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India needs to spend at least 1% of GDP to transform digitally

Mohammed Fahad
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India needs to spend at least 1% of GDP to transform digitally
  • 5G spectrum has to be priced efficiently, and part of the spectrum needs to be unleashed/unlicensed for WiFi 6 as well as for the private industry.
  • India currently spends just about 0.3 per cent of its overall GDP on creating digital infrastructure

Bengaluru: India needs to ramp up its digital spend to at least 1 per cent of its GDP, with an active public-private partnership, if it has to achieve the goals of digital transformation, a senior industry official said.

India currently spends just about 0.3 per cent of its overall GDP on creating digital infrastructure.

“With an annual GDP of close to $3 trillion, India needs to spend much more. Any country of its size spends more than a percentage,” says Anand Agarwal, Group CEO of STL, an integrator of digital networks.

Stating that the investment has to be shared between the public and private sector, he urged the government to do more towards enabling digital transformation.

“Today, public spending on digital is less than 10 per cent of the total spend. And globally we are witnessing this trend where people are realising that digital infrastructure is as important and critical as the physical infrastructure,” he said.

Stating that the shift to digital and creating a world-class infrastructure will require much more than rolling out the platform, Agarwal said, “We have great voice connectivity. But the shift to digital will require us to do much more. The kind of applications that we are creating is extremely data-hungry. They require very low latency. The response needs to be instantaneous. Data needs to be close to the user and require extremely high bandwidth. Therefore there is a need to create a high degree of the spectrum closer to the user, very deep fiberisation and some kind of edge data centre.”

Fibre optic rollout

Stressing on another trending topic on the optimum pricing of the 5G spectrum in India he said, “we have to price it efficiently so that people can roll it out. And part of the spectrum needs to be unleashed/unlicensed for WiFi 6 as well as private networks. These initiatives will help greatly in digitally transforming India,” he said in a webinar.

STL is involved in fibre roll outs and integration of digital networks last week announced a partnership with India’s telecom provider, Bharti Airtel to build a modern optical fibre network for Airtel across 10 telecom circles.

STL says it has been building up its capability to create an ecosystem of partners for ‘Make in India Next-Gen Solutions’.

It recently acquired IDS Group – a data centre design and deployment specialist, invested in ASOCS – a pioneer in virtual Radio Access Networks (vRAN), partnered with VMware – a provider of cloud virtualisation infrastructure, contracted with VVDN – developer of focused radio hardware solutions and aligned with IIT Madras – for research and technical advancements in 5G.

“This will enable self-sufficient indigenous solutions for 5G for all markets,” the company said in a statement.

India to connect six lakh villages with optical fibre in 1,000 days

Naushad K. Cherrayil
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India to connect six lakh villages with optical fibre in 1,000 days
  • Telecom Minister says national broadband mission of 2019 is to ensure broadband connectivity to all villages by 2022.
  • India’s broadband connections grow 10 times from 65m in 2014 to 673m in January 2020.
  • Timeline for the second phase of BharatNet project extended due to lockdown and Covid-19.

Bengaluru: India plans to connect six lakh villages with optical fibre in the next 1,000 days as part of the national broadband mission, Minister of State for Communications said.

Speaking at a webinar, Sanjay Dhotre said that the national broadband mission of 2019 is to ensure broadband connectivity to all villages by 2022 with an investment of Rs7 lakh crore from stakeholders.

“We have created a massive digital infrastructure to take India to the next level and it is structured on three principles – quality, affordability and usability. To take the digital revolution into the rural heartland, the government has envisioned connecting about 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats with broadband connectivity,” he said.

Sanjay Dhotre, Minister of State for Communications.

India’s internet connections grew by more than 150 per cent and broadband connections grew 10 times from 65 million in 2014 to 673 million in January 2020.

Digital India

Between 2014 and 2019, Dhotre said that more data was accessed through 4G networks and India has one of the cheapest data rates globally and one of the highest per data consumption.

 “Digital India” slogan was initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015.

“All the digital progress will not be possible with a strong telecom and mobile ecosystem. The mobile connections rose from 910 million in 2014 to 1,156 million in 2020 and millions of smartphones came into the people of India,” he said.

The timeline for the second phase of BharatNet project, slated to be completed by August 2021, is now extended due to lockdown and Covid-19.

