Nokia is already manufacturing 5G radios in its factory in Chennai. 5G radios are run on the Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) — the next generation network technology. Nokia does not find it necessary to test its 5G technology in India as it is already in use in several parts of the world. Over 96 operators have launched commercial retail 5G services and 397 operators are investing in 5G networks.

India is fortunately using the same spectrum band of 3.5 GHz as are countries like the US, those in Europe and others. India specific studies could be done, say in agriculture and healthcare. These would be the new areas of revenue for the operators.

Nokia is open to support system integrators such as Tech Mahindra, Sterlite and HFCL for ORAN network deployment. It has achieved substantial levels of localisation in manufacturing telecom gear.

5G networks use shorter frequencies — millimeter waves of 30 GHz to 300 GHz. Hence, 5G is faster. High band 5G spectrum boosts speed, capacity, low latency and quality. 5G speeds tops out at 10 gigabits per second (Gbps). It is 10 to 100 times faster than 4G.

Previous generations of Internet have shown lesser speeds — 3.5G has 42.2 Mbps speed, 4G/LTE has 100 Mbps speed, 4G/LTE Category 4 has 150 Mbps speed, 4G LTE Advanced has 1000 Mbps speed. In comparison, 5G has 10,000 Mbps speed.

Latency is the delay between sending and receiving information. 5G’s latency is 1 millisecond (1 ms). 4G’s latency is 200 ms. Average human reaction time to a visual stimulus is 250 ms or 0.25 seconds. 5G can respond to large amounts of incoming information within milliseconds.

Beyond improving speed 5G is expected to unleash an IoT ecosystem where network can serve communication needs for billions of connected devices, with the right trade-offs between speed, latency and cost. 5G can have up to 100x number of connected devices per unit area, as compared with 4G LTE.

Several issues are getting conflated. Big Tech dominance affects entrepreurship, privacy and free press. There are problems associated with social media and fake news and election manipulation. Nandan Nilkeni of Infosys argues that these issues may have to do with the fact that social media is not held accountable for what is posted on it, unlike the traditional media. If we treat and sue the social like the traditional media, things will start changing.

The subcommitte’s report quotes Raghuram Rajan, Sai Krishna and Zingale’s research paper. The last line of this paper merits our attention — it is dangerous to apply 20th Century economic intuitions to 21st Century problems. Anti-trust is a 20th century institution. The answer to dominance could be interoperability and data portability in networks. If users can transfer the entire location history or social media posts from the present platform to another platform, a lot of monopoly power is diluted. MasterCard and Visa have to face new the competition from open-architecture UPI payments system and Rupay card. India’s Non-personal Data Bill even proposes sharing of anonymised data. The sub-committee report is right in pointing out abuse of dominance by Big Tech firms, but it exaggerates it. And the problem can only be solved by fresh thinking.

Elon Musk’s company has already launched an additional 60 satellites in the lower earth orbit. These satellites will be used to provide Internet in North US and Southern Canada. Musk has an ambitious plan to put 40,000 satellites in the lower earth orbit. Till now he has 770 satellites floating in the sky. An Internet satellite is placed at an orbit of 22,000 miles above the earth. Its latency is close to a minute. Musk proposes to put satellites at a distance of 342 miles. Thus it takes much less time to bounce the signal between the web server, satellite and user.

There are other players too who are into satellite internet. Amazon has its constellation project (Kuiper) which aims to put 3200 satellites in the lower earth orbit. Facebook proposes to roll out Athena. OneWeb is the oldest player in the game, and is now backed by Softbank. It has sold its assets to a consortium led by the UK Government and Bharti Global.

There are costs of launching a satellite. The ground is covered by receiving stations and dishes. Here regulatory approvals from different governments are needed to establish satellite links. The geo-stationary satellites at higher orbits are longer lasting than the lower orbit satellites. There are replacement costs involved. There are costs of user terminals and antenna.

The system can deliver 100 Mbps download speed with 30 ms latency. The plan is to take the speed to 1 Gbps.

China is taking steps in introducing the world’s first sovereign digital currency or the central bank digital currency (CBDC) rapidly. It is conducting trials in several Chinese cities. As a part of these trials, they have created digital wallets and corporate wallets for eCNY (Chinese Yuan). They have processed several million transactions. The digital currency will have a two-tier system — commercial banks will serve as a gateways to distribute eCNY (just like cash). The currency will be tested for domestic as well as cross-border transactions. Beyond borders, it could use Belt and Road Initiative. It will complement cash and not replace it.

The participating central banks in developing CDBC have decided to proceed with the drawing up of two proof of concept (POC) steps before the trial. The first phase-1 POC commences in March, 2021.

