Connecting the world’s mobile ecosystem

https://www.tatacommunications.com/blog/2015/05/journey-to-the-far-side-of-the-world/FACT: Tata Communications connects 4 out of 5 global mobile subscribers worldwide, and 1,600 telecommunications companies use our network to connect to you.

As the world grows exponentially more mobile (increasing about 3x in size, annually), customers and businesses alike rely heavily on innovation and the expansion of mobile broadband solutions and services. A US enterprise executive travels to Rome each month, but must keep an eye on roaming charges from her US wireless provider in order to keep costs down. A tough task as she takes on multiple “personas” in the work-life balance of global mobile communications. Throughout her day, she needs to stay in contact with her employees back in the U.S. and access corporate systems round the clock. At the same time, her potential new business partners in Italy lose valuable time and resources trying to connect with her through different networks. In between the rhythm of the work day, she finds time to stay in touch with her husband to review their home renovation plans and checks in with her kid’s to hear about their day at school and help with homework.

How do we tackle this (and much larger issues) head on, and facilitate a global economy that relies on connectivity to get things done? Tata Communications is working on it. Here’s a view into the three Ws—the who, what and why—of our mobile ecosystem vision.

 First, “Who” are we helping?

Our approach is focused on keeping the end-user quality of experience consistent and affordable for our service provider and global enterprise customers no matter where they are around the world, and we work tirelessly to eliminate the issues that arise from relying on multiple relationships.

From consumers to companies, roaming doesn’t work from a cost perspective. So, Tata Communications is advancing solutions of a different nature—like building out a mobile network infrastructure that Tata Communications can host and manage on behalf of mobile operators. This way, they can connect users around the world, offering “like home” roaming services at a better quality and profitability. In the simplest terms, we’ll help the providers help you.

Consistent and predictable service performance is of course important for business travellers, but our fresh approach also gives the operator a better cost structure to enable innovative roaming plans to cater to the leisure traveller who’s been long taught not to use data roaming.

It’s a huge step forward, and we will continue to work with our business partners to ensure roaming service performance, cost and usage will mirror the home experience as much as possible.

 “What” we’re seeing in global mobile communications

The U.N. is forecasting global economic growth of 3.3 percent in 2015, up from an estimated 3 percent in 2014 and 2.1 percent in 2013.  As the world becomes more interconnected, the majority of these interconnections are happening over mobile.  In fact, Goldman Sachs says that by 2018, we’ll be seeing roughly as much global mobile commerce ($626 billion) as we saw in global e-commerce in 2013.  Mobile customer expectations are becoming more international too. Enterprises are looking to have common capabilities for remote employees and business partners. At the same time, subscribers are seeking to utilise their services while travelling and are interested in accessing content and applications that reside outside of their home country.

In response to these changing market demands, Tata Communications is building a global mobility platform for our Service Provider and Enterprise customers. The platform will allow them to virtually extend their service reach and capabilities closer to either their travelling subscriber or to the content their subscriber seeks.  Ultimately, it will be designed to improve the user experience for international mobile data sessions – all at a more predictable cost to our customers.

The “Why” behind the mobile peaks and connections around the world

As Tata Communications’ role in facilitating global mobile voice calls continues to expand, we never lose sight of the personal side of communications. I’ve discussed the who and the what, but how about the why? Connectivity means keeping businesses and consumers in touch, but there’s a more personable aspect that the entire framework of human communications was built on centuries ago: connecting with those we care about, even when they’re a world apart. This is furthering our commitment to keeping this world connected.

Watch our video on the future of mobile: