THE GREAT TELCO DEBATE, LONDON: The enterprise revolution promised by 5G IoT will not come for free, Vodafone Group IoT business development head Phil Skipper (pictured) cautioned, with operators forced to take on greater responsibility and guarantee quality of service.

By hosting many of the mooted next generation industrial applications, operators moved into becoming a “central part of customer’s” experience, ultimately increasing their exposure, Skipper added.

“I think the industry has to realise when they start doing things like this, it moves away from being about coverage and it moves to being about quality of service,” he said.

“How can we generate more money for the telcos? The answer is we take on more risk, and if you’re going to do that and provide these services, the telco can no longer just have a best endeavour network, but [provide] almost guaranteed quality of service.”

Skipper said when working with large international industrial companies, operators would also need to ensure the connected factory set-up installed in one location could be replicated to exactly the same quality in different countries on other networks.

“There’s a huge potential in enterprise 5G,” he added. “Private networks where you have a network on a site for exclusive use of one company will be a key part of that, but the telco needs to re-evaluate its role. This moves the telco back into the centre of the industrial debate because the reliance on connectivity increases and they become a central part of delivering a customer’s…experience.”