It is no secret that technology today is ubiquitous, enabling efficiencies, shaping lives and furthering opportunities. Over the next decade, technologies will snowball to become larger, pervading every aspect of life. New ideas will surface to further enrich lives, and exponential improvements will be made to existing technologies. Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and the digital sector are major economic drivers to India, contributing over 13 percent to India’s GDP. The country aims to grow the ICT sector to US $ 1 Tr by 2025, which is around 20 percent of the GDP. According to the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), India’s technology industry recorded its highest-ever rate of growth by reaching revenues of US $ 227 Bn in 2021, from US $ 200 Bn in 2020.

Over the last 10 years, one of the most prominent characteristics has been the convergence of technologies – earlier our tools lived on separate devices. Emails on PC’s, music on MP3 players, photography on DSLR’s etc. As the world grows to adopt technology, there will be more convergence as our lives sync across various technologies, enabling a high level of customisation.

On the enterprise level, while India was already on the precipice of a digital transformation, COVID-19 hastened it. Companies are shining a light on their IT systems, weaving it and often times realigning their strategies accordingly. These efforts are being realised with the help of emerging technologies such as robotic process automation, big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, cloud computing, quantum computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), cybersecurity, and augmented / virtual reality to improve services and experiences for their customers.

The advent of IoT, industrial 4.0, coupled with increasing technological and automation investments, are driving the market for next-generation communication, such as 5G, Light Fidelity (Li-Fi), wireless sensors network (WSN), etc. all next-generation communication devices. As per Mordor Intelligence agency, the next generation communication devices market is expected to register a CAGR of over 20 percent during the forecast period, 2021-2026.

The Indian telecommunications sector is the second largest in the world, with 1.2 Bn subscribers. India’s mobile economy has been driven by widespread adoption, with wireless subscriptions representing 98 percent of telephone use. According to Deloitte, India is expected to reach 1 Bn smartphones by 2026, from 750 Mn currently.

Aryacom started in 1988, premeditating the need for technology solutions just as Indian telecommunications began to take shape. Since then, the company continues to keep a pulse on emerging technology and proactively anticipates how these solutions can solve customer's business challenges. With this philosophy in mind, Aryacom has introduced innovations and solutions for several markets - public safety, defence energy and infrastructure. The J M Baxi technology company is now working on projects with a focus on tech solutions for the next ten years. While some technologies have already been introduced earlier and are now being refined, some are just finding their roots and taking shape at Aryacom. Here is a look at what is in the works.

The Push-To-Talk (PTT) global market size is expected to reach US $ 59.81 Bn by 2030 enabled by the Push-To- Talk over Cellular (PoC) solutions. PoC enables users to replicate two way radio features on their cellular phones with the use of an app. POC devices can connect anywhere there is a mobile data signal or Wi-Fi. With the advancements of the 4G data network and more recently the launch of 5G technology, PoC is becoming increasingly reliable and will likely augment traditional RF two-way radios. As a result, businesses such as taxis, skip hire companies, couriers, haulage and companies with operations which span across multiple sites, over large areas will benefit from POC technology. These can include security companies, retail firms with multiple outlets and industrial estates across the country.

Drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are robots that can fly autonomously (the ability to operate independently without human intervention) basis their embedded systems which uses remote sensing, software development, GPS etc. Such amalgamation promises a great future for extensive use of drones in providing services especially in areas that are remote or cannot be serviced by humans physically.

Aryacom is already working on SVAMITVA (Survey of Villages Abadi and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Area) yojana with a partner, having expertise in surveying and mapping.

Drones have the capability of carrying out everyday tasks like fertilizing crop fields on an automated basis, monitoring traffic incidents, and surveying hard-to-reach places among others. Drones can also be deployed at ports or at power plants, allowing for accurate accounting of strategically stockpiled coal. The benefit of volumetric stockpile estimation is that inventory is tracked meticulously for evaluation, financial reporting, and excise duty.

In the next 5-10 years, as networked drones continue to spread, there will be more urban unmanned aircraft, and tens of thousands of low-orbit broadband satellites will operate in the sky. To include the ocean, desert and sky, broadband connections need to extend from the ground to the air, to form a three-dimensional ultra wide network intertwined with the sky and the ground. This network will be composed of small stations with a coverage radius of 100m, macro stations with 1~10 Km and low orbit satellites with 300Km~400Km, providing users with 10G, Giga, and 100m continuous broadband experiences respectively.

Technologies such VLC/ Li-Fi technology enables data transmission via light rather than radio waves, at high-speeds through small adjustments in the intensity. The result is a highspeed Internet connection that is more secure, reliable, and able to deliver bandwidth far beyond the capabilities of conventional wireless communications such as Wi-Fi. Thereby, they have huge potential in military applications where security and reliability are of paramount importance.

Industries such as oil and gas, waste management, and automotive manufacturing, are major end-users of industrial WSNs. However, smaller industries, such as cold storage, are likely to adopt WSNs for enhanced productivity and are expected to generate a high demand for WSNs.

It is anticipated by 2024, at least 10 percent of people will wear smart clothes that come with a chip. These wearable devices can be used to capture and share a wide range of useful information. Data generated on the device will be captured on an app, that will further encourage the user to clock in those miles, sleep on time, eat wisely and generally make life more efficient.

Augmented Reality (AR) smart glasses are a new generation of wearable glasses that merge the virtual and physical world as information can be viewed on the glasses itself as opposed to the phone. Prominent examples include Microsoft’s Hololens and Google Glass. Here comes the era of the ‘Eyephone’.

The future of data storage, access, and usage will soon be dominated by the cloud. While everyone is at the start of it, by 2030, cloud computing will be adopted widely leaving system-based storage with a small piece of the data storage pie.

As household appliances become smart, by 2024 more than 50 percent of internet usage will be diverted towards home automation. We will see a big shift in internet traffic, as more sensors are deployed and more products become connected to the internet. Currently, most of the internet traffic at homes is for personal consumption, more specifically for communication or entertainment.

In the next ten years, Wi-Fi will migrate from just being indoors, to outdoors, in-vehicles, warehouses, freight yards – basically everywhere, such that all devices will be connected at all points in time. This hyper level of connectivity will provide high-precision positioning, gesture recognition, breathing detection, emotion recognition, perimeter security and other functions.

In the future, NextGen Wi-Fi technologies will get widely adopted and play a major role in increasing people’s quality of life and improving productivity. Wi-Fi Infrastructure will be mostly cloud-driven enabling smart digital services, such as smart waste management, smart security and smart lighting in public spaces. High-speed Wi-Fi, together with good connectivity in terms of bandwidth, are powerful tools for the tourism industry to increase customer satisfaction. Investment in Wi-Fi services could benefit the local economy due to growth in the tourism sector.

Wi-Fi technology applied to healthcare services largely improves hospitals and clinics’ performances. For instance, thanks to wireless apps doctors can have instant access to their patients’ clinical information and easily communicate with them. In addition, public Wi-Fi will facilitate rural healthcare, as patients living in rural areas can use their Wi-Fi network to reach doctors remotely. At the same time, Wi-Fi will allow real-time location monitoring, meaning that it makes it possible to track the position of the medical staff within a healthcare building and to better plan the use of resources so that both patients and equipment can be directed to the right place at the right time.

Lastly Wi-Fi for students and academic staff in educational institutions shall leverage wireless education to improve their digital studies curriculum.

As technology evolves and customer's needs change, it will be interesting to see what innovations progress or morph, and which ideas fall through. Irrespective, Aryacom will continue to be committed to sensing the pace of technology’s rapid transformation, with an aim to enable customers to manage their lives and businesses more efficiently.