Building networks for an immersive experience

The success of immersive experiences like the metaverse depends on the foundation of reliable, agile, and adaptable telecom networks

Immersive work platforms like the metaverse are no longer just the latest fad. A recent Deloitte report says that the potential impact of virtual reality-based technology in India is likely to be between $79 billion and $148 billion annually by 2035. The report further says that the metaverse may contribute as much as 1.3% to 2.4% of the country’s total Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Likewise, a recent study commissioned by Ciena to understand business professionals’ sentiments about new collaboration applications like the metaverse in the workplace indicates that 92% of the respondents from India were eager to engage in more immersive experiences for meetings. The global study, which surveyed 15,000 business professionals, also revealed that 51% of respondents from India felt that virtual meetings were more convenient, while 44% believed virtual meetings are more efficient and offer fewer opportunities for chatter and other distractions. All this bodes well for the future of immersive experiences in the country.

Several global telcos have already started making headway in the metaverse space. For instance, South Korean service provider SK Telecom recently announced that its metaverse platform ifland, launched in 2021, is now available in 49 countries and claims to have 12.8 million users. In 2022, AT&T announced a collaboration with Quintar, a sports entertainment Augmented Reality company, to develop an AR experience for sports fans.

Applications being developed for an immersive world offer the business world a refreshing improvement compared to existing solutions.

This enthusiasm for immersive experiences might have been driven by the pandemic, which played a crucial role in the widespread adoption of remote working and hybrid modes of working. Realising the vast productivity and efficiency gains possible by using teleconferencing and unified communications technologies, people once averse to remote meetings are now more open to these immersive tools.

Working virtually in 3D

Applications being developed for an immersive world offer the business world a refreshing improvement compared to existing solutions. It comes down to immersion and the ability to move beyond 2D interactions into an interactive environment. This is something like the merging of in-person interaction and teleconferencing to become something in between and something simply more interesting.

When it comes to selecting their avatar for the virtual world, 26% of Indian respondents said that they would take on a different image depending on the purpose or the setting of the meeting. Further, 28% of Indian respondents said that they would like to adopt an avatar image similar to their real-world image. The metaverse offers vast possibilities on how people can interact with others and how they present themselves.

Preparing the Network

The success of immersive experiences like the metaverse depends on the foundation of reliable, agile, and adaptable networks. It is crucial to ensure that bandwidth is consistent and networks can handle a massive amount of traffic while ensuring extremely low latency.

This is also reflected in the study; nearly 50% of Indian survey respondents say that the lack of reliable networks could be preventing workplaces from moving towards virtual reality-based collaboration. Indian respondents also believe it will be at least two years before they move away from the traditional collaboration environment to a more immersive experience.

Anticipating the needs of an immersive future, Indian telcos are working on improving network reliability and making them agile, programmable and scalable.

The concern is well founded, particularly when you consider that with work-from-home (WFH) flexibility now part and parcel of any workplace, residential networks and 5G are expected to handle a lot of the heavy bandwidth lifting. If they cannot, these immersive experiences could become a glitchy hassle that businesses discard as a cute toy that wasn’t robust enough for mission-critical use.

More than ever, businesses will need to adopt multi-access edge computing (MEC) to facilitate the implementation of the metaverse. MEC is the practice of moving data processing to the edge of a network. This means putting the resources closer to where they are needed, such as employees working away from the office and in non-metropolitan suburbs, and moving computing and storage functions closer to metaverse participants, leading to better performance and lower latency.

Telcos enable the demands of the future

Immersive experiences like the metaverse are a massive opportunity for network providers and many are already investing to ensure they can provide the capacity to run immersive applications at scale. Network providers are upgrading their legacy networks and building end-to-end network capabilities to ensure improvements in speed, latency and bandwidth.

Network providers are using automation and Artificial Intelligence, analytics, and programmable software capabilities to make their networks more adaptable. An adaptable virtual programmable network is not only able to identify a fault but also self-heal without requiring physical repair. It can utilise available resources, compute, storage and bandwidth from other parts of the network and then automatically revert when needed.

With the growing popularity and adoption of remote working, it is no surprise that users want a seamless, well-connected experience regardless of where they log in from. Anticipating the needs of an immersive future, Indian telcos have started working on improving network reliability and making them agile, programmable and scalable. All this means that we will soon be able to interact and conduct meetings in our Avatar form!

By Jurgen Hatheier

Hatheier is the CTO for EMEA and APAC regions and VP of Strategic Sales at Ciena International

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