RIO DE JANEIRO—“Ninety percent of all the data that telecom carriers have are not used in an intelligent way to generate new revenues,” Frost & Sullivan senior market analyst Fernando Belfort said. According to Belfort, cloud computing, mobile security and big data are three disruptive technologies that are driving the ICT market.
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and subscribe to our free periodic newsletters
For example, Belfort said that carriers should analyze big data to find out who their most important clients are and what kind of special services they can offer to retain them. “Big data can answer these questions,” Belfort said.
“Brazilian carriers are not different from others in Latin America, but they are behind those in U.S market,” said Pedro Desouza, senior manager at EMC Corporation. He said that EMC has held conversations with carriers who are interested in adopting solutions to address big data.
Desouza told members of the press that operators have different needs. “While one is looking at a data analysis package, another is focusing on business analytic solutions, and there is another that plans to adopt a big data solution to address legal procedures.”
Speaking at an EMC press conference during the Futurecom event, Belfort said that 80 billion devices will be connected to the Internet worldwide by 2020 when there will be 5 billion Internet users around the globe. “Big data is about the volume and variety of data, and how fast companies can analyze all that data in real time,” he said.
The increase in smartphones, tablets, smart devices, Wi-Fi hotspots, and video streaming as well as the advance of LTE will all contribute to data growth. Of all the data stored by companies, only 15% is structured data (such as data from IT systems, CRM, ERP and databases), the major part, 85%, is unstructured data (including emails, SMS, social media and documents saved on computers).
In Brazil, the big data market is expected to reach around U.S.$500 million (R$1.04 billion) by 2016, a jump from the current level of U.S.$168 million (R$336 million). Major opportunities are in the segments of telecommunications; banking and insurance; oil and gas; and retail companies.
In a recent interview with RCR Wireless News, Matti Aksela, VP at Comptel, said that in Latin America, wireless telecoms are beginning to understand that they have to use all the data they have, and the data is available. Indeed, big data has reached telecom operators, and wireless carriers have to look to add intelligence in their networks, going beyond traditional business intelligence systems.