Across the world, 80 central banks are exploring the creation, development and implementation of their own CBDC. India’s RBI lags behind here. India should join the seven central banks which study the feasibility and safeguards for such currency.

In 2004, Curry and Winer, MTV VJs, develop a plan and software to download online radio broadcasts directly to iPod. Hammersley, a journalist, pens an article about online radio which has flourished thanks to iPods and software. He coins the term podcast, a combination of iPod and broadcast. Thus in 2004, Libsyn the first podcast service producer is launched. In 2005, the word podcast enters New Oxford American Dictionary. Bush, the then President, delivers his weekly address via podcast. Apple introduces podcasts in iTunes and builds a podcast directory.

Steeve Jobs educates the audience how a podcast can be created by using Apple’s free software in 2006. The American Life, a radio programme launches its podcast version. Queen Elizabeth II’s Christmas speech is available as podcast.

In 2007, Ricky Gervais actor and comedian puts a popular podcast. Between 2009-14 most Americans have heard of podcasting. Later, podcasting plateaus. In 2012, Apple pre-instals podcast app on iPhones. It is a major milestone.

In 2014, Serial, a crime show becomes the most downloaded show. Obama is the second US president to be on a podcast.

2019. This is the beginning of big podcasting era. There are 165 million people who have listened to a podcast. Spotify acquires podcast studio, platform and production company. It buys in 2020, digital sports and culture publication. Podcasting app Stitcher was bought by Sirius XM. Joe Rogan, a podcast star was signed on by Spotify.

More than $ 1.1 billion is the podcasting revenue, and is likely to touch $ 3.3 billion by 2025. There are 1 million plus active podcasts, and 30 million podcast episodes. Podcasts are available in 100 plus languages. Podcast audience is likely to touch 176 million by 2023.

The US House anti-trust sub-committee made a report on Big Tech firms. This report covered Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. The collective market value of these firms is $ 5 trillion plus. It is found there is abuse of power to cut off competition and perpetuate their dominance. The suggestion is to have structural break up of their business. These firms put the economy and democracy at stake.

The details of the anti-competitive practices of each of the Big Tech firms were given. Facebook is reported to be using its data advantage to stifle and identify potential competitors. Its strategy is to acquire, copy or kill the other firms. Google leverages the advantage of its search engine and online advertising to encourage its own offerings and creates an ‘eco-system of interlocking’-monopolies.’ Android is used to create its own apps. Apple leverages its own iOS, and has a monopoly like hold with its App Store. Amazon uses the seller data to offer its own private label brands.

The Committee has recommended structural separation of business lines to bypass dominance. There could be legislation to achieve this. Amazon thus can give up its private label business or spin it off from the company.

There should not be preferential treatment on the dominant platforms. The companies should not use their bargaining power to dictate terms. The suggestions and recommondation could be a good beginning.

After 2018 elections, the House turned over to Democrats. David Cicilline of Rhode Island became chairman. The anti-trust sword is far more likely to drop if the Democrats are in charge. This report is a Democratic effort. The Republicans on the sub-committee have been less enthusiastic.

There are projects such as those of Bank of China and Facebook to issue digital currency. Bank of China aims at internationalising the Yuan and reduce its dependence on global dollar payment system. Facebook proposes to introduce Libra which would be backed by a mixture of major currencies and government debt. This plan has been tweaked and now Facebook proposes to launch several ‘stablecoins’ backed by individual currencies.

The core features the Central Banks and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) expect in digital currency are:

o resilience

o availability at low or no cost

o appropriate standards and clear legal framework

o key role for the private sector.

A team of seven central banks viz. US Federal Reserve, Bank of England, European Central Bank, Swiss National Bank, Bank of Japan, Bank of Canada, and Sveriges Riksbank (Sweden) which will be coordinated by BIS have set out on a digital currency.

A central bank digital currency (CBDC) is the electronic equivalent of cash. It gives the holder a direct claim on the central bank (just like fiat currency). It bypasses commercial banks and offers a higher level of security, as a central bank cannot run out of the currency it issues.

It is a better alternative to private solutions in lieu of cash. The fear is that private currencies, such as Libra and Bitcoin if widely adopted, amounts to losing control. There are issues of money-laundering and terror financing. It may loosen the central bank’s grip.

A CBDC can assume the form of a token on a physical device, say a smart phone or pre-paid card. It is easier to transfer it offline and anonymously.

Alternatively, it can exist in accounts managed by an intermediary, say a bank. This ensures monitoring. It can remunerate it with an interest rate.