Bridging digital divide

As of September this year, about 23,133 Gram Panchayats have been made service ready and 1.47 lakh kilometres of optical fibre cable has been laid under the second phase.

The national mission aims to accelerate the growth of digital infrastructure, bridge the digital divide and provide affordable and universal access of broadband to 1.3 billion Indians.

“The new emerging technologies such as 5G, M2M and AI need to be supported for an accelerating transition so that we are not left behind in the fourth industrial revolution. Tremendous opportunities lie ahead of us for application of these technologies in various sectors such as agriculture, education, e-commerce, urban development, logistics and transportation,” Dhotre said.

However, he said that these new generation technologies are knocking on the doors but “we must see their use in the Indian context, ensuring more inclusiveness and assisting our people to solve their problems and at the same time, we must also think of developing technology products which can have strong export potential.”

Dubai firm to cash in on growing demand for personal robots

Naushad K. Cherrayil
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Dubai firm to cash in on growing demand for personal robots
  • Misa expected to be launched middle of next month for $399.
  • Device comes preloaded with $250 worth of ad-free games and hopes to sell 20,000 units in three months.
  • Working on a B2B robot targeting shopping malls, schools, hospitals and governments.

Dubai: Dubai-based Misa Robotics aims to cash in on the growing demand for personal robots at homes due to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), computer vision and natural language processing.

The company’s first robot – Misa – is expected to be launched globally by the middle of next month.

Deepak Bhatia, Founder and CEO of Misa Robotics and iLife Digital Technology, said that the product has been on Indiegogo for some months with an inaugural price of $349 compared to the regular price of $399.

He said that the early demand has been quite positive despite Covid-19 and have got 500 pre-orders without the product is ready.

“The Indiegogo campaign targeted the US and Canada customers. We were supposed to launch the product last month but we had to upgrade the wheel roller under the robot and that has delayed the launch,” he said.

However, he said the first product was delivered to a customer in Canada whose daughter is fighting the last stages of cancer. She has been following us even before we started our campaign and now, she has lost her vision.

“Her last wish was that she wants to welcome Misa before she leaves the world and she wrote us a letter. So, we made an exemption and gave her the old model. Some elderly people have also ordered the devices to set early reminders and some kids have ordered it for education and edutainment purposes,” he said.

Preloaded with $250 worth of games

The company got about 75 per cent of its pre-orders from consumers in the US and Canada.

“We got about four per cent from the Middle East and that was organic. We haven’t promoted it or marketed it in the region. We have got preorders from 45 countries,” he said.

Bhatia said that Misa has facial recognition and deep understanding and it can speak in English, French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Korean, Japanese and Mandarin.

“It has a voice AI and voice is the most difficult aspect of the project. It can move in the house through voice as well as through a smartphone app. With the app, users can do home automation, security, social interactions with the expression of emotions, or assistance robot for seniors and family,” he said.

The wakeup word is “Hey Misa” and it can recognise it in 100 different ascents.

The device comes preloaded with $250 worth of ad-free games, Karaoke app, books, learning apps and videos such as Little Miss, The Moomins, Mr Bean, Peter Rabbit and Mr Men.

Bhatia said that security and privacy issues are taken care of and it does not record any personal conversations as in Amazon Alexa. The app can be downloaded from Apple and Google Play stores.

The company has already selected distributors in some countries.

In the UAE, it is going to be Jumbo Electronics, certain high-end stores of LuLu and Carrefour and in talks with Virgin Megastore. It is going to be priced at AED1,499.

In Saudi Arabia, it is Extra; in Kuwait, it is Alghanim Industries, Eureka and Best Al Yousifi; in India, it will be with online retailers – Amazon and Flipkart.

“We spoke to some key online retailers in India and pricing is a challenge. The clientele is expected to be from the middle class to upwards. I do believe that Tier 1 cities have the budget.  It is expected to be priced between Rs26,000 and Rs30,000,” Bhatia said.

Working on a B2B robot

Personal robots are set to be an $18.85b opportunity by 2020 as the Asian market for robots will explode with China emerging as one of the major countries, according to research firm Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis.

“So far, home care robots dominate with regard to consumer adoption and integration into smart home management,” Jonathan Collins, Smart Home Research Director at ABI Research, said.

Bhatia said that they will be producing 20,000 robots for the next three months and in preparation for the festival season.

