM, India, said, “The evolution of mobile devices from mobile phones to smartphones and tablets with next generation technologies such as augmented reality, near-field communication (NFC) and cloud on mobile platform, the mobile ecosystem is expected to undergo further transformation in the future. Some of the key segments that would witness technology transformation include location-based services, education, banking and healthcare.”
Mobile technology companies are looking at using NFC to facilitate a wide range of applications for consumers such as exchange of information and content, control access to cars, homes, hotels, offices and car parks, and mobile ticketing to board a public transport.
M-Banking
You must have heard about the mobile wallet that allows people to swipe the mobile phone like a credit card to make a payment. In India, mobile banking is now available, but in a limited way. In fact, in spite of a strong push by telecom operators, banking on mobile phone has not taken off, primarily because of reluctance of our banks to shift to the new technology and also because of security concerns among users.
In Pakistan, Telenor’s mobile money service Easypaisa is seeing double-digit growth month after month. Last year, more than 30 million transactions took place on the Easypaisa platform, involving a transaction volume of $700 million.
According to a finding by Bharti Airtel, while an estimated 240 million Indians hold bank accounts, more than 90 per cent of the country’s population uses cash to pay for its daily needs. A majority of customers continue to rely on traditional ‘time consuming’ methods such as money orders and cheque remittances when it comes to transferring funds.
Bharti Airtel, which launched Airtel Money last month, allows payment anytime, anywhere from your mobile to recharge a mobile phone or DTH, pay bills for mobile, landline, utilities or book movie tickets, among others. But mobile money solutions can offer much more, from person-to-person transfers to mobile banking and mobile payments.
Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman and managing director, Bharti Airtel, says soon the mobile phone will power everything ― from commerce to money transfer and birth certificates to ration cards. “We can turn each mobile phone in use to function as a virtual ATM,” he adds.
Vodafone and Visa have recently entered into a worldwide partnership, creating the world's largest mobile payment partnership that will enable consumers to pay for goods and services using their mobile phones.
“Mobile banking is a fantastic application. There is a lot of potential in it,” says Gulati of TTSL. “M-wallet as a concept is the right fit for Indian market where at present we are underbanked but with a sizeable number of mobile phone subscribers. A significant number of our population resides in the countryside and does not have access to proper banking facilities. With m-wallet, you are completely eliminating the problem of reach,” Gulati adds.
Even in an under-developed country such as Nigeria, 40 per cent of all remittances from all over the world come through the mobile phone. Western Union is launching its own branded handset that will be distributed for free in Uganda and will have an embedded money transfer service to facilitate easier remittance. India's total remittance stood at $57.5 billion or Rs 2,88,000 crore in 2011.
Isis, a joint venture of three top US mobile operators, has created a system to put all credit, debit and prepaid cards into one mobile wallet, enabling customers to shop and make utility payments.
“Very soon mobile phones will act as a proof of identity, a store of money and enable payment and money transfers. In a country like India where over 50 per cent of the country's population is unbanked, mobile banking is the only answer to achieve financial inclusion,” says RIM’s Sunil Lalvani.
“In India, telecom companies are laying strong emphasis on network security and working with a view to provide efficient solutions that can be adopted by consumers who are looking for secure and convenient banking and bill payment options,” says Gulati. “The m-wallet service will gain traction once it is advertised and mass marketed. For these services to be successful it is imperative that the customer education initiatives are carried out, coupled with pricing options that encourage adoption of the service rather than creation of a barrier,” Gulati adds.
During the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, NGOs and rescue workers found an effective way to reach aid to the affected families through the mobile payment platform of mobile operator Viola, which last month crossed the $4 million payroll transactions carried over its T-Cash mobile money service.
M-Health
About two years ago, Ericsson launched a pilot project in India in partnership with Apollo Hospitals for automated collection and real-time monitoring of the patients’ vital signs, such as heart and breathing rates, oxygen saturation and blood pressure through sensors and send it wirelessly to doctors. The patients needed to be fitted with health sensors that collated and securely transmitted the required data via Bluetooth to a communication module, which is connected to the hospitals’ servers using a wireless technology. This information, stored in the servers, can then be accessed by designated hospital staff from their workstations.