In traditional computing, information is stored in bits accepting discrete values of either O or 1. For instance, if storing a particular number requires 32 bits, then 100 numbers will occupy 32 x100 = 3200 bits. In QC, the information is stored in quantum bits (or qubits). A qubit, can represent O and 1 parallely or exist somewhere in between. It enables larger storage and much faster calculation.

QC devices are based on the principles of quantum mechanics. They can solve multiple problems simultaneously and generate varied scenarios in a jiffy. There could be co-ordination between remotely placed computers. The effects could be applied across the geographies.

QC can be used in new drug development which takes on an average 10-15 years. Several permutations and combinations of molecules can be tried. These could be compared. QC can make the entire process faster.

QC can scale up production scheduling and solve problem through quantum based optimisation. It can enhance the efficiency of supply chain, by solving transport optimisation problems through simulation. It can be used in biology for DNA modelling. In finance, for portfolio optimisation and to spot fraudulent transactions. It can be used in weather forecasting.

QC can evolve to be more energy efficient.

Indian IT industry is classified by Nasscom as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). In the 80s and 90s, the clients bought software from the IT companies, hosted on local servers on the premises of the client. Internet arrived on the the scene. Later, cloud computing appeared. The dynamics of the industry changed. Companies could run a single version of their software across the remotely placed servers of multiple clients. Individual client servers were a story of the past. It reduced costs of both developing and maintaining software as well as hardware.

The industry was selling the license. Saleforce, a US company, started renting out its software for usage. Thus what was once a capital expenditure became an operating cost. Business was at liberty to try new types of software.

It led to standardisation of APIS — the interface of different pieces of software. Low end work was automated, e. g. maintenance of process like error fixing, traffic management, customer support, security support. AI and ML came in handy to do this. Cloud service providers such as Amazon replaced IT service players who managed IT infra on premise. SaaS companies can now focus on software development without worrying about the hardware.

In the first wave, IT companies served small and medium businesses of the US. India genericised the existing higher priced products. It leveraged its cost advantages. Off-shore work was encouraged. In the second wave, SaaS startups served corporates or enterprises. They did consulting too. They also covered mobile phones and AI.

Though new companies benefited in the second wave because of innovations, existing big companies founded before 1984 too were not lagging behind.

Recently companies have built products and are offered as a part of overall services package to the client. These product business could be separated from the services parent. Infosys acquired Edgeverve in 2014. It merged its banking software Finacle into its business. Polaris sold its old services business and focused on core banking solution Intellect Design. Mastek separated its Majesto — insurance SaaS business. The old licensing model continued but it has recently started to change.

There is new SaaS 2.0 model. In a company, now departments such as marketing and finance can buy software as needed without the approval of Chief Information Officer (CIO). For instance, marketing department can buy a media planning or campaign automation tool. It is a bottom-up new wave. There is increased adoption of open source software. There are Indian SaaS 2.0 startups such as Postman, Julia Computing and Hasura.

There are no laws that prohibit cryptocurrencies in India. They operate in a regulatory vaccum . It is not illegal to deal in digital currencies. You can buy them and sell them. However, cryptos are not legal tender. Even then no where in the law of contract, a consideration has to be in fiat money.

Just now, these currencies are on the fringes of digital payment space. Cryptos transactions are difficult to trace. If anonymity is stripped off the cryptos, they do not have other significant advantages.

Despite no backing of the government, cryptos have value in effecting certain transactions. These could be a store of value too. But they are not good as exchange and storage. Crypto investments serve as a hedge against poor economic growth. Whether cryptos will be common as currency, it is difficult to answer. Governments will always prevail when it comes to controlling the medium of exchange. Central banks can think of having its own cryptos. However, there is no possibility of replacement of regullar currency and bank accounts. There are payment apps. A payment wallet is used. The money is converted into cryptos. The receiver receives cash. Blockchain brings down the cost of transaction.

There are new sign ups at crypto exchanges. Many are just speculators. It is an alternative asset class like gold and silver. There are 20 exchanges in India that accept trades across all major cryptos. Banning cryptos may damage local economies in the long run. Cryptos and fiat currency can co-exist. Cryptos can be treated more as a store of value.

Cryptos technically are just a code with numbers and hash. It is a code that is equal for all. If codes have no value, then Uber and Google are junk too.

Cryptos are not the only option. There are blockchains or demat currency or database currency options. Cryptos follow no monetary policy. Facebook talks of pegging the cryptos to a basket of currencies. Here the issuer will try to manage the value of the basket by buying-selling.

Japan legalised Bitcoin and other cryptos in 2017. USA, Japan, South Korea, UK, Russia and China lead the global crypto market.

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