“We have already got orders for about 65 per cent of the production volume from retailers and distributors across the world. We have made a lot of tie-ups such as Wikipedia, news updates, games, flight bookings and Expedia for hotel bookings. The data is pulled from the partners and can recognise more than 500 skills.  We are in the process of adding iHeartRadio and waiting for the final approval.  Since it is working on the cloud, we can keep adding features and skills,” he said.

If everything goes as planned, he said that they can easily sell more than 100,000 units in 2021.

Moreover, he said that they are already working on a B2B robot targeting shopping malls, schools, hospitals and governments.

“We can provide customised software for different sectors with auto docking and facial recognition technologies.  It will at least take a year to develop a B2B robot,” he said.

Tactile Mobility sees growing demand for tactile-sensing technology

Naushad K. Cherrayil
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Tactile Mobility sees growing demand for tactile-sensing technology
  • Startup’s business model is to monetise data to other players such as OEMs, municipalities, fleets, mapping companies and insurance companies.

Dubai: Israeli-based autotech startup Tactile Mobility expects more manufacturers to analyse data from car sensors and enable autonomous vehicles to get a feel of the road, using tactile data and artificial intelligence.

The startup has already signed deals with Porsche and BMW Group to integrate tactile technology into their smart cars.

Porsche is also a shareholder in Tactile Mobility.

It was co-founded in 2012 and has a presence in Europe, the US, and Asia. 

Eitan Grosbard, Vice-President for Business Development and Marketing at Tactile Mobility, told TechChannel News that they have been testing some of the cars on the road for some time but the mass production will start only next year.

“We are a software and data company. We are the first to offer sensing-based innovation in the automotive industry. The technology analyses the road surface attributes under the tyres, enabling accurate detection of road conditions and unprecedented vehicle dynamics management functions to enhance availability and performance,” he said.

Moreover, he said that they are working with four other global manufacturers.

Mapping of the pothole severity on roads.

The company started as an after-market device for fuel consumption in trucks but led the firm to reposition itself four years ago into the sensing technology due to change in oil and gas prices, Grosbard said.

How does it work?

The software is located in two areas – in the electronic control unit (ECU), an embedded system in automotive electronics that controls one or more of the electrical systems or subsystems in a vehicle and in the cloud.

It can collect raw data or signals from existing sensors in the vehicle such as wheels speeds, RPM, brake paddle positions. 

Utilising Tactile’s own proprietary algorithms, physical modelling and AI, they create a unified signal that represents three things – understand what is happening on the surface of the road (detect speed bumps, potholes, manholes), detect grip measurement (how good the vehicle is holding the surface)and slipperiness (ice, snow and water). 

With the software, they can understand what the state of the vehicle is and they create a digital twin of the vehicle such as chassis health, suspenders health and tyre wear. 

All the sensing is done in the vehicle, in real-time, and the startup collects a variety of data from different vehicles and creates a normalised ground truth in the cloud. 

The startup creates a tactile map of the road in the cloud and that map can be utilised by other vehicles coming behind.

Data monetisation

Today, Grosbard said that there aren’t similar technologies to theirs but there are other visual-related technologies such as cameras, Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) and Ladar (Laser Detection and Ranging) are methods for measuring distances by illuminating the target with laser light and measuring the reflection with a sensor.

The big difference, he said is that other technologies cannot distinguish what is a road and what is black ice, created by many cars driving on the snowy road.

“With our technology, it can detect the slipperiness of the road. In the future, he said that data from the cloud would be able to feed it to the suspensions of the vehicle and the passengers can drive without the bumpiness on the road,” he said    

The startup’s idea is to collect more data and part of the business model will be to monetise the data to other players such as other OEMs, municipalities, fleets, mapping companies, insurance companies, etc.

 “Today, autonomous cars are relying mainly on visual technologies and our technology will be incorporated into autonomous vehicles as well because this technology will complement the visual players. If you want 100 per cent reliability and safety, you cannot rely only on visual players,” he said.

More new jobs as online retailers go hiring ahead of festive sale

Ana Mary Joseph
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More new jobs as online retailers go hiring ahead of festive sale
  • Amazon to add new infrastructure and ‘thousands’ of jobs across India. Hundred thousand more jobs in the US
  • Flipcart to add 70,000 direct jobs & 100,000 part time India

Bengaluru:  Online retailers in India are hiring in big numbers ahead of the festive season starting early October in India. 