Last year, Airtel introduced mHealth that offers SMS-based health alerts for its customers. But that's just the beginning. Leaders in the mobile industry are already talking about technologies where wearable devices will track user's health 24x7 with the mobile phone serving as a hub of data storage. Technologies such as mHealth are increasingly taking lessons from performance services in sports and using them for tracking the overall wellness of a person. Which means, soon there will be sensors built into clothing or running shoes with the mobile device tracking these sensors to read signs of health problems. And then, there are also possibilities of mobile X-rays and telemedicine, where telecommunication and information technologies are used to provide clinical healthcare from a distance.
Telecom operators agree that the mobile phone can open up a whole new category of service innovation in healthcare. “But it’s a business and it has to be profitable. At the same time, customers expect affordable m-health services says, Manoj Kohli, CEO-international and joint MD at Bharti Airtel.
Tim Wood, director for mobile health innovation at Grameen Foundation, says to succeed in the business, mobile health services will need to do three things ― provide relevant and actionable health information that ultimately leads to a change in behaviour, be useable by people with low literacy skills and be affordable. Grameen Foundation runs a mother project in Ghana.
Mobile operator Etisalat’s Mobile Baby programme, offered across its African footprint, is focused on reducing mother and child mortality and supporting birth attendants and midwives. It is aimed at ensuring safer pregnancies and deliveries by enabling carers to quickly and accurately identify, communicate and act on obstetric emergencies.
M-Commerce
Mobile technology has brought about an enormous upheaval in both retail and payment activities. Mobile commerce was born in 1997 when the first mobile phone-enabled Coca Cola vending machines were installed in Helsinki, Finland. The machines accepted payment via text messages.
Mobile commerce-related services spread rapidly in early 2000. In India, you can already pay for your phone bills, DTH services, movie tickets and utilities via a mobile phone. An immediate extension of the same can be parking fee, car fares, hotel bills, train ticket, airline ticket, and payments for other modes of public transport or mobile vouchers, coupons and loyalty cards. Stock trading through the mobile phone is already functional in India. Insurance companies and mutual fund houses are already working on mobile phone-enabled gateways to enable investment in these products through the hand-held phone.
“In about five years, there will be more changes in the way consumers shop and pay. Mobile is going to blur the boundaries between e- and retail,” says John Donahoe, president and CEO of eBay. On the products’ side, while you may already be buying callertunes, ringtones and videos by using your mobile phone, the same functions can be made available for an entire gamut of products ― ranging from groceries to electronic equipment to art auctions, just to name a few.
Today, half of all transactions in the US involve the use of a mobile device at some point. Conversely, retailers are using the device to make promotional and personalised offers to customers. According to Forrester Research, m-commerce is an industry that is expected to grow to $31.6 billion (wide) by 2016. And marketing campaigns too, are going to take over the mobile screen.
Much more...
The mobile phone has already become an entertainment centre when you are away from home. Soon, it will automatically work with your home entertainment system to find programmes that will interest you and download them as a podcast to watch them on the go.
Another area that mobile technologies have transformed completely is media, which has instantly got a social dimension, and has become a two-way process already. As we go ahead, publishing too, is going to see a significant transformation, with a lot of content coming your way much faster on the mobile platform.
MIT graduate Salman Khan’s Khan Akademy, which provides free world-class education to anyone anywhere through videos on Youtube, has already showed what internet and communication technologies can do to education.
“What we learn and how we learn will be a different experience altogether and the tools for learning and the way of delivery will be different,” said Patrick Regardh, networked society evangelist at Ericsson. Some of the pilot programmes are already experimenting with the use of gaming to support literacy. Schools in the Philippines are getting videos delivered via satellites to televisions in the classrooms.
And the drawbacks...
In India, there is a lot of dependence on external factors in the mobile telecommunications space that have hindered the usage and consequently, adoption of next generation technology and applications.
“The eco-system that supports shift from voice to data has existed in west for quite some time, whereas in India, it is only beginning to take shape now. In India, we should not expect a sudden explosion in the data usage. It is increasing, but it will depend on many external factors such as availability of devices such as smartphones, seamless connectivity, relevant applications and so on,” says Gulati of TTSL.
India’s smartphone penetration is just about 5 per cent as of now, and most modern mobile technologies require smart devices. The industry expects smartphone usage to rise ‘tremendously’ over the next few years as they become more affordable. Bharti Airtel is already talking of a $50 smartphone. Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt is talking of a $20 Android phone in five years.
“With our new range of Blackberry 7 devices and PlayBook 2.0, we have already stepped into the next phase mobile technology. RIM is constantly working on creating solutions for segments such as healthcare, m-wallet and education to be a significant enabler and contributor of growth in various global economies,” said Lalvani of RIM.
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