What 2019 Holds in Store for Telecoms Companies

South-Africa’s tech industry has been very exciting and interesting in 2018 with many ups and downs. Bitcoin prices skyrocketed and plummeted; testing started on self-driving cars. There were tremendous advancement and growth in artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual assistants like Google Assistant and Alexa become more prevalent among consumers.

This year will not prove disappointing either. It already promises several trends and changes in technology that consumers and companies will enjoy. It will also bring many new changes that both markets will have to stay abreast of.

The impact that AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP) services will have in the coming year could be revolutionary. With technologies like Siri and Alexa becoming more powerful it wouldn’t be a surprise to see similar technologies receive more usage in call centres and similar spaces.

The Telecoms sector was one of the worst business sectors when it came to handling cyber-attacks in 2018. Because they hold so much confidential customer data, telecom companies are a very big and attractive target. This will not change in 2019 and Telecom companies will have to be on top of their security game this coming year.

Perhaps the most exciting change coming to the telecoms industry is 5g. 5g is the next step up from 4g and as the name suggests the fifth generation of mobile cellular communications. 5g will be crazy fast, reaching speeds of up to several gigabits per second. This means you’ll be able to download a 4k film in under a minute. Users can also expect to experience longer battery life from their cell phones as less time will be used when downloading data.

While 2018 was an interesting ride, 2019 looks like it will be a fun and informative experience as well. All the new tech emergences from 2018 hint at the fact that people want information faster and easier.