Both Amazon and Flipcart announced that they are ramping up their facilities, recruiting more staff, and preparing for a busy season ahead, despite the Covid-19 pandemic.

The opening of two new Amazon fulfillment centres in Hyderabad in the southern Indian state of Telengana would result in thousands of new jobs, the company said.

The new addition will increase its storage capacity to more than 4.5 million cubic feet spread across four fulfillment centres in Telengana. 

Recently, Amazon announced that in an effort to strengthen the delivery speed, it is expanding the Sort Centres with five new ones, in Vishakhapatnam, Farukhnagar, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

It also announced that is also expanding eight existing Sort Centres to increase the overall sortation area to 2.2 million square feet, across 19 states. Amazon uses technology and automation in its sortation network. 

Flipkart meanwhile has announced that it plans to create about 70,000 new jobs (direct) and hundreds of thousands of seasonal jobs as it prepares for an increase in online shopping ahead of the festive season.

Flipcart runs its Big Billion Days sale and “its complexity and scale require investments for capacity, storage, sorting, packaging, human resources, training, and delivery,” it said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Amazon on Monday (Sept 14) announced that it plans to hire 100,000 new, regular full- and part-time jobs in the United States as it expands its operations.

A recent report by Unicommerce – a SaaS platform geared at eCommerce clients, online sales and business for e-commerce platforms has increased by about 130 per cent compared to the same period last year.

Covid deals major blow to GCC mobile phone demand in second quarter

Mohammed Fahad
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Covid deals major blow to GCC mobile phone demand in second quarter
  • Covid deals major blow to GCC mobile phone demand in second quarter
  • Overall shipments fall 10.3% to 4.9m devices.
  • Smartphone shipments declined by 6.8% to 4.2m units while feature phones suffer 25.3% decline to 0.8m units.
  • Market is expected to fall by 1% in third quarter.

Dubai: Mobile phone shipments into the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) declined by 10.3 per cent quarter on quarter to 4.9 million units due to Covid-19.

Research firm International Data Corporation (IDC), said that smartphone shipments declined by 6.8 per cent to 4.2 million units while feature phones declines by 25.3 per cent to 0.8 million units.

The value of smartphone shipments was down 16.8 per cent quarter on quarter to $1.3 billion while the feature phone market’s value plunged 24 per cent to $15.4 million.

 “While supply shortages impacted the market’s performance in Q1 2020 and the early weeks of Q2 2020, a steep decline in consumer demand was the primary cause of the market’s decline,” says Akash Balachandran, a senior research analyst at IDC.

Moreover, he said that Covid-related lockdowns and measures resulted in physical retail closures for extended periods of time across the region, precipitating a major decline in demand.

Saudi Arabia accounted for 53.8 per cent of all smartphone units shipped within the GCC in the quarter. While there was a significant decline in demand across retail channels due to varying states of lockdown being implemented in Saudi Arabia, Balachandran said that shipments into the country were less affected.

 “Indeed, the planned implementation of a VAT increase in Saudi Arabia from July 1st caused channels to import larger quantities of smartphones before the change took place.”

Samsung maintains its lead

Samsung continued to lead the GCC smartphone market in the quarter, with 39.5 per cent unit share and 25.9 per cent value share as it was able to retain value and extend its unit share due to the fact that it was relatively less impacted by supply shortages than other brands and cushioned by a shorter refresh cycle (particularly in the low to mid-range price bands).

Apple saw reduced demand and shipments as consumers and the channel alike took a cautious approach to purchasing expensive high-end devices. Despite this, Apple accounted for 18.5 per cent unit share and a 50.8 per cent majority share of its value.

Xiaomi continued to post unit and value growth following the introduction of its new line of Note models in the previous quarter, accounting for 9.9% unit share and 5.7 per cent value share.

Looking ahead, IDC expects the GCC smartphone market to decline a further one per cent quarter on quarter in the third quarter of this year.

“Across the GCC region, the potential for a second wave of Covid cases, the return of lockdowns, stagnating oil prices and economies, and weakened consumer and commercial spending will push any real recovery toward the end of the year,” Ramazan Yavuz, a senior research manager at IDC, said.

While pent-up demand from consumers caused an immediate surge in smartphone sales after lockdowns were relaxed, he said the second half of the year is expected to perform slightly weaker as the region’s economies are not showing signs of recovery and consumer demand is weakening after the initial pent-up demand is met.